The morning after the toilet flood was… unsettlingly calm.
I walked into work expecting something—anything—to be broken, leaking, or combusting. But the floors were dry. The air smelled like lemon cleaner instead of smoke or despair. And no one was screaming about oatmeal or electrocuted bagels.
I found Trevor and Jude near the nurse's station. Trevor was looking around like the walls might start whispering.
"I feel like the building's holding its breath," he said, eyes darting toward a perfectly functioning vending machine. "Like it's about to sneeze."
Jude sipped his coffee and grunted. "Enjoy it. False peace is still peace."
Kip, however, had clearly decided to manufacture his own chaos. He'd set up a folding table in the hallway with a hand-lettered sign that read:
**"KIP-OSIUM: Scent Solutions for Sanity."**
I blinked. "Please tell me that's not a diffuser."
"Oh, it's not just a diffuser," Kip said, appearing from under the table like a groundhog who smelled of sandalwood and misplaced ambition. "It's the future of hospital wellness. These are my hallway scent prototypes. Each designed to trigger micro-serotonin events with every inhale."
"What do they do?" I asked, already regretting it.
Kip pointed proudly. "This one is 'Assertive Eucalyptus.' That one's 'Confidence Musk.' And this one is a new one I call… 'Everett.'"
My blood froze.
"You named a scent after Everett?"
"Yes," Kip said proudly. "It's stoic, smoky, and a little sad. Smells like… mystery and disinfectant."
Trevor walked up behind me and whispered, "That might actually be accurate."
---
I spent most of the morning helping Marcus rotate patients and update vitals. He kept giving me odd looks, like he was trying to decode something behind my eyes.
"You seem quieter," he finally said.
"I'm tired," I replied. "Been a long week."
"That or you're absorbing Everett's silence like osmosis."
"Maybe I'm just listening more," I said.
He nodded slowly. "That'll make you dangerous someday."
I didn't know what that meant. But it stuck.
---
By early afternoon, I found Everett in the back hallway. He was rewrapping a gauze roll like it had offended him personally.
"You still thinking about the message?" I asked.
He nodded.
"You know," I said, "Kip made a scent called 'Everett.'"
He blinked at me. "That's either terrifying or prophetic."
"I smelled it," I added. "It was weirdly comforting. Like cinnamon trauma."
Everett smirked. "That's not far off."
There was a pause. Then, quieter, he added, "You were right, by the way. Last night in the chapel."
"About what?"
"That I don't have to carry it alone." He looked at me. "But you should know… it wasn't just the young man who never made it out. A little girl flatlined on my watch, last patient I ever cared for. It wasn't just one ghost. I carry them all. One mop swipe at a time."
I nodded. "Then let's make sure they rest well."
---
Later, I passed by Kip's table again. He was now offering "free scent therapy demos" to confused patients and mildly allergic nurses.
"Would you like to experience 'Midnight Bandage'?" he asked one elderly man in a walker.
"No," the man said, wheeling away faster than I thought physically possible.
Jude wandered by, stopped, looked at the table, then looked at me. "I swear to God, if he starts bottling the smell of isopropyl and regret, I'm calling OSHA."
Trevor emerged from a patient room carrying a bucket of soapy water and shouted, "KIP! YOU LEFT A DIFFUSER ON IN THE BATHROOM AND IT SMELLS LIKE FEET!"
"It's supposed to open your pores!" Kip yelled back.
"It opened my sinuses and gave them PTSD!" Trevor shouted.
---
That evening, right before my shift ended, I went back to the chapel.
Everett was there again. This time, he wasn't alone. Jude was sitting beside him, hands folded, listening quietly.
I didn't interrupt. I just sat in the back row and watched.
Everett's voice was low, but I caught fragments.
"…she had a pink hairclip…"
"…I told her she'd be okay…"
"…when the monitor flatlined, I didn't feel fear. I felt… failure."
Jude put a hand on his shoulder. Didn't say anything. Just sat there.
Sometimes, that's the loudest kind of love.
---
As I left that night, I passed Trevor in the break room. He was sketching again.
"What now?" I asked.
He flipped the page around to show me. It was Everett, standing in front of a broken toaster with a mop over his shoulder and a halo of smoke behind him like a saint in a janitor's uniform.
"I call it," Trevor said, "'Our Lady of Holy Maintenance.'"
I laughed harder than I had in days.
He smiled. "We've all got our ghosts, huh?"
"Yeah," I said. "But at least we've got good company."
He added one last touch to the drawing: a tiny flaming bagel in the corner, floating like a fallen angel.
"Not all fires are bad," he said, echoing Everett's line.
And maybe he was right.
Because in this place—between the scent diffusers and the mop buckets, the quiet chapels and the burnt toast—somehow, we'd made room for healing.
Even if we did it one mess at a time.