George opened the door to his home, a quaint house set back behind a lawn among the bigger multi-dwelling houses around. The console table with the silver plate for the keys and photo of the couple in an intimate embrace was as untouched as the rest of the house. A gentle breeze came from the open kitchen window. The kitchen was empty. At the center was a big rustic farm house style table, which had its surface scratched up by a million prep knife slice marks. The living room was silent with the big screen TV turned off and a blanket muddled on the empty couch.
"Honey, I'm home." No response.
He rapidly went up the stairs with the plush white carpeting that invited one to snuggle with the floor. The den under the roof had a flatly angled ceiling. It was a hangout spot with a big Western cow hide on the floor, leather cubes to sit on, game boards stowed in a tray, and an old guitar lying on the floor. Also partially lying on the floor was Liz. Her body was on the floor, and her torso was slumped over one of those seating cubes. She was wearing a turquoise oversized shirt and fluffy, wide drawstring pants.
"Oh, sweetie..."
He gently placed his palms on her slender shoulders and moved her body back to see her face. "George, you are here," exclaimed Liz with her eyes glowing and a smile on her pale face. She shivered gently in his hands like a vibrating cell phone. Thick droplets of sweat were on her chest. Completely oblivious to her state, Liz said, with a coquettish voice and smile, "I like you."
"Liz, why are you up here? You haven't gone up the stairs in a long time."
"Oh, I am up in the den. I don't know how I got here. All I know is that you woke me up. I love those full, dark red lips."
"Your body is ice cold. We have to go to the hospital now."
"Kiss me with those lips."
George swiftly kissed her on her lips. The sensation of her small, soft pink lips on his imprinted itself on his mind, while he went to the bed room to get the ready bag with the tooth brush, a set of sweats, the stuffed mini turtle, and a book. He went back upstairs to get Liz.
He lifted her up against his chest. She instinctively hugged him with her arms and snuggled her head against his. She was sitting on his right arm. Since she had lost thirty pounds, it had been a necessity to carry her for fast movement, and it had become easy to do so. Like a little kid riding on her dad's body, her body accompanied his movements.
They got into a cab covered with advertising for Corona beer. The scratched up plastic screen separated them from the driver. "Mount Mary emergency room." The driver took a second look into the rear view mirror to appraise his passengers. The African fresh of the boat asked in his accent, "you no bleeding, hope not." "No, she is not bleeding," answered George sternly. The cabbie waved his left arm out of the window to accelerate into traffic.
"I don't want to go to the hospital," screamed Liz. Her hands reached for the door handle. George quickly threw himself on top of her to reach her hand before the door could swing open into traffic. Liz's body jerked from her sobbing. Her face was instantly wet from tears. "I don't want to go."
George took both her hands in his lap, and faced her with raised eye brows: "Honey, your body is so cold. Something is very wrong. We need a doctor." Liz was lost in her sobbing. George held her in her arms the best that he could, while his gray, somber face looked ahead. His gaze aimed through the open speaking window in the plastic screen, in between the two front seats, and through the windshield with permit stickers.
The car bounced as they entered the emergency room driveway. A couple of discarded wheel chairs stood along the wall. The big red neon signs read "emergency room." George pushed the double doors open. The pale night light welcomed them. The triage nurse with happy rhinos painted on her scrubs sent them to registration.
Registration had two chairs in front of a bullet proof window. The night clerk slipped a clip board through the horizontal slit. The clerk patiently waited for George to fill out the five page questionnaire and hand over the health insurance card and credit card. The clerk sternly reminded George that he was responsible for payment in full and not the insurance.
Liz was a thin woman, lightly dozing off in the chair. Her hair was red, smooth, and long. Many very light brown freckles covered her face. She always had a cute expression on her face. It was a twinkle from her eyes and cheeks that suggested that she either saw something pretty or was up to something exciting. Her slender arms had a porcelain color and gentleness. Her fingers always had a soft wetness and slight clinginess to her touch.
They walked in a slow shuffle, with Liz's feet dragging on the linoleum floor to the triage nurse. The floor was probably clean. However, the age of the hospital always made it seem scummy. The triage nurse was on a pedestal to oversee the waiting room. She had curly black hair.
The triage nurse slowly walked in front of them into the bowels of the hospital. She had a bored swagger in her walk and was too tired to talk. "You'll be here for a while. Make yourself comfortable. The doctor will be with you in two or three hours." She left the couple in a small emergency bedroom. Liz crawled onto the bed with the railing and many adjustment levers. George sat down on a chair next to her and held her hand against his forehead, while he rested his head on the bed.
The waiting time was long. There was no conversation. There were no idle thoughts. Their minds were too focused on the anticipation of the doctor. In a kind of stupor, the minutes passed, the quarter hours passed. The mind gently separated from the passage of time. The second hour left almost no memory.
"I am hungry. Can you get me some food?"
Liz was perked up on the bed with new life. George's face was sleepy. He revved himself up internally to stand up and leave the room. Walking down the ghostly night time hospital hallway, he found a closed concession stand. He found a nurse station. He asked about food. All the food had been closed. The nurse offered a box of blueberries that she had bought for herself. George gave her $5 for it.
"Blueberries?! You bring me blueberries? They taste like ass. The chemo has shifted my sense of taste. They taste like ass." Liz paused. George had a look of silent defeat. That mischievous smile crawled across her face and lit up her eyes. George saw it and only shook his head in deeper defeat. "I mean that figuratively, because if they tasted literally of ass, I'd eat 'em. Oh, I love the taste of your ass. Such delicious memories of rimming you!"
George silently thought to himself, anyone in an emergency room has carte blanche for any kind of behavior.
They broke into a conversation of memories, of ocean vacations and rolling in the dunes, of riding bicycles through sunny, worry-free days, and a rented barn with hay for a weekend vacation. They talked of their dreams to build a Jacuzzi in the backyard and of having champagne parties in it.
George got all chipper, talking. The blood rushed back into his face. He had curly hair and was the guy you wanted around a campfire in nature. He was tall and muscular. The business slacks and shirt fit his body well. The contour of his body made the clothing look outstanding. He had big cheeks.
The doctor entered with a flying white coat and interrupted them. He walked around the bed, checked her lymph nodes under the chin, took her temperature, listened to her lungs, peeked into her mouth, and wrote on his clip board with a serious face. "We'll switch her medication. The side effects of her current medication clearly do harm. I will be back with a new prescription." And, then he left -- 300 seconds bedside, tops.
The door was left ajar. George could hear the doctor talking outside with a colleague.
"I am thinking of switching her from Gemazar to a double dose of Afinitor. Her temperature is crashing."
"Sounds reasonable. Last week, we had to drop Mutamycin on a patient." The voice sounded, proud, and excited like a teenager about to attempt a stunt.
"Dude, don't some patients gets blue eyes from Mut?"
"Oh, yeah, she looked like an alien. We took some photos telling her that it was for a medical school."
"Maybe I should inject some gold into my patient." The doctor's voice had dropped in a struggle to claim more authority in the one-upmanship game.
"I don't think the insurance would care. It's a pretty cheap drug."
George roused Liz to get out of bed. He whispered, "I am not okay with this doctor." Liz followed George pulled by her hand like a little girl tired after a long walk. The doctors raised their eyes as they passed, yet kept talking.
The couple entered the elevator with two other doctors and stood in silence. Both doctors were facing the front of the elevator.
"So, what courses are you going to sign up next semester?"
"I really like respiratory. Right at the beginning of the patent visit, I put the breathing test equipment on their face. And then they can't talk anymore. I don't like people. That way, I can just do my medicine and don't have to deal with them."
The elevator door opened on the third floor. George pulled Liz with even more vehemence to the chief's office. The assistant chief had them sit down in his room in front of his desk. The big medical books towered behind the assistant chief to give him more credibility.
