I'll Be Seeing You

  While sitting on the floor, watching her fuss in her sleep, I'm startled when the doorbell rings and I rush to the door knowing it's Jessie. I’m totally surprised to see Laura with him.

  "Hey, thanks for doing this, Jess," I say again, taking the bottle of pills from him to give one to Joy right away.

  "Laura, she said this happens periodically. What’s going on?" I ask, near frantic in desperation for information.

  "She's done this since we were teenagers. About once a year to every six months, she'll get an outrageous fever that knocks her out and puts her in the hospital," she explains. "No one knows why, but when it happens, it's bad."

  "Were tests run? I didn't see anything in her records indicating that Dr. Jenkins had run any," I say, trying to recall anything that might help to figure this out.

  "I don't know; probably. She’s really tired of doctors, I do know that," Laura says, looking down at Joy's still form.

  I take her temperature again, and it hasn't changed. I'll give it another fifteen minutes, and if it hasn't gone down, I'm putting her in a bath.

  Once I'm comfortable that her temperature is stabilizing, I decide to, leave Joy in Laura's care to review her medical files again.

  "Laura, let me know if her temperature goes up, will you?" I ask, watching her stroke Joy's brow. Shaking my head, I’m puzzled at what could possibly be making Joy react this way. I turn to head toward my office.

  "Can I help?" I startle at the sound of Jessie's deep voice, and nod, motioning him to sit across from me.

  "Sure. You can take a look at these," I say, handing him a stack of files. "These are from age fifteen to eighteen. I'll take from twelve to fifteen." We sit in silence, and read page by page.

  After an hour of reading, I look at Jessie. "You don't think it's the infection she had in her retina, do you? I mean, she developed the infection in her right eye. You don’t think it lies dormant then flares up periodically, do you? Perhaps by an airborne allergen?"

  "It's a very strong possibility. It makes more sense than anything else we've found here. You would have to do a blood panel on her right now, though," he says, his head still buried in the files.

  "Yes, and she will fight me all the way, but at this juncture, I don't care. I want to have a look."

  If I can narrow this down to her diseased retina, I will have a strong argument for her when it comes time to introduce the idea of allowing me to perform surgery on her.

  "How’s she doing?" I ask Laura when Jessie and I walk back into the family room.

  "I think her temperature is down," she answers, looking at us with hope in her eyes.

  Taking her temperature again, it is indeed down to one hundred degrees. Now, if I can keep it that low, I'll be happy. I just don't want to have to take her to the E.R.

  "Joy? Baby? How are you feeling? Do you hurt anywhere?" I ask, drying her damp brow with my palm, making sure her hair is out of her eyes. When I bend down to kiss her cheek and she whimpers.

  "I'm thirsty." Thirsty is good. Laura runs to the kitchen to get her a fresh bottle of water that she pours into a glass, handing it to her. I smile when she drinks it all down.

  "Baby, I'm going out to the clinic to get a blood sample kit to run a blood panel on you. Will you be all right with Laura while I'm gone?"

  "Matthew …" She opens her mouth to argue, but I won’t have it.

  "No, Joy. No arguing, okay? I'm running tests, and that's final. I'll be back."

  "Okay," she murmurs, giving in.

  Oh … well … that was easy.

  "Jessie, will you call the lab and let them know I’m bringing in a sample tonight and I want it run, stat?"

  "You got it," he says, picks up his phone and walks to another room to make the call.

  I check her temperature once more before I leave, and it’s at one hundred and one … up a degree.

  Fuck.

  "Laura, would you ask Jessie to check her temp again in a few minutes and let him know it was just at one hundred and one? If it gets up to one hundred and three, put her in the tub with lukewarm water and call me. I'll be back as soon as I can, all right?"

  "All right," Laura answers, stroking Joy’s brow.

  I'm thankful I don't live far from the clinic and make it there in record time. Parking in front of the building, not giving a fuck if I get a ticket or not, I rush to the supply desk to sign out all the supplies I need, placing everything in a sterilized container, and rush back home.

  When I enter through the garage door into the kitchen, I hear Joy yelling and when I run into the living room, I see her fighting Jessie.

  "What's going on?" I shout at them. Laura is the first to speak up.

  "She needs to get in the tub, but she won't go without you. Apparently, Jessie's not allowed to see her naked."

  "I'll take her. What's her temperature, Jess?"

  "Almost one hundred and four."

  "Okay, baby, time for a bath. I'll take one with you; how does that sound?"

  "I don't want a bath, Matthew. I just want to be left alone," she cries. She’s getting grumpy and rightfully so.

  "All right, I’ll let you decide. Either you get in the tub, or you go to the hospital. Hurry with your answer."

  "Neither," she yells.

  I slip the thermometer in my pocket, lift her in my arms, and carry her kicking and fighting me all the way up the stairs. When I get to the bathroom, I find that Laura has already run the bath. I undress a fighting Joy and set her on the floor while I do the same. Once I get us into the uncomfortable bath, I continuously cover her with water along her upper torso. She lays her head back against my shoulder, crying silently. It breaks my heart to see tears fall from her eyes without even the slightest whimper. This is terribly uncomfortable for me, so I can imagine how it must feel to her.

  After a while of cooling her skin with the bathwater, I reach over the side of the tub to grab the thermometer. "One hundred," I say more to myself than to her.

  Getting us out of the cold water, I dry us both and pull back to look at her to see that she is barely awake. Carrying her to my room, I slip one of my favorite t-shirts on her and tuck her under the covers, making sure she’s warm. Once I have taken care of her, I hurry and dress myself. Removing an arm from under the blanket, I look in search for a good, visible vein in which to draw the blood. It was then that Jessie knocks on the door.

  "Come in," I answer, continuing my task of running my fingers over the inside of her elbows, deciding to take it from her right arm. Jessie hands me a pair of sterilized gloves and puts on a pair for himself. He has already begun to remove the contents of the sterilized bag, spreading it all out on the bed for me. He then hands me the rubberized tie, which I use to wrap around her arm.

  "You okay, baby?" I ask as I prepare her arm.

  "Yeah," she replies in a weak voice.

  Looking up at her, she is clearly upset. "This won't take long,” I say in an attempt to reassure her, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "I'm going to fix all this, okay?" She closes her eyes and nods.

  "She doesn't have a very visible median cubital vein, but I think I can get it," I say to Jessie. I continue to push on the vein, hoping to stimulate it closer to the surface.

  Once I get the collection needle inserted and the vacutainer holder in place, Jessie hands me the vacutainer tubes. As they fill, I pass them over to him, where he writes the data on the information strip. After we have what we need, I remove the holder from her arm and slip a cotton ball over the insertion point. Jessie places a Band-Aid over the cotton ball, and I tuck her arm back under the comforter.

  "You doing okay, baby?" I ask while I take her temperature again. It reads ninety-nine. I take a deep, grateful sigh and smile when she nods her response.

  "It's down, Joy. You rest now." I say, kissing her soft lips.

  "I'll run these to the lab for you," Jessie volunteers. Grateful, I nod my thanks.

  "Do you want me to stay here?" Laura asks, standing in the doorwa
y with a tray of tea for Joy and me.

  "Why don't you come with me? We'll drop these off at the lab since they’re expecting them. You and I can go grab something to eat, and by the time we’re done, the results will be ready," Jessie suggests.

  "All right," she says, placing the tray on the nightstand. "Will you be okay, Matthew? Do you need anything else?"

  "No, but thanks … both of you … for being here. We'll be okay. I'll call if I need anything," I say. Lowering myself onto my knees beside the bed, I feel her forehead again and am pleased that its sweaty and clammy.

  "It's what friends do, Matthew," he replies. Looking up at him, I nod, grateful that he’s here. "We'll be back as soon as we can with the results."

  Once they leave, I pour Joy a cup of cooled tea and sit her up so she can drink it.

  "That was pretty impressive watching you in action, Dr. Davis," she says quietly.

  "Well, you bring out the best in me, Ms. Johnson. How are you feeling? Your temperature is down to ninety-nine now. It was up to one hundred and four. I was getting worried I'd have to take you to the emergency room."

  "You're a pretty nifty guy to have around," she says, flirting through a strained smile.

  "I just want to make sure you stick around." Taking her cup from her, I lie down next to her, wrapping my body around hers. Trying to soothe her and ease her into sleep, I stroke her forehead. Seeing her like this breaks my heart in two.

  "I love you so much, baby."

  "Me too," she replies sleepily.

  Once she falls asleep, I climb out of bed to clean up the mess and return to my office to review her health files again. The more I read, the more I’m convinced it's a dormant infection related to her retina. I’ll know more once I get the test results back. I’m also disappointed in Dr. Jenkins. He clearly performed only cursory and surface testing on her and wrote it down as "bacterial," and left it at that. He never performed any clear, in-depth tests to get to the bottom of her ongoing flare-ups.

  "What are you up to?" Joy asks from behind me, scaring the daylights out of me.

  "Shit, Joy, you nearly made me jump out of my skin. Come here." I reach for her to sit next to me. "I'm just reviewing your medical records to see what’s in here to answer some questions concerning your infection."

  "Did you find anything?"

  "Enough to tell me that Dr. Jenkins failed to perform the necessary tests." This is my do or die time. "I want to run these tests, Joy." She purses her lips and then jumps to her feet, turning away from me.

  "No, Matthew. I'm fucking done with tests; don't you understand?" she yells, her hands balled into fists.

  "Yes, I understand that," I say in a calm voice. "I understand that you are tired of being stuck with needles and put under anesthesia. There are risks involved anytime you do that. You are tired of doing all the hard work only to be told 'there's nothing we can do.’”

  "Joy, those five words have been ingrained into your head, and I plan on changing that because I think there is something we can do. First, though, we need to get rid of the infection that lies in your body. It's dangerous, baby. It could ultimately affect your organs. It could attack your kidneys, your liver and God forbid … your heart. Your heart belongs to me, and I want to keep it."

  "See, you have to go and say sweet things like that, Matthew. You don't play fair." I watch her as her tears fall silently over her cheeks.

  "I need you to let me take a look at you, but I'm telling you right now, my suspicions are that you have a dormant bacterial infection in your retina. Were you aware that you developed an infection when you were younger that wasn't treated properly?"

  "I think Dr. Jenkins did what he could," she says, defending him.

  "No, Joy, he didn't. Any physician that sits down to read your file will make the same determination I have but I’m not going to sit here and point fingers. What’s done is done, and there's nothing we can do about that now. All we can do now is get rid of that infection so that you don't have these complications. What would you have done if you were home alone?" I ask.

  "I would've called Laura."

  "And if she were on vacation somewhere, or on a date, or her cell phone battery died?"

  "I would call Dr. Jenkins."

  "And he would have what? Given you an aspirin and told you to call him in the morning?" I argue. "You would have ended up in the hospital … again."

  "But …"

  "There are no more buts, Joy. You are getting this out of your body once and for all. Once the infection is controlled, and you have taken your full prescription of antibiotics, we get that diseased retina out of your body."

  The look on her face was killing me. It was full of fear and the unknown.

  "Do you trust me?" I ask sincerely, pulling her onto my lap. "I mean really trust me? My education and what I stand for? That I would do anything I possibly could to help you and keep you alive?"

  "Yes, I trust you.”

  "Then you must get that fear out of your head. I won't let anything harm you. If, after the necessary testing is done and I find that there is any remote chance you could be harmed, I won't do it."

  Once I get that diseased retina out of her body, and she is clean from the bad bacteria, I will approach her about my procedure, but not now. I need to gain her trust and put her fears to rest first. I'm just happy she has agreed to this at all, but no is not an option.

  "Okay, Matthew. Just this once, all right? You can get rid of that, but that's it. I'm done after that," she reiterates. "I'm not feeling good again," she says, falling back against me.

  I move to get my thermometer to take her temperature; it's back up to one hundred and one.

  Dammit. I can't wait for those antibiotics to kick in. "Let's get another aspirin in you."

  It goes this way all evening. When Jessie and Laura finally show up with her blood test results, my diagnosis is confirmed.

  "Okay, Ms. Joy. You definitely have a lot of infection in your body. Let's get that under control, and then we’ll schedule surgery to clear all that up, all right?" I say, putting my cheek to hers.

  "What all is involved?" she asks, clearly tired.

  "Well, are you really interested to hear about that right now? Especially with you not feeling very well? We can discuss it more after the first of the year when you feel better, and when we get closer to the date. Does that sound okay with you?" I reply, not wanting to get into that with her right now.

  "Okay," she whispers. I can tell she is fading fast, and when I glance over at Jessie, Laura is leaning against his side with his arm around her. I look at the both of them and raise an eyebrow, questioning what I see. Jessie just shrugs his shoulders.

  ~.~

  After spending the first part of the week watching over Joy, making sure she takes all her antibiotics, I can tell she feels much better. It makes it easier to pack up the car on Wednesday and head over to the Island for Thanksgiving weekend.

  Turning onto my street, I press the button to open the garage and see Maddie's car already sitting in the driveway. She must have heard the garage door open from inside the house, because she comes barreling out the front door toward the car.

  "Look out," I whisper to Joy. "Maddie’s on the move and running directly at you; brace yourself."

  I jump out of the car to tell Maddie to slow down, that Joy has been sick, and to be nice to her.

  "I'm always nice to her, Matthew," Maddie admonishes and then reaches out to hug Joy. "You’re feeling better, I hope."

  "I'm much better, thanks. Where's Brian? Is he here?"

  "Yes, he's inside, putting away the food we brought," she answers. "I think we have more than enough to get us through the entire weekend."

  "Matthew," Brian shouts from the front door, "I'm going to hug my friend, so get over it."

  I laugh at the memory of the drama I caused when I saw him hug her the first time we met and roll my eyes.

  "Come here, you," Brian says to Joy. "God, I missed you. How'
ve you been? Laura said you've been sick? Did you have another bout of infection?"

  "Yes, but my new personal physician was there when it flared up and jumped right on it and figured out what the problem is to boot," Joy answers.

  "What is it?"

  "Just something wrong with one of my eyes, is all; he's going to take care of it," she says again. "So, what's on the agenda for the weekend? Do you have any of your stupid games planned?"

  "Do you think Matthew would let you play strip poker?"

  "Not in a million years, baby."

  "Good answer, Joy," I growl. "No strip poker in this house. I cringe at the thought of seeing my sister naked … or Jessie … or you, Brian," I say with a shudder. "Okay, let's change this subject right now before I need to bleach my brain."

  At hearing a car honking its horn as it pulls into the drive, I turn around to glare at its driver. With my hands full, I nod my head in a hello at Jessie and Laura as they pull in the driveway.

  "Come on, ladies," Maddie shouts, "let's start baking the desserts for the weekend, shall we?"

  I smile when Joy screams, because Brian throws her over his shoulder, carrying her into the house.

  "Don't forget my cherry pie. Would you teach Maddie how to make your flakey crust? Her filling is perfection, but her crust needs a little help," he yells loud enough for Maddie to hear.

  "Hey," Maddie pouts. "I try, but I just can't make a good crust to save my life. Joy, will you teach me? Brian says yours is the best he's ever had."

  "Of course, Maddie. We'll get it figured out."

  After everyone settles in their rooms, including Jessie and Laura sleeping in separate rooms, the girls get busy making desserts. Joy suggests hamburgers for lunch, so the guys set out to clean up the grill.

  When I walk into the kitchen to get a beer, I observe Joy at the island, rolling out pie crust, Laura making cookies, and Maddie making the filling for the pies.

  "It smells good in here," I say, grabbing a beer from the refrigerator.

  "Thanks," Laura says. "What else would you guys like for dessert this weekend?"