by Victor Allen
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They were the Yin and Yang of the hospital, polar opposites, but eternally -maybe tragically- bound to each other. Even the dimmest, low level employee at the hospital could see it. Whenever possible (which was rarely), they ate and took their breaks together. They became well known and well-liked. True to his own characterization, Richard was not a people person, but he became highly thought of for his expertise. It wasn’t uncommon for hospital staff to spy Richard outside of the lab in one of his trademark, gimcrack scrub tops, patiently coaching the eager, if still green and befuddled, phlebotomists.
“Heparin,” he would say, tongue firmly lodged in the permanent groove in his cheek. “Hep-par-in. The green top tube. That goes to Chemistry. EDTA. Ethylene-Deathylene-Tetra-Acetic Acid. Purple top tube. That goes to Hematology. Those big, honking culture bottles, they go to Micro. And if you’ve got any tubes of that yellow stuff that go to urinalysis, what you drew from was not a vein.”
Elizabeth was different. She was, in the best sense, a nurse, providing comfort and hope to those who had lost both. Terminal patients, bereaved relatives, those contorted into living, modern art sculptures from blinding pain. Their pain became hers and, when medical science had fired the last flare in its magazine and darkness overtook all, she had the uncanny knack of making a patient’s last extremity tolerable. It was a stone she bore without complaint.
Everyone around them thought they knew how it would come out, and they simply waited for the day that Elizabeth completed her RN course work.
Just a little over two years later, that day came in late October. Elizabeth completed her final rotation of clinicals for her RN degree and, with a little string pulling, the Grim Reaperess had wrangled her a part-time teaching position at the college. Elizabeth would be taking her certification exam shortly, but that was just a formality.
But there would be no smoky bars or loud music this time. Richard had rented a cabin for the weekend. The only skunk at the garden party was a last second change in scheduling. An early flu bug was making the circuit and Richard had been re-scheduled for a rotation at the prenatal clinic across the road from the hospital proper. The engagement ring so carefully wrapped and waiting in his apartment would have to hold on one more day as he sent Elizabeth on to the cabin on Thursday morning.
She called him late Thursday afternoon to let him know she had arrived safely.
“When will you be here,” she asked.
“My shift’s seven to three, but I’ll try to get out of there by twelve. Even the pregnant ladies don’t want to be hanging around a clinic all day.”
“I wish you weren’t still riding that deathtrap,” Elizabeth said. “It gives me the willies.”
“I’ll be careful,” Richard assured her. “Death itself couldn’t keep me away.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”
“You’re right. Sorry. Love you much, Beth.”
“Love you, too.”
Elizabeth never saw him alive again.