The Life I Left Behind

by LThornhill Crane

  Chapter 15

  It’s nine pm when I wake again. Doyle is already dressed. He tells me to get a shower and he’s laid out my clothes for me.

  I grumble as I step into the shower. What can I do? Pitch a fit and he’ll zap me again. I could be in a coma all night.

  I decide to dress. Perhaps I can get away from him at the hospital.

  I mean, he can’t watch me every minute can he?

  He chit-chats with me in the car like we’re any married couple in love. Like he’s not a vampire trying to feed off me and I’m not having it. I cross my arms over my chest and ignore him as I stare out the window.

  Doyle shows me to my office. It’s a glorified broom cabinet with my name on the door. Inside is a desk with a rather old looking computer on top, some cabinets, some fake plants and an extra chair. Just in case I have a guest. I suppose.

  “Others have been covering your case load since you’ve been out of commission. You are the only social worker who works third shift so you will be all over the hospital.”

  I look at Doyle and hiss. “I don’t know what to do!”

  “Of course you do. Just help people.” He hands me a stack of file folders. “Start with these. Just do what comes naturally.”

  “Sure. Fine.” I tell him. The minute he leaves I’m gone.

  “Just to be sure you can find your way around here.” He shoves a blonde nurse at me. She looks like a living Barbie Doll. “This is Candi. She’ll be helping you tonight.”

  I look up at what seems to be a Barbie doll in a nurse’s outfit. One of those old timey kind – the all-white dress- complete with the little hat. I’ve seen them, but didn’t think anyone wore them anymore. This one has a skirt that comes far above the knees. She’s wearing bright red heels and bright red lipstick and looks more like a stripper than a nurse.

  Blondie looks up at me and smiles a fake smile. I can tell that being with me is the last thing she wants to do. She has the same color eyes as Doyle.

  “Candi.” I repeat. AKA your watchdog. “It’s so very nice to meet you.”

  She sneers in reply.

  I hear him mutter “Watch her.” Under his breath as he leaves.

  She gives him a lustful look as he walks away and I feel my scalp prickle. I don’t know why I’m suddenly jealous. I mean… we’re not even married… not to mention he’s not…Human… But nonetheless I feel the green eyed monster spring up within me.

  He may not be Human but he’s mine… I find myself thinking fiercely as I shoot her a look that implies murder.

  I’m completely off my nut.

  But she looks away first.

  Good.

  “Well. Candi. What do we do first?” I say brightly. She shrugs. Not much help here. I decide to look through the files Doyle handed me.

  “Nick and Caroline McGee” I read. “NICU”. I look up at her. “What does that mean?”

  “Neonatal intensive care.” She pops her gum loudly and shrugs. “Sick baby. Or a preemie.”

  “Lead the way.” I tell her and follow her around uncomprehendingly. We go down in an elevator, down hallways, around corners. I’m pretty sure we’ll meet ourselves and I keep waiting to do that. We never do though.

  She clicks ahead of me in those heels. I wonder how she walks in them. Finally I ask her. She gives me an annoyed look. “I’m Dr. Rickenbaugh’s personal assistant.” She puts emphasis on the word personal and she looks down her nose at me like she just announced she’s the queen of England. “That means I have a nice, big office and I don’t have to traipse around all over this hospital. When I’m not babysitting, that is!” She storms ahead of me, red heels clicking on the tile. I breathe in a calming breath. Okay, point taken. I tell her in my mind. You’re not thrilled about this arrangement. Well neither am I Blondie!

  She points at the entrance. “NICU. I don’t go in there.” She tells me disgustedly. “I don’t do little kids.”

  A nurse holds the door open for me but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge me. Why is it that everyone seems to act as if I’m not here? I mean, I have amnesia, but it seems that if I work here then someone should at least say hello. I give her a friendly nod and a huge smile but she walks by me as if I’m invisible. I shake my head and don’t know if she recognizes me or not but the first thing I see is a washing station. I wash up following the guidelines on the poster then head to the nurses’ station.

  When not one of them can be bothered to direct me I find the name on a clipboard, with the pod number.

  “Pod one.” I tell myself.

  I don’t even know what a pod is but I find out that they’re like little rooms with tiny beds all around.

  One lady sits at the end by herself in a rocking chair looking into a incubator with a tiny baby inside.

  “Mrs. McGee.” I say softly and when she looks up at me I introduce myself. She nods like she’s had too many nurses and staff come and go and I’m just another name. Her eyes are red rimmed and she looks tired beyond words.

  “Do you have a place at the Ronald McDonald House?” I ask her- I don’t even know why I ask her that but it ‘feels’ like the right thing to say and she nods.

  “My husband had to go back to work. I’m here alone.” She says.

  I feel for her. I tell her I’ll sit with her for a while if she wants company. I really have no idea what to do for her. I tell her the doctors are really good here. I was a patient myself a couple weeks ago. We chit chat about the baby and her family to pass the time; I don’t know what else to do. She has two others at home and this one was born early. She’s torn between the two at home with their grandparents and this one. I tell her it’s okay to miss the other two but this one needs her and she shouldn’t feel guilty. I urge her to go back to her room. I tell her this will be the safest the baby could possibly be. He’s surrounded by doctors and nurses. She can go back and get a little sleep and not feel like she’s deserting him. Finally she agrees to go rest after the next feeding. I smile and pat her hand and ask if there’s anything else I can do for her tonight. She tells me no and thanks me.

  Okay. Maybe I was helpful a little. At least I got the poor lady to go and get a couple hours of sleep.

  Next is Genevive Abernathy. Wow what a name. Room 425. I motion for Candi to show me the way. Which she does with an exceptional amount of sighing and rolling of eyes.

  We stop short of the door. “Old lady.” She snaps before we even enter and shakes herself disgustedly- as if she was contaminated by just being here. “I don’t do old people.”

  Okay. You don’t do kids, you don’t do old people. My eyes narrow. This is the worst nurse I’ve ever seen.

  “Who do you do?” I ask her.

  “Rich. Good looking. Men!” She barks at me and leaves me for a nurses station where there is a handsome young nurse checking his paperwork.

  I shrug and walk inside because I hear the television blaring.

  “You’re new.” The woman says as soon as I walk in. “Ain’t seen you here before.” She grins at me through toothless gums. Her face is weathered and she is very thin.

  “First night.” I tell her as I introduce myself. She tells me to turn the TV down and “sit a spell”.

  “Most ever’body calls me granny.” She tells me. I don’t feel comfortable with that but she insists each time I call her Mrs. Abernathy. Finally I succumb to her pleas and call her Granny. She asks me if I could find the ‘preachin’ channel’ on the television. I tell her I’ll try and we flip channels until something comes on that she recognizes and she nods for me to stop.

  I don’t know the preacher, but he’s soft spoken, not one of those hell and brimstone kind. I sit with her a few minutes until he finishes the sermon.

  “Ye a believer?” She asks me and I don’t exactly know how to answer that. I tell her I�
��m undecided.

  “I went to church when I was little.” I tell her.

  “Train up a child in the way they should go and when they’re old they will not depart from it.” She quotes. I clap my hands and tell her the only verse I know by heart is John 3:16.

  “Can you get me that Bible?” She asks me. I open her nightstand and pull a well-worn leather bound bible from the drawer.

  “I like First John. Can ye read it?” She says. I shrug and flip the book open. To my surprise I know how to find First John without looking in the table of contents. It’s in the new testament- further evidence that I went to church before, and I knew my way around the Bible at one time in my life.

  “What would you like me to read to you?” I ask her.

  “The whole book. It’s purty short. Ye don’t mind do ye?”

  What else do I have to do? Hang out with Candi the world’s worst nurse? I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing on this job. At least I can read. There’s not much way I can mess this up. I tell her I’d be delighted.

  We read the whole of first John. Granny Abernathy loves the part where it says “What manner of love is this? That we should be called children of God, and that is what we are!” I’m pretty sure if she could get up out of that bed she would.

  She grips my hand. “Think. Poor ol’ Granny. Born in a sharecropper’s cabin. Didn’t have two dimes to rub together most my life. A child of God! And when I see Him, I’ll be able to run to Him. To God. The creator of the universe. I’ll run to him and he’ll hold his arms open to me just like I used to run to my daddy when he got home from workin’ the fields.”

  I smile at her faith; she seems so sure, so at peace with what is going to happen when she passes on. I wonder what will happen to me. Doyle said when you die, you’re gone. But there’s this something- deep in my heart that bugs me and tells me it’s not true. I’m more than just bone and tissue and blood that will disintegrate and become nothing when I die. I have a soul. I can feel it pressing down inside me. What will become of me when I die - especially if I become a host? Doyle had pretty much said he hated God. Not in so many words, but I got the point. Josue had said Doyle was a devil, and what if helping Doyle meant cutting myself off from God? Sure, Doyle has promised that I will live a long time but what’s to stop another car from hitting me? It happened once. Fact was, if this whole story Doyle had fed me was true- and he could give me good health and a long life – still all the other hosts were dead and I would be one day too.

  Maybe I needed to consider that.

  “Read me some more. Don’t matter what.”

  I remember the verses Josue scribbled on the slip of paper. I had tucked them in my wallet and had never had the courage to look them up for fear Doyle would find my granny’s bible and destroy it as he promised. I open my briefcase and pull out the now crumpled piece of paper. “As a matter of fact; a friend gave me some verses to look up. Do you mind?”

  “Go ahead.” She waves her hand at me.

  The first is Hebrews 9: 27. It gives me chills when I read it.

  “For it is appointed for man once to die but after that the judgment.”

  The next is Luke 9:25. “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?”

  I look over at Granny. It felt like someone took my heart and stomped it flat. How could Josue know what I was thinking just now? How could he know the thoughts that were going through my head?

  She shakes her head and chuckles. “Sounds like your friend is concerned with your soul.”

  “Yeah. I guess.” I say unsteadily. Maybe he should be.

  I turn to the next one. John 1: 1-5. I read it aloud for Granny. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

  I breathe out unsteadily. “Okay.” I tell her “That wasn’t too bad.”

  “What’s the next one?” She asks me and I look on the paper. “John 3:17.” I smile. “Hey, I know John 3:16. I didn’t even know there was a 17!”

  She laughs at me and gives me time to look it up but I don’t have to read it. “John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. John 3;17- For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but through His Son the world might be saved.”

  She points a gnarled finger at me. “That second one is just as beautiful as the first, but most people couldn’t even tell you what it is.” She shakes her head. “I had five children.”

  “Really? Five?” I ask pleasantly though I wonder why she went off on this tangent.

  “Two of em boys. But I don’t think I’d give one of my sons- or daughters for that case- to save someone else.” She shakes her head. “God is a good God. He loves us more than we know to send his only son to save the world.”

  I feel tears sting my eyes, though I am not sure why. I know Josue was trying to tell me that God loves me. I know deep in my heart that I should do what he says and leave Doyle.

  But what then? I don’t have anything else. At least with Doyle I have a home, money, each other. What if I leave him and I have… nothing?

  “Last one.” I breathe. “Matthew 4:10 “And Jesus said “Away with you Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.”

  Granny lays her head back in the hospital bed. “Whew. Sounds like ya got some hard decisions to make Mizz. Andrea. I’m all wore out. I believe I’m going to take a nap now, but I’ll pray for ye, Mizz. Andrea. I’ll pray. I cain’t do much from this ol’ bed but I sure can pray.” She squeezes my hand before I leave and tells me to leave the TV on the preachin’ channel. I nod and turn the volume up enough that she can hear. Before I leave she’s asleep.

  Candi the world’s worst nurse is waiting to pounce on me outside.

  “You’ve been in there like… an hour!” She hisses. “Your husband has called my phone twice! Why don’t you turn yours on?”

  I reach in my pocket and press the on button. “Sure.” I tell her. It just didn’t seem professional to have my phone going.

  “I saw you in there.” She says as if she knows a secret no one else knows. “Reading the Bible to her.”

  “She asked me to.” I say innocently. “I was just doing my job.”

  “You know your husband will be angry if he knows!”

  “Ah, well.” He’s not my husband anyway. I think to myself and smile sweetly. “Who’s going to tell?” I ask her. She turns to me, without batting an eyelash says:

  “I will of course. He has a right to know you’ve betrayed him.” She tells me. “No one can serve two masters.”

  Is that what he is? Or wants to be? My master?

  “So are you like Doyle?” I ask her.

  She walks ahead of me. “What? A doctor?

  There is no way she can be this dumb. “No.” I start “A va--” Then I catch myself. “Never mind.”

  “No.” She says. “Women are hosts.”

  “So you’re a host?” I ask nonchalantly but I scurry to catch up with her long legs and six inch heels. “What’s that like?”

  She turns quickly and eyes me from head to foot. “Do you know how old I am?” She demands and then poses like a runway model. I’m afraid to reply.

  “Twenty…” I drag the word out. I know she has to be older than she looks but if I guess a high number I’m pretty sure she’ll flip out. “four?” I guess.

  She gives me a look that could curdle milk. “I’m over sixty Human years.” She says. “Becoming his host
was the best decision of my life. I’m beautiful, we’re rich and the sex is out of this world.”

  “Wow.” I observe. That last part was a little more information than I needed thank you very much. “Sounds like you got it all.” She rolls her eyes as if to acknowledge that fact.

  But then I throw a monkey wrench in her whole argument.

  “So why are you so unhappy?”

  She grits her teeth and storms away in a huff of blonde hair and red clicking high heels.

  I find my way to the ER with a smirk on my face. She’s beat me there. I don’t know how in those heels but she’s with Doyle and she’s not happy. She points disgustedly in my direction and stalks away.

  He glares at me as he approaches.

  “What did you do to make her so angry?” He demands.

  “Didn’t take much.” I observe. “She doesn’t seem to be a very pleasant person to begin with.”

  “She said you were with a patient. Reading the Bible. For over an hour.” He growls. “You know how I feel about religion.”

  I shrug. “The lady asked me to. What was I supposed to say? Anyway, you told me to do what came naturally.”

  He chews his lip and I know he wants to pursue the matter but drops it. “We’ll talk about this later.” He promises. God, I pray silently. If you’re there like Josue says you are. You’ve got to get me away from this… whatever he is.

  “So how’s life in the ER?” I change the subject. “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

  “Only two shootings and a drunk driving accident.” He tells me. “And a domestic dispute. That’s why I called you.” He pulls me by my arm through the ER. “There’s someone I need you to talk to. We’ve already had one person in here with her. She didn’t respond to him, so I thought I’d call you.” He says and points to a room with a closed door. “Work your magic.”

  “What?” I ask and he lowers his voice.

  “Barbara Raft. Third time she’s been here in two months. I need you to convince her to leave her husband.”

  How am I supposed to do that? I ask him. He shrugs. “You’re the one with the degree in counseling. You tell me.”

  Yeah, right. A degree I can’t remember.

  “Just do what you do. This one’s easy. What do you say ‘a no brainer?” He smiles at me. “So easy a Human with amnesia could do it? See if you can’t convince her that she should get out of this relationship. He’s beating her.”

  I enter a darkened room. A woman is sitting on the bed in a hospital gown. One eye is swelled shut. There is a gash on her face that has been stitched and covered with a bandage.

  I sit beside her. She takes no notice of me.

  “I’m Andrea.” I tell her. “I work here. My husband is an ER doctor here. Dr. Connelly.”

  “Good looking blonde.” The woman says through busted lips. “Lucky you.”

  Yeah, if you only knew chick. I think to myself.

  “He said you’d been here three times in two months.”

  “I trip a lot.” She says. “I’m clumsy.”

  “So am I.” I confess. “But not enough to be in the ER three times in a month. So, who is it? Your boyfriend, husband, significant other?”

  She twists a wedding ring and I breathe out. “Husband…” I say. “You know that’s not love.”

  She ignores me.

  “Love is…” God, I pray. Help me here, please. I search for the word but then it comes to me almost as if by magic - or miracle. “Patient.” I tell her. It seems like I know this. It’s a poem or something. It flits on the edge of my memory. I reach deep within myself. “Love is…kind.”

  “He just gets jealous. He saw me talking to a man at the market.” She tries to convince me but the words keep coming.

  “Love is… not envious… or boastful…or conceited.”

  I look over at Mrs. Raft. She stares straight ahead. “He doesn’t mean to do it. I do things… make him so angry.”

  “Love does not act improperly…. It is not selfish, is not provoked…. Love does not keep a record of wrongs…” She says nothing, but tears stream down her face. I decide to try to finish.

  I blow out an unsteady breath. I don’t know the words. I don’t know the rest, but I open my mouth and these words come out, seemingly of their own accord.

  “Love finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth.”

  She’s crying now. I have no idea what to do. I continue- though I don’t mean to. The words just come- like a song you can’t get out of your head.

  “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

  I am breathless. I don’t know where the words came from.

  “Love never fails.” I finish unsteadily.

  She looks over at me. “How’d you know?” She says through her tears. “How’d you know that was in my head? My Granny taught me that scripture. It’s been going around and around in my head…”

  I’m as surprised as she that it is a scripture. I thought it was a poem or a song.

  Then she breaks down and cries like she’s never cried before. I get her some tissue and do my best to console her.

  “I know it isn’t love. But he’s my husband.”

  “Being your husband doesn’t give him the right hurt you. Or do things against your will.” Are you listening to this, Andrea? Josue’s voice echoes in my head. Are you listening to what you’re saying?

  “But what will I do?” She asks me. “I’ll have to leave my home. I have nowhere to go.” She wails. “He’s all I got!”

  “There are people who will help you.” I tell her but I wonder if I’m talking to myself as much as her.

  I think of the card that Josue gave me. “Go here.” I tell her. I don’t know why. “They will help you.”

  She holds the card in shaky fingers and nods to herself.

  “You have to take the first step.” I tell her -and myself.

  After a few minutes more I leave her. She’s called a cab and says she’s going to her mother’s. I sigh uneasily. Perhaps she will make the right choice.

  “Maybe you will too.” That familiar voice says from behind me.

  “Josue!” I say and turn quickly. I don’t see him, but I know he was there. I can’t shake the feeling that he was there the whole time.

  Doyle catches up with me several moments later. “I hear she’s going to her mother’s.” He says with a smile. “That’s better than I was able to do. Perhaps it had to be a woman.” He leans close and kisses me. My body reacts to him, even though I’m still angry with him.

  He senses my trepidation and strokes my hair gently. “We are not what you have been led to believe, darling. Some of our kind are bad. Very bad- and they get all the press. Just as some Humans are bad. But some of us are trying to help the world rather than hurt it.”

  “What kind are you?” I ask breathlessly.

  He smiles. “Would I help people here if I only wanted to hurt them? Would I do this every night if I didn’t want to do good?” He looks around and shrugs his shoulders in a gesture of defeat. “Perhaps… at the end… if my good outweighs the evil I’ve done… there will be hope for me.”

  I nod. I didn’t know who to believe. Josue who said Doyle was a devil and promised me that God still loved me. Doyle who says he’s fallen but not all that bad. Do I leave everything and follow a janitor or do I stay with Doyle who has promised me long life and to meet every need?

  It seems like there are two of me- each pulling in opposite directions.

  “One more stop before we leave.” He promises. I didn’t notice, but it’s almost six. “This may be difficult for you, but I want you to talk to them. I don’t think anyone else could.”

  “Who’s that?�
� I ask.

  “Mr. Smith. His wife was beside you in the ICU. She’s not doing well.”

  I stop dead in my tracks. The man I heard crying! I still have dreams about him! I don’t know if I want to go in there.

  “He stays each night.” Doyle leads me by my elbow. “He will leave for work soon; I just wanted you to speak to him first.”

  “Why?” I hiss through my teeth.

  “To establish a relationship with them. You’ve been where she is. See if you can help them make the next decision.”

  Doyle goes with me and we enter into a room. A heavy set man is sleeping in a chair beside a woman in a bed. I don’t turn on any lights. Doyle touches the man on the shoulder and introduces us. The man doesn’t take his eyes off the woman in the bed.

  Doyle pulls a chair to him and motions for me to sit.

  “I was there.” I point at the bed. “A couple weeks ago. In a coma. In the cubicle next to your wife.”

  “Hit by a car.” He mumbles. “I heard about you. Looks like you’re better.”

  “Um… yes… better.” If you call losing your memory and being married to the undead better. Then yes, I’m better.

  “Can she hear me? I mean, could you hear when you were uh—?”

  “Yes. I think she probably can hear you. I mean—” I cut my eyes at Doyle. I don’t know how to talk to this man. “Sir—I could hear you. You were praying for her.”

  He smiles but tears roll down his cheeks. “You could?”

  I want to cry. I want to wrap my arms around this man and give him a huge hug. He seems so familiar. I know it’s only because I could hear him in my cubicle, but I wish I could do something to help him.

  “I could hear everything. Doctors, nurses, you, my—” do I call him my husband? “My husband. I could hear everything. I thought I was just dreaming.”

  “So she’s just dreaming?” He asks unsurely. “She’s not—you weren’t—in any pain?”

  “No. I just wanted the nurses to leave me alone so I could sleep.”

  He seems to be satisfied with that explanation. “Do you think she likes us talking to her?”

  “I’m sure she does. You should say encouraging things to her, play her favorite music. I think she’d like that. Keep praying for her, read from her favorite books.” I cut my eyes at Doyle who is staring at me like he could rip my head off. “Whatever brought her comfort in her past life.”

  “Thank you Miss.” He tells me. Doyle touches his shoulder again and tells him we have to leave. The man lays his head back warily and seems to be asleep again.

  We make our way quietly out of the darkened room.

  “Why did you tell him that?” Doyle pounces on me when we are out of earshot. “To pray for her? Why did you give that man false hope?”

  “I didn’t give him false hope.” I say and lift my chin defiantly. “There is always hope.”

  “She’s got an infection and she’s not getting better. If things don’t change that family is going to have to make some very difficult decisions in the next few days.” He tells me and storms off. “He can do all the praying he wants. It’s not going to make a difference. People in that kind of shape don’t get better and God’s not going to hear him.” He turns and looks at me with an angry, sad look. “I won’t lie to you to make you feel better. God’s up there, He’s in his Heaven and all is definitely not right with the world but he doesn’t care.”

  I refuse to believe that and he knows it. He stalks away angrily and we do not speak for the rest of the night.