The Orchid

by Robert Waggoner

  Outside I put the phone back to my ear. I heard only static. I looked at the phone. It suddenly began blinking “Out of service”. Well, good news would have to wait. I rolled back inside and saw that our food had arrived.

  “Whatever it was,” I said, “will keep. He said it was good news.”

  “Umm,” she said. “This is good!” I looked at her selection. It was not something I would have chosen. I made a mental note—it was another interesting fact about this woman! In all our trips to restaurants, she had chosen conservatively. I guess she was letting down her hair, so to speak. My food was a little less exotic but tasty.

  I worried about the phone call during our meal. I wondered what Steve had discovered. Maybe it was about Meckler’s Disease, maybe something to do with his mentoring me. I just wish the phone had not chosen that time to lose contact with whatever tower supplied it with service!

  During the drive home, I forgot about Steve. Lindsey was much more interesting.

  We sat on the porch. Lindsey had helped me out of my wheelchair and onto the swing so she could swing with me. We held hands and I watched my mostly useless legs as Lindsey used her wonderful legs to push us. She leaned over to kiss me and threw up.

  “Oh! I’m sorry!” She said, giggling. “I didn’t even see that coming!” She got up and went to get something to clean me up. She had barfed on my lap. Thank goodness, she turned her head as it spilled out. I could feel my guts heaving a little just from the experience. Never in my wildest fantasies had barfed on by Lindsey made the top of the list as a honeymoon experience.

  I heard her scrambling around in the kitchen and then I heard her throwing up again. I reached for my wheelchair and pulled it toward me. I swung myself into it and wheeled through the doorway into the kitchen. She was sitting on a chair at the table looking pale. Her face was drawn.

  “Oh God I feel sick,” she said. I avoided the puke on the floor and found a pan in the sink. I brought it to her and she promptly barfed into it. She recovered and looked at me. “I’m sorry, Jimmy.”

  “No! Don’t be. I said for better or worse, I think. Tell me how you feel. Do you have headaches or anything?”

  “I didn’t until I threw up in here.” I could see the pain in her eyes. She heaved again but she was empty and nothing came out. I had to look away briefly. “I need to lie down, Jimmy,” she said. She held her stomach with one hand, and with the other hand, she gripped my arm. I wheeled toward the bedroom. She took the handlebars and used them for support as we went through the door and then she simply collapsed onto the bed.

  I brought her water and made her drink some but she promptly threw up. Then she giggled. “I’m making a terrible wife on our honeymoon,” she said.

  “Hey, it happens.” I took the glass back to the kitchen. I was worried. I remembered the symptoms of Meckler’s Disease. Surely this was nothing more than eating something tainted! I lifted my phone to dial Steve and ask him but my hand was trembling so badly that I could not hit the right buttons.

  I went back to Lindsey. She was holding her head and moaning. “Lindsey, what’s the matter?”

  “Bring me an aspirin, please,” she moaned.

  I could not bear to see her in so much pain. I got the aspirin and gave her two. She could not keep them down. In a moment, she doubled up, crying. I felt helpless, angry. Fear began to take over. I managed to call Steve’s number but it rang and rang and he did not answer. I tried to think. I went back to Lindsey. She was hot and feverish. Oh God! Do not take her from me now! Please! You know how much we have gone through! Take me instead! Please! Please! Lindsey’s premonition in New York suddenly chilled me.

  I did not realize I was sobbing and crying aloud. Lindsey tried to comfort me but she doubled up again and heaved nothing. The phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. It was Steve. Thank God! “Steve!” I practically shouted into the phone.

  “Jimmy, what’s the matter?” Again, the connection was lousy. I hurried through my explanation hoping he would have time to tell me what to do. “It’s Lindsey, Steve! She has cramps, headaches and fever! Steve! What can I do?”

  The phone buzzed with some reply but it was indistinct. I looked at it. “Out of Service”

  “No!” I shouted. I wanted to slam the phone down on the floor and stomp it into tiny pieces! Instead, I hurried to the bed. I had to get up. I locked the brake on the chair and hoisted myself up to my feet. Now that I was standing, I did not know what to do. I could not move forward or backward. I was so damn useless in any emergency!

  Lindsey saw me standing by the bed. She gave me a pain-filled smile. “I knew you would walk some day, Jimmy. I’m glad.” She closed her eyes against the pain. In my fright, it sounded like her last words on earth and she was determined to make them happy words. It was the euphoria! I groaned; hot tears slid down my cheeks.

  “Lindsey, I’m going to call an ambulance,” I said. I sat heavily and missed the chair. It broke my descent but scooted into the corner and I hit the floor stunned for a moment. A sharp pain raced through my back. I’d hit my tailbone. The cell phone hit the floor next to me and skittered out of my reach. I crawled over and grabbed it. I looked at the dial. It was still working. The in service light was on. I had no time to waste. I dialed 911 and held the phone to my ear.

  “Jimmy, no!” Lindsey was begging me not to make the call.

  “Lindsey, I have to! I can’t help you, honey.”

  “If you do, Jimmy, they’ll separate us. I couldn’t bear it if this is it.”

  Oh God! She believed it was the onset of Meckler’s Disease!

  I cursed her ancestors. I crawled to the edge of the bed and reached up. Her hand was there and I held it. She was sobbing against the pain.

  The phone connected and after one last look at Lindsey I told the 911 operator that I needed an ambulance and then I told them where. My phone went out of service before she could reply. I cursed the phone.

  I tried repeatedly but could not get a dial tone.

  “Stop it,” Lindsey gasped. “Just hold me.”

  I dragged my weight onto the bed next to her and gathered her in my arms. She was sweaty and trembling. She pressed her face into my hair, sweat poured off her.

  “Lindsey,” I kissed the sweaty cheek pressed against my face. “I don’t know what to do! I’ve got to go and get help.”

  “Don’t!” She gasped, “Don’t…leave…me…now.”

  I sobbed against her cheek. “Please, Lindsey! Dear God! Help us!”

  She pressed her fingers into my arm. “I wanted…more than…anything…to…marry you…Jimmy. I…wanted…to… live…the…rest…of…my…life…with…you.” Her stomach cramped, clamping off her words.

  I couldn’t lie beside her and do nothing. I started to lift my head but she grabbed me desperately. “No, Jimmy,” she gasped. “Stay.”

  “Lindsey, I’ve got to get help!” I pulled away from her. She was too weak to hold me but her eyes locked onto mine. I slid off the bed and crawled toward the wheelchair. In the distance, I heard sirens wailing. I crawled back to the bed.

  “I hear the ambulance, Lindsey,” I said.

  The sirens abruptly died outside the front door.

  “Come in!” I shouted when I heard footsteps on the porch.

  The door opened and a uniformed man hurried to the side of the bed. He took one look at Lindsey and opened his orange emergency box.

  “99.5, BP 110 over 80, pulse 75.” He spoke to the second EMT who followed him into the room.

  “I’ll call it in,” the second man said.

  He looked at me and figured it out. He got up, recovered the wheelchair, and helped me into it. “Talk to me,” he said.

  “She threw up just after we got back from the restaurant. She’s got a rare blood disorder called Meckler’s disease.” I babbled, happy to have help, wanting to impart information.

  “I’m going to put an IV line in.” He pulled packets from his kit and turned toward Lindsey. The other man whee
led a gurney into the cabin and they loaded Lindsey onto it with expert ease. In less than a minute, they had the IV dripping saline into Lindsey’s veins.

  “I’ve got to ride with you,” I said as he pushed Lindsey toward the door.

  “I don’t have room,” he objected.

  “I’m coming!”

  “He has to come,” Lindsey said weakly. “He can’t get to the hospital.” She gasped.

  They barely had room to get me in but they did. They chaffed at the time it took. I wanted to hold Lindsey’s hand but the attendant was working on her while he monitored her heart rate and respiration.

  Lindsey’s fear of separation came true when we reached the hospital. I waited in the back of the ambulance while the two EMTs took her into the emergency room. Almost immediately, they wheeled her out of sight. When they did not come back for over five minutes, my fear had blossomed into full-blown anger. When they finally lifted me out of the ambulance and put me into my wheelchair, I was seething.

  The clerk at the desk took her time filling out dozens of forms. I told a nurse who was passing by that my wife had Meckler’s Disease and that I needed to be with her. The nurse nodded and hurried away. The clerk resumed her laborious scratching on the forms. Twice she asked the same questions but I could barely answer her. My throat had constricted with the rage I felt.

  When she was satisfied and I was in tears, I rushed to Lindsey’s curtained-off cubicle. A doctor and two nurses were working on Lindsey. I could see Lindsey writhing in agony on the gurney. I thought suddenly of her parents. Their lack of faith in me was justified. I could not protect their daughter.

  “Doctor,” I said wheeling over to the bed, “My wife’s dad died of Meckler’s Disease. She carries the gene.”

  The doctor looked at me as if I had sprung a leak in my head. He was working on Lindsey. I couldn’t see what he was doing. “You’ll have to wait outside,” he said. He looked confused for a moment. I could see him mouthing the words, Meckler’s Disease as if trying to recall some obscure fact.

  “Wait outside, please,” he repeated. He looked at someone over my shoulder and I felt my wheelchair moving away from Lindsey. I was propelled outside the curtain as if I were a child who dared to intrude. I barely avoided slamming into the wall. When I had my chair under control, I wheeled around to see a man standing with arms crossed in front of the curtain.

  “Doc says you gotta stay out.” He said. He looked like he would do anything the doctor told him to.

  I was ready to do battle. The look on my face must have given him second thoughts. “Look, just give the doctor a minute, please,” he said quickly as I charged toward him.

  “That’s my wife! Let me in there!” He stepped aside thinking he would grab my handlebars as I went by. I slapped his hands away and my momentum carried me back inside the curtain. I pushed the curtain over my head and saw that Lindsey was sitting up. The doctor was looking at me. She was smiling.

  Oh, God! The euphoria had hit! I looked anxiously at the doctor and at Lindsey. Her smile got bigger.

  The attendant pushed the curtain aside. “Sorry, Doc, he just…”

  “Its okay Cedric,” The doctor said. He gave the aide a nod. “Thanks. I’ll handle it.”

  Cedric mumbled something. He gave me a glance and then walked through the curtain.

  I looked anxiously at Lindsey. I tried desperately to remember how long she had after euphoria. That meant her brain was being starved of oxygen.

  “She’s going to be okay, Mr. Turner,” the doctor said quietly. “Just some bad food, that’s all. I want to do a blood test to see for sure. She’s feeling better and my guess is that she’ll be ready to go home shortly.”

  My heart thudded. Lindsey nodded. She felt better already. The doctor had given her something for the pain and she would be drowsy for the next two hours. The doctor stepped aside and I wheeled over and put my head in her lap. She stroked my hair. I could not think and I just wanted to hold her. I wanted reassurance. “I’m such a panicky fool,” I said.

  “Me too,” she whispered. The stomach pump had scratched her throat. “But honestly, the only symptom missing was the euphoria,” she said.

  The relief was like nothing I had ever felt. It was as though my body was one happy feeling from my head to as far down as I could feel. My smile was so big that my face hurt. We just clung to each other in that hospital room. We laughed and cried until the doctor asked if we needed more pain pills.

  A half hour later, the doctor returned. “Listeria,” he said. “The nurse will be back to give her a shot, and you should get this prescription filled. She’ll be fine.” He scratched on the pad and tore the sheet off. He handed it to me. “Fine honeymoon, eh?” He said sympathetically.

  “It’s wonderful!” Lindsey and I chorused together.

  My cell phone jangled loudly. It worked just fine in places where it was supposed to be turned off! I answered and it was Steve.

  “Don’t hang up on me!” He said quickly. “I’ve found Dr. Laird. You know the doctor who did the research on the orchids. Anyway, he told me something new. He has researched twenty-two people who have this disease. The only ones to die from it are men!” He was shouting as if the phone had a bad connection. “Did you hear that? Lindsey is in no danger!”

  I dropped the phone on the bed beside Lindsey and held her while I wept into her lap.

  Lindsey picked up the phone and Steve delivered the news to her. When she hung up, she kissed the top of my head and said, “Let’s go back to the beach. We’ve got a honeymoon to keep.”

  Chapter 17

  We called for a taxi and then, while waiting, we called our parents from the hospital, waking them up in turn. Lindsey told her mom what Steve told us and added something he did not tell me. “Steve, uh, Dr. Singleton, thinks that the researcher in Hawaii, Dr. Laird, has isolated the genome that is responsible for the disease. That means in a few years they can prevent this disease from being passed on genetically!”

  I told my mom and dad what happened and they were overjoyed. “That’s really good news!” my mom said. My dad voiced the same sentiment. “I guess you can stop worrying and enjoy your honeymoon!”

  After we hung up with our parents, we climbed into the taxi. The driver’s nose wrinkled as he folded my wheelchair into the trunk and got into the front seat. “Rough night?” He asked sympathetically.

  “This is the greatest, most awesome night of my life!” I disagreed happily. He gave me a look reserved for disarming crazy people and started the engine.

  Lindsey and I held each other during the drive back to the white sand beach in Destin where our honeymoon cabin waited for us. We did not speak. My heart was so light I had to put my hand on my chest just to make sure it was where it was supposed to be and still beating.

  I sat in the wheelchair on the sidewalk outside the cabin and patted my lap as the tail lights of the taxi faded into the distance. “There is something I’ve always wanted to do with you,” I said to Lindsey.

  She sat on my lap. Her hair brushed my cheek as she leaned back and relaxed. Despite the events of the night, I could faintly smell the shampoo in her hair and the perfume that augmented her beauty. I put my arms around the woman whose heart seemed to beat in my chest. We were one with each other. We knew each other’s thoughts, hopes, fears, dreams and we were friends.

  “I love this place,” Lindsey said softly.

  “I do too.”

  Her hand found my hand near her stomach and she entwined her fingers with mine. “I like you, Jimmy Turner.”

  “That’s funny,” I said, nuzzling her neck, “I like you too.”

  She giggled. After caressing my hand she said, “What was that thing you always wanted to do with me?”

  “It’s probably not what you are thinking,” I said.

  “Whatever it is, I’m willing.”

  I kissed her again. “Okay. Hold on.” I dropped my hands to the outer ring of my wheels and propelled us up the sidewalk t
oward the cabin. Just before the ramp that led onto the porch, I turned left and muscled the chair across a small stretch of firm sand, onto another sidewalk that ran down along the side of our honeymoon cottage. I stopped under the shower spigot.

  “There’s something I want to know,” I said. “That night, when we came here for the first time on vacation, why did you shower here that morning you went to the beach alone?”

  “Why do you think?” Lindsey asked softly. There was enough mystery in her voice that I wasn’t certain of her meaning.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Jimmy Turner!” She pretended to be upset with me. “Tell me the truth!”

  “I know a lot of what’s in your heart, but your head is still a mystery to me,” I answered.

  “Then tell me what was in my heart,” she challenged. Her voice had softened once again.

  I sat back, feeling her weight against my stomach and chest. “I think,” I said after a few moments of drinking in all that she was to me now, “You wanted me to see that you were more than just brains…”

  She twisted in the seat and kissed me on the lips before I could finish my sentence. When she pulled back, there were tears in her eyes. “Do you know what I see in you, Jimmy?”

  “I want to know,” I replied.

  “Someone who wants to know me deep inside; someone I can give my heart to without fear that he will place it on a shelf as a trophy that he has won.”

  Tears came to my eyes along with the lump in my throat. I swallowed hard, trying to find my voice. I rested my head against the softest, most beautiful shoulder in the world because, in the end, I could not speak what was beating inside my chest.

  “Do you know why I love you?” She asked softly.

  I shook my head.

  “Because you are beautiful inside and out to me. I can tell you anything, hope anything, dream anything and your response is always that you want to understand.”

  “Lindsey,” I said, pulling her to my chest from her nearly upright stance, “I never met anyone like you. When I first met you, you won my respect because you saw right through my anger. After that came admiration because you…” I paused to gather my thoughts, “…because you acted consistent with your words.” I shrugged. “That’s the only way I know how to describe you. “You act exactly as you say.” I took her hand. “And then…I saw how beautiful you were. Is it okay that I saw your outer beauty after I figured out that I loved you?”