Just then, the door opened. I looked up and saw a face and body familiar to me, but I couldn’t place where this short, odd-looking man fit in my life. He didn’t scare me, but I didn’t get warm, fuzzy feelings about him either. “How’s my patient doing this morning?” he asked cheerily.
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t recognize you. Are you her doctor?” Leah asked in a sharp, indignant tone. I didn’t know if she was irritated with him or me, but I suspected both.
“I’m Dr. Em and Ms. Doe is my patient. I’ve come to see if she is well enough to travel. I would like to get her back to the clinic as soon as possible.”
“Dr. Em? I’ve never heard of a Dr. Em at this hospital.” Leah picked up the chart and looked it over again. She glanced up at me, then over at the doctor, and then back down at the chart.
“Okay. Dr. Em, first off, this patient isn’t a Jane Doe. I think I know who she is.” Leah’s voice was commanding, as if ready to reveal who murdered whom and with what in a game of Clue. She didn’t volunteer any names, though. It was obvious to me that she was testing the man.
“Yes, yes, my dear,” he replied in a condescending tone. “We use aliases at the clinic to protect our patient’s privacy.” Dr. Em looked at me again and realized that he could see my whole face. “Why are the bandages removed from her eyes?” he asked harshly, his knuckles flying to his hips, his body language shouting indignation.
“It’s my job to check dressings, sir,” Leah answered with self-assurance. “There wasn’t anything in the chart about her eyes or why they were bandaged. I wanted to make sure the dressings were clean and that an infection hadn’t set in.” The confidence in Leah’s voice was ebbing. “There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her eyes, so I didn’t re-bandage them.” Her last words were spoken softly and with just a hint of guilt.
“And are you her doctor? Are you an ophthalmologist? Did it say in her chart to check the bandages? Miss, what is your name? I should report you to the nursing supervisor. This is very inappropriate.”
“Sorry, sir, I just thought…” Leah stammered.
“You aren’t supposed to think, you’re supposed to follow orders, understand?” Dr. Em stuck his chin out, almost hostile toward the young nurse who had taken the initiative. He was short, but definitely had a superiority complex.
I stopped listening to the doctor and nurse and their debate on protocol, designated duties, whatever. Young nurse? She looked to be older than me. How could I be her mother?
“Wake up, wake up!” It was the doctor, practically shouting in my stunned face. “Come on, get dressed. We’re leaving right now!”
I looked around and Leah was gone. Dr. Em shoved a robe at me and grabbed my good right shoulder, pulling me up into a sitting position. He carefully picked up my left arm—which hurt like hell—and put it into the sleeve. He positioned the plush pink terrycloth robe around my back and helped me put my right arm into the other sleeve.
“My necklace! I won’t go anywhere without the necklace Wallace gave me!” I cried.
“Oh, yes, yes. We’ll need that. Oh, here it is, in the bureau.” Dr. Em pulled the Greek coin necklace laced on black ribbon from the little nightstand drawer. He gently pushed aside my hair, causing a shiver to run up my spine. He quickly tied the ribbon, then let my hair fall back on my neck. “Here, take this,” he said and shoved a small bluish bottle to my lips. “It will help ease the pain.”
I let him pour some of the liquid into my mouth…but I didn’t swallow. As soon as his back was turned, I spit the bitter brew into the pile of gauze that Leah had pulled off. Fortunately the liquid was clear, so it wasn’t obvious that I hadn’t swallowed it. My mouth was kind of tingling, though.
“Dr. Em, the head nurse would like to speak with you.” Leah was back again, accompanied by a very fat woman in lavender kitty cat-printed scrubs that were at least two sizes too small for her.
“Yes, Dr. Em, Nurse Madigan says she thinks your patient is here under duress. I am going to have to ask you to come with me while we check out your credentials. You’re not on our list of doctors authorized to practice at this hospital.”
Miss Kitty Nurse was being polite and formal, but she was twice his size. If Dr. Toadface didn’t cooperate, she could haul his butt out of here to wherever, if she wanted.
“Nurse, uh,” the doctor looked down at her name tag, “Gata, yes, Nurse Gata, my patient is here on a discretionary pass. We do not use our client’s names when we come to a public medical facility. We use pseudonyms to protect their privacy. Of course my patient is not Jane Doe, but her real name is none of your business. Now, if you will kindly move aside, I am ready to transfer my patient to another location.”
“Oh, no you don’t, mister,” Leah said, her cheeks flushed with anger. “I doubt you are even a doctor, and I have reason to suspect that this woman is a victim of kidnapping.”
I felt as if I had a front row seat at a mid-morning hospital-themed soap opera: second-rate actors—an obstinate nurse, a clueless supervisor, and the classically-clad doctor—all trying to out-emote each other. My head turned side-to-side as I watched the dimwitted drama unfold. My mouth wasn’t tingling anymore, but I probably had been affected by the funny-looking doctor’s special medicine. I was feeling very relaxed, definitely more laid back than possible without chemical intervention.
“Out of my way, Ms. Madigan,” Dr. Em said as he tried to elbow his way past her.
But Leah wouldn’t budge. “I know this woman, and she knows me. She called me by name, and I want her to stay here until this is resolved. Nurse Gata, would you call security, please?”
The matronly supervisor left in a worried waddle, hands in the air as if she was praying to heaven for divine intervention—or she was giving up.
Dr. Em looked both angry and scared at the prospect of more people coming. “Of course she knows your name; it’s right on your name tag,” he said and stepped forward to leave. Leah moved away from the door and let him pass.
He hadn’t taken me, so she had won.
Or so she thought.
In two blinks of my still befuddled eyes, he was back—he had only left the room to get a wheelchair. He rolled it past Leah and over to the side of my bed, pushing aside the rollaway tray that held my discarded gauze bandages.
I looked up at him and wondered what the drug he had given me was supposed to do. Since I was mellow and not hurting anymore, it was probably both a painkiller and an anti-anxiety medication. But, given that I hadn’t swallowed the full dose, maybe it was also intended to make me docile and submissive. I decided to play along, at least until I found a better option.
Leah and her boss didn’t seem to be working well together on this. Nurse Kitty was big, but was as meek as a melon. Leah was going to have to be both the brains and the brawn in this confrontation.
Evidently Leah had come to the same conclusion. I looked over at her with awe, wonder, and maternal pride. Awe at how she was taking charge, even though it might mean losing her job by challenging a doctor. Wonder at what her plan was to keep me here, and maternal pride—that I couldn’t explain. It was the same innate emotion that I felt when I held my babies.
Dr. Em had been ushering my oblivious body into the wheelchair as I recalled my babies. I was suddenly aware of how full and hard my breasts were. I hadn’t fed them in I don’t know long, but I would suspect at least eight hours. I could feel the coolness on my gown where my very large and painfully firm breasts had leaked milk. I looked down and saw the wetness. Leah followed my gaze and her eyes widened.
“Not so fast there, mister,” she said. “She called me by my family name, not the name on my tag. We’re related, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you take her away from me—again.”
Dr. Em had been ready for resistance. She was two steps away when he lifted his hand and flung the fluid into her face. She gasped, and sunk to her knees. Her head plopped forward and she fell, unable to stop herself, landing on his chest with a thud, her arms limp at her si
de, unconscious.
He backed away from her and gently, but with mild disgust, laid her on the hospital floor, her face turned to the side. She was alive, breathing shallowly, her eyes glassy and staring into nothingness, but would recover soon. He pulled the privacy curtain around the bed to block the view of her body. Her foot was sticking out, so he knelt down and dragged the leg to the side, essentially bending her body into an “L” shape so she wouldn’t be visible to anyone who walked into the room.
I didn’t know what to do, so I continued to play the drugged patient. Dr. Em maneuvered me in the wheelchair—stunned, scared, and silent—around her prone body and escorted me out the door.
I wish I knew how I’m supposed to be reacting. Crap! Nurse Gata is coming towards us. Dr. Em sees her, too, and quickly moves us into an alcove. How appropriate; we’re in the chapel. “Please help us, Lord,” I pray softly: I don’t want anyone but God to hear me. I immediately feel a lessening of the tension in the air, and it’s not from the drugging. I know I’m going to be okay now.
After a very long thirty seconds, we emerged from our hideout, Dr. Em pushing me in the wheelchair. I felt carefree, as if I was a baby in a stroller, and we were going for a picnic in the park. I started humming for some reason—probably a side effect of the potion. We passed a cart loaded with flowers, balloons, and a fruit basket. I reached out with my good right arm, grabbed a bunch of bananas, and clutched it close to my belly like the golden treasure I felt it was. I started singing, “One banana, two banana, three banana, four…”
“Hush,” the doctor said. So I did. Sort of. I couldn’t help but keep humming. Between the prayer and the anti-anxiety medicine, I was very content.
We made it to the emergency room entrance with hardly a head turned. I say hardly because we did receive a smile from a little boy holding a bouquet of balloons. The balloons were all blue and said, “It’s a boy!” He was holding his father’s—I guess—hand and waving at us as we passed. I felt moistness in two zones at his smile. I was leaking milk again, and tears were dribbling down my cheeks.
I missed my family, my home in the wilderness, the wildness of the late 18th century. I didn’t know who Dr. Em was, but I was sure that he was my ticket back home. I felt sorry and confused about leaving Leah, but my lactating hormones were in charge right now. I needed my babies, and I’m sure they needed me, too.
“Get out, come on, you can do it. Hurry, hurry up.” Dr. Em was urging me out of the wheelchair and into the vehicle. I had been oblivious to everything around me while grieving for my babies. I did as I was told, clutching my bunch of bananas as if they were my children, while I waited for the doctor to get in on the other side.
I looked up and saw the seatbelt hanging next to the window of the car door. “Sorry; no way, José,” I said. “Ain’t gonna put that on with my shoulder torn up and my chest ready to explode.”
There was a commotion moving our way. Nurse Kitty was in the lead, speed walking, leading a crowd of uniformed people—male nurse-types in scrubs and a couple of rent-a-cops, or maybe they were real law enforcement officers. Anyhow, they were heading right towards us, looking at the man who had just climbed in next to me. And they didn’t look happy.
“Good Lord,” Doctor Em exclaimed. “Where’s the steering wheel? Oh no, this is America, isn’t it? They put the damned operator’s station on the wrong side of the conveyance!”
Dr. Em had put me in on the driver’s side of the car, and was trying to make a getaway by sitting in the passenger’s seat. “Drive woman, drive, NOW!”
The mob was getting closer, and I realized that I had just been given the upper hand. “I will,” I said, “if you tell me what’s going on.” I stared at him with narrowed eyes, the medicine’s effect was either wearing off or being overridden by adrenaline. “Tell me everything that’s going on, or we stay here.”
“All right, all right, just go!” he said, his hands flying up in panicked surrender.
The key was already in the ignition. I started the car, dropped it into drive, and floored it.
It was just like buttering toast; it all came back to me. “Where are we going?” I asked as I sped to the end of the parking lot. He could tell me all I wanted—needed—to know later. If the hospital posse caught up with us first, they’d haul him away, and then I would never find out what this last year had been all about.
“Head that way,” he said, pointing east. “But go quickly, we don’t have much time. They’ll be blocking the roads if we don’t get out of town soon.”
I looked in the rear view mirror and saw that we were in an SUV with an infant car seat and booster seat in the back. There was also a flower arrangement with ‘Congratulations’ and little blue football and baseball decorations poked in amongst the daisies and carnations. We had just stolen the car that belonged to that smiling little boy’s family. Well, they would just have to score another ride home. Something told me that this was my only chance to get away from the hospital authorities and get to wherever it was that I was supposed to go.
“How far?” I asked. I was traveling nine miles an hour above the speed limit. I didn’t want to get stopped for a traffic ticket, but wanted to get to our destination before the cops figured a way to keep us—me—from going home.
“It’s only about 20 miles from here to the exit. After that, it’s only six miles on gravel road, and then a mile and a half of walking.” Dr. Em was looking around anxiously, rubbing his thumb back and forth over the side of the first joint of his index finger in a nervous manner.
“Chill out, Doc. We’ll be fine. I can feel it in my bones, can’t you?” I was trying to get him to relax. I wanted to hear the story of me from him, and didn’t want him distracted when he told it. “Didn’t you ever hear that negative energy attracts bad karma?”
“What? Negative energy, bad karma, yes, yes. You are right. How is your shoulder? I’m a bit surprised that you can still talk, much less operate one of these foul-smelling machines.”
“My shoulder is fine when I’m not thinking about it. I didn’t swallow that elixir you shoved in my face, and it’s a good thing, too, or I wouldn’t be able to drive. And this may be a foul-smelling conveyance, but it sure is comfortable and fast. At our current rate of speed, we should be at the turn off in just over 15 minutes. Six miles on a gravel road at 30 miles per hour is about twelve minutes and then, depending on the terrain, a thirty minute walk. That means you have almost a full hour to tell me why I’m here, and why I was there.”
Dr. Em squirmed in his seat. “Maybe I should have one of these on,” he said as he played with the nylon seat belt at his right.
“A seat belt won’t protect you from me if you don’t start talking. We had an agreement, remember?” I was hoping that this man, this apparent time traveler, had the sense of honesty and integrity that made the men—the gentlemen of earlier eras—so appealing to me.
“Yes, yes, I do owe you that, I suppose. Well, you saved my life, and now I have saved yours. That’s it,” he said.
A satisfied smug stretched across his face. He didn’t know how to smile correctly, though. It looked like his cheeks were going to split—his determined effort to look happy was apparently causing him pain. He gave up on his attempt at a smile, crossed his arms across his chest, and scrunched down in the seat, looking as if he was preparing to take a nap.
“Sorry, Doc, that version’s too short to pass as a full and complete explanation. Let’s start from the beginning. Who am I?”
“You’re Dani Madigan. Next question?”
“You know, you’re making this very difficult for me. You said you’d tell me the whole story. Do you want me to pull over here, to the side of this freeway full of fast moving cars, and wait for roadside assistance from one of our ever-so-vigilant traffic safety officers?”
Dr. Em lost the slouch and scooted back up in his seat, his straight-backed body language practically shouting, ‘No, thanks; I’ll behave myself.’
“Who are
you? I can’t believe that Dr. Em is your real name.”
“I’m Master Simon and I travel.”
“Travel?” I asked. “Here and there, or now and then?”
Master Simon cleared his throat and said, “Yes,” with a definite finality. He wasn’t going to elaborate.
His answer was good enough for me. I wanted to get down to what concerned me and mine. “Okay, so what did Leah mean when she said she didn’t want you to take me away ‘again’?”
I figure I had better get as much out of him now as I can. The troopers—or highway patrol, or whatever they are—could still catch up with us even if I don’t feint a breakdown. At least we’re in a red SUV, and no matter who makes them—Toyota, Chrysler, Ford, Mercedes, Honda, or whoever—they all look alike. That should make tracking us a bit harder. And since this isn’t a rental car or an emergency vehicle, there probably isn’t a LoJack installed on it either.
I wasn’t getting an answer out of Master Simon, so I let my foot off the gas, tapped on the brake, and slowed down. I turned towards him, gave him the evil eye, flipped on the blinker, and headed onto the shoulder of the freeway.
“All right, all right, get back on the road.” He huffed in frustration. “Hmph! And hurry.”
I turned off the signal and sped back up to my nine miles over the speed limit. He remained mum, so I growled at him, like a dog guarding a purloined steak.
“Sorry, I was just trying to figure out where to start. Let’s see, I was going to meet a friend not far from here when you first met me. I had been assaulted and robbed, and you came to my rescue. You helped me retrieve my stolen map, figured out how to read it, and then took me to the park where you were supposed to leave me, and go home. I caught up with my friend there. All was going according to our plan. We were at the nearest high gate to Greensboro and ready to make the jump, but you had followed us. We did our best to, shall we say, sneak past you, but that plan failed. You stepped out over the point when my friend and I weren’t watching you. You leapt out—chasing an illusion, I believe—and my friend and I grabbed you. We all fell, but you didn’t know how to land. You fractured your skull and broke your back. It didn’t look like you were going to survive. I felt a bit guilty; I supposed it was because you had hurt yourself trying to help me. It’s not that I needed the help—I knew what I was doing. But I digress. You had major injuries and were 230 years from home and medical attention. So, I gave you some of my FOY water. I was trying to dribble a few drops into your mouth, but you latched onto the bottle and sucked it dry. It was the last of my supply, too. I had to return to Florida to get more so I could get out of this fiasco.”
Naked in the Winter Wind Page 57