by P. D. Cacek
“I’m sorry,” Nora whispered.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Rollins. Here, why don’t you let me push for a while?”
There was a part of her that wanted to tell him not to, that it might upset Hank, but it felt good to just let go and step away, if only for a moment.
“Thank you.”
Henry…Hank turned around.
“Why are you thanking him?” he asked. “You don’t have to thank him, he’s just one of the kids they hire for the summer to help out with the boats and things. You don’t have to thank him.”
“He’s thinking about the fishing camp we used to go to,” Nora explained. “Hen— Hank, this is Stan. You remember Stan.”
“Well, of course I remember Stan!” When he turned around again, his face was shiny with sweat but he was smiling. “Stan the Man. Plays a mean game of dominoes, don’t you, Stan?”
“That I do, Mr. H.…but you still always beat my butt.”
“Beat your butt,” Henry or Hank or whoever it was now threw back his head and howled with laughter. “Beat your butt! Gonna beat your butt!”
He was getting too excited.
“Shh, it’s okay. Shh,” Nora said softly. “Just calm down and relax.”
Henry/Hank stopped shouting and glared at her. “Don’t you tell me to relax, woman. Who the hell you think you’re talking to? I don’t know you.”
This was the new one: tense, suspicious and, as yet, without a name. He’d only been around a couple of weeks and, thankfully, most of his ‘visits’ were short. Dr. Cross said it was a normal progression of the disease.
As if anything was normal now.
Stan stopped the wheelchair and touched Nora’s arm before turning his attention to Henry.
“Now, Mr. H., you stop that. This is a very nice lady and you shouldn’t yell at her like that.”
The tension drained from Henry’s body as it crumpled in on itself.
“Oh. Yeah, I…I’m sorry, missus, I shouldn’t have…said, you know, that. My mama taught me better’n that.”
“That’s okay,” Nora said and fell in step next to the wheelchair as the three of them headed back to the facility.
“No.” Henry shook his head. “No, it isn’t. My mama would’a smacked me silly if she’d heard me talk like that to anyone, let alone a nice lady like you.”
Stan chuckled. “And what do you think your wife would say?”
Henry tipped his head back and laughed. “Wife? I don’t have a wife! My mama’d skin me bald if I didn’t finish high school first!”
And he laughed and laughed and laughed until he yawned and fell asleep.
“Well,” Stan said softly.
Nora nodded. “Well.”
“It’s just the illness.”
“I know.”
Stan pushed the wheelchair to one side of the path to let an elderly lady with a walker and her companion, a nurse’s aide named Cindy, go by.
“Good afternoon, Miss Carter,” Stan said to the woman. “Have a nice walk.”
“Oh, we will,” Cindy answered and looked down at Henry before meeting Nora’s eyes. “Hi, Mrs. Rollins. He’s sleeping, that’s nice.”
It was nice when Henry was asleep, but when he woke up there’d be a little more of him missing. And she knew that one day he’d go to sleep and when he woke up, if he woke up, there’d be nothing of him left.
“Why don’t I just take him back to his room,” Stan said, already pushing him toward the facility’s back entrance, “I think he’s pretty much done for the day.”
Sundowner Syndrome, they called it…but it wasn’t even mid-afternoon. “Tell him I’ll be back in the morning.”
“I will,” Stan promised as he wheeled Henry away, “and I’ll tell him you said good night.”
Nora watched them until they disappeared into the building and wondered if Henry would even remember she’d been there.
Chapter Ten
Sara
“…and I swear I had nothing to do with it.” Danny crossed his heart. “But our dads put up this giant swing set in the backyard…and I mean massive. Here, I took pictures, let me show you.”
Danny held his smartphone up and quickly scrolled through the images. He’d upgraded when Sara told him they were pregnant and most of the pictures in the online album were of her showing off her belly bulge as it grew from month to month.
She’d always been smiling in the pictures and even now, with the breathing tube taped to her cheek, it looked like the corners of her mouth tilted upward.
Danny swiped another image onto the screen.
“See…what did I tell you? Look at that thing? It’s got everything…two regular swings and one of those seesaw kind of things and a slide and climbing tower. Pretty cool, huh?”
Danny closed the app and put the phone away, then poured himself a tumbler of water from the pitcher on her bedside table. The water was warm and flat and tasted like plastic.
“It was really hot last weekend and I told them it could wait, but you know our dads.” He finished the water and put the tumbler back on the table. “Oh, shoot, there’s something else I need to show you.”
Hauling out his phone again, Danny swiped through the images until he found the ones he wanted and turned the phone toward her.
“Look what our moms did.”
It was a picture of the baby’s room, finished and furnished and looking like something out of a magazine ad.
They hadn’t done much to the room except pick a gender-neutral color for the wall (gray) and agree on white for the trim, windows and door. But while they had cleaned out and packed away the items in the room they’d used for storage since moving in, they’d never actually started painting.
They’d planned to – him painting and her kibitzing – but then she’d gone into the hospital and the paint cans just sat in a corner gathering dust.
Until their mothers decided not to be outdone by their husbands.
“Whadda ya think?”
The first picture showed the white-framed prints of storybook animals that decorated the gray (Offshore Mist) wall above the dresser and changing table. The next picture was of the trompe l’oeil window that opened onto a magical kingdom. The crib, decked out in pastel colors, sat beneath the painted window.
Danny imagined Sara’s eyes going wide as he enlarged the picture. He’d gotten good at imagining things like that.
“Wow, huh?” He nodded as if she’d answered him. “My mom knows the artist, a guy named Hugh from back east. Anyway, Mom asked him to do a mural in the baby’s room and…voila.”
Danny reduced the image and imagined Sara laughing.
“You don’t think the mural’s too much, do you?”
No, it’s perfect.
“Really?”
It’s beautiful.
Danny nodded. “How about the gray walls?”
I knew it would work, really makes the trim stand out.
Danny took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right, it’s perfect for the baby.”
“What is?”
Danny looked up to see Jessie, one of the ICU nurses come through the doorway. He held out the phone to show her.
“The baby’s room, I was just showing Sara.”
“Ooo, let’s have a closer look.” Medium-height and compact of frame, she crossed the floor with the easy grace of a long-distance runner. Danny guessed she was middle-aged, late fifties to mid-sixties if the crown of tightly coiled gray ringlets that bounced with each step and crow’s feet around her eyes were any indication. Sara would have known.
“Wow.”
“Yeah, our moms put it all together.”
Whistling her approval, the nurse pushed the healthcare computer on wheels – affectionately called ‘Bessie’ – around to the opposite side of
the bed and replaced the empty IV bag with the full one.
“Happy Hour,” she said. “I brought you a nice Malbec tonight…very mellow with just a hint of spice at the end.” Jessie looked at Danny and winked. “It’s amazing what we can do with nutritional supplements nowadays. How about you? You want me to have them bring you a tray or will you be braving the culinary wilds of the cafeteria? It’s Tuesday.”
Tuesday – Taco Night. Last night, Monday, was Build Your Own Burgers. Tomorrow, Wednesday, would be Mac-n-Cheese followed by Meatloaf Thursday and Fish Fry Friday. Weekends it was safer to stick with pizza or the soup and salad bar.
In seven weeks of daily visits Danny had memorized the menu, the names of the ICU nurses, morning and night shifts, and knew who was on a diet and who was allergic to what. He knew how many ceiling tiles there were in the family waiting room and how many electric candles flickered on the altar in the small hospital chapel.
After seven weeks he even knew which stairwells he could escape to when he needed to cry.
“Yay, tacos,” Danny said and slipped the smartphone back into his pocket. “But I’m not hungry right now.”
“You have to eat something,” Jessie said as she fed Sara’s current stats into Bessie.
“I will.”
“Can I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
Jessie looked up. “Go home, kick off your shoes and make something to eat. It can even be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, just make sure it’s something you like, no, not just like…something you love.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to remember there are still good things outside this hospital, kiddo. And you need some time off.”
Jessie turned her attention back to the computer. “Besides, you’re going to need all the rest you can get. Pretty soon you’re going to be a new dad and from that moment on life, as you know it, will never be the same.”
It’s not the same now.
“I guess.”
“Well, I know. So, go home, have a PB&J, crack open a beer and watch ESPN.”
Danny reached through the bed rail and took Sara’s hand. It was warm and soft and smooth, a living hand attached to a living arm attached to a body that was only being kept alive for the sake of the baby growing inside it.
Dr. Palmer, Sara’s primary physician, told them – him, their parents – that Sara had died that morning on the kitchen floor.
“I’ll go home early tomorrow,” he said. “Promise.”
“Tomorrow.” Jessie sighed and brushed a wisp of hair off Sara’s forehead. They washed her hair every three days. “What are we going to do with this man of yours, hmm? ”
It was a game they played, him and the ICU nurses, talking to Sara as if she could still hear them…just a game.
“There, we’re done.” Picking up the depleted IV bag, Jessie wheeled Bessie to the door. “You really should take a night off, Danny.”
Danny nodded. “I know.”
When she was gone, Danny scooted the chair closer to the edge of Sara’s hospital bed.
“I’m probably driving her crazy,” he whispered, “but between you and me, I think she loves it. Just don’t tell her I said that, okay?”
Never.
Picking up the bed’s integrated control, Danny leaned back in his chair and turned on the wall-mounted TV. The hospital got HBO and SHOWTIME, but Sara had always been an old movie buff, so Danny kept it on TCM.
“So, let’s see what’s on tonight. All right! We hit the jackpot. The Misfits…that’s one of your favorites. It already started. Is it loud enough? I’ll just turn it a little louder, how’s that?”
Perfect.
God bless you, Ted Turner.
The last thing Danny remembered was seeing Marilyn Monroe smile, and woke to the sound of footsteps in the corridor, blinking the TV screen back into view. Either The Misfits was over, or else he’d forgotten the part with Yul Brynner and the Nazis. He turned the set off.
The footsteps in the corridor got louder as Danny raised his arms over his head and stretched.
“Don’t you ever go home?”
Danny lowered his arms and smiled. “We were watching a movie.”
“Ah.”
Dr. Palmer was probably his age, but the streaks of gray in his jet-black hair and deepening lines in his face made him look older. In the seven weeks they’d been there Danny had never seen the man wear anything but dark blue scrubs. Tonight he had on a white lab coat over the scrubs.
“Going formal tonight, I see.”
The doctor smoothed the lapels of the coat. “I try. I came by earlier, but didn’t want to wake you.”
Danny sat up straighter. “You were here?”
“Only for a minute,” Dr. Palmer said as he walked to the foot of the bed. “Jessie tells me that she’s been scolding you.”
“She has.”
“Good, so…”
Danny forced himself to relax. The first few times he’d listened to the doctor talk about Sara’s blood pressure and respiration rate and blood oxygen saturation levels and fetal placental circulation and pressure sores, the muscles in Danny’s neck and shoulders had cramped.
“…she’s one tough little lady.”
Danny reached out and took his wife’s hand. “Sara always was.”
“I know,” Dr. Palmer said, “but I’m talking about your daughter.”
“My daughter?” Danny squeezed his wife’s hand and forgot, really forgot, that she wasn’t there. “Did you hear that, Sara? We’re going to have a daughter.” Still holding her hand, he leaned forward and talked directly to her swollen belly. “Hi, Emily.”
“That’s a nice name.”
“Yeah. Emily….” A cold wave washed over him. “I forgot what her middle name’s supposed to be.”
“You have some time, don’t worry about it yet.”
“Yeah.” Danny took a deep breath. “Yeah, okay.”
“I didn’t know if you wanted to know or not, but— Well, it’s a rather unique case and I thought….” The doctor’s voice trailed off into nothing.
“No. No, it’s fine. Thank you.” He looked up, nodding like a bobblehead. They were going to have a daughter. He could call his folks and Sara’s and tell them they were going to have a granddaughter. “Really, thank you. Wow…a daughter. I knew it. I kept teasing Sara that we’d have a girl.”
“Daddy’s little girl,” the doctor said. “Congratulations.”
The doctor was right. Emily would be her daddy’s little girl, because that’s the only parent she’d have. They weren’t having a daughter, he was. His daughter, Emily, would never know her mother except from pictures and old videos because once she was delivered the plan was to turn off the machines that were keeping her mother alive.
Danny took a deep breath. “When?”
“We’re aiming for August 24th.”
“That soon? I thought the baby…Sara’s due date was mid-September.”
The doctor nodded. “That was the original plan, but it would be better for the baby—”
“For Emily,” Danny corrected. “It’s not that much longer, couldn’t we wait?”
“It would be better for Emily.”
Danny put his hand on his wife’s belly and felt his daughter move beneath her skin.
“This is where she’s supposed to be. It’s the best place for her.”
“Under normal circumstances it would be, but we can only do so much to keep Sara viable. If her lungs were more developed I’d deliver your daughter now, but they aren’t and, you’re right, for the moment this is the best place for her.”
A tiny bump, a hand or foot, traced the lifeline on Danny’s palm. She was strong. “August 24th…that’s Leo, right? Our little lioness.”
“No, it’s Virgo,” the doctor said,
“but it’s close enough.”
Chapter Eleven
Jamie
“Just sit down, will you, Ry?”
Ryan stood just beyond the room’s privacy curtain, his back to the hallway, the pastry bag he’d managed to sneak past the nurses’ station in hand, and glared at the two people glaring at him. They had taken the room’s recliner and one visitor’s chair.
“Where?” he asked.
“I’ll get you another chair,” Jiro said.
“Don’t bother. They’re leaving.”
“Ryan, come on….”
“I’m his mother,” the female half of They huffed, “and I have every right to be here.”
“Not on Thursday.” Ryan said, first looking at Jiro, then Jamie, and finally at Jamie’s parents. “Thursdays are my days. Get out.”
“Jesus Christ, Ryan, shut up.” Jamie’s voice was still so weak the demand was almost laughable.
“How dare you speak to my wife—”
“You too, Dad,” Jamie said. “All of you, just shut up for a minute, okay?”
Jamie’s parents might be upper-crust white-bread liberals who had accepted their son’s homosexuality as they had accepted his former lovers without question, but they were never going to forgive Ryan for what he’d done to their only son even if it was an accident – a stupid, one-in-a-million freak accident that had snapped Jamie’s T1 thoracic vertebra and left him paralyzed from the waist down.
They hated him almost as much as he hated himself, but he didn’t need seeing that hatred reflected back at him every time he visited, so rules had been made and a schedule written. Ryan got Tuesdays, Thursdays and all day Saturday and Jamie’s parents got Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Friends could come and go as they pleased except for Monday. Mondays were reserved for tests and therapy and rest.
Today was Thursday, his day, and yet there they were.
Ryan shifted his glare to the thin, pale frame on the bed crowned in a surgical steel halo.
“I asked them to be here, Ryan,” Jamie said. “They didn’t want to come, but I didn’t want to have to go through this more than once.”
“Go through what?”
Jiro was on the move again. “Really, let me get you a chair, Ry, this won’t take long, but….”