Post tenebras lux.
The church bells began to chime out an eerily cheerful tune as we walked out the door. The upbeat nature of the whole thing was somewhat startling, which is what caused me to pay any attention in the first place. I listened for a moment, just standing there on the steps, before being able to place the song; Simple Gifts. I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit as I looked around at the others walking past. It was, after all, a rather ironic song to play at a funeral.
“Bill was sick this week,” said Pastor Benjamin Phillips, patting me on the shoulder. “He wasn’t able to get in and change the music out. And with all that’s been going on this week… I’m sorry.”
“Change,” I asked, my voice considerably more gruff than I had meant for it to be. “Why would old Bill change anything on my account? It’s a cheerful song, after all, and I’m sure everyone could use something like that right now.”
“I’m glad you think so, Simon.” The pastor smiled that ever-so-kind smile that I had seen him turn on and off a thousand times before. For some reason, it really bothered me today. Actually, everything about the man was suddenly bothersome, from his tweed blazer to that odd Moose Lodge ring that never seemed to leave the man’s hand. If he hadn’t been a friend of Jill’s, I probably would’ve been harsh.
“That was sarcasm. Do they not have that in the Church?” Well, harsher. What followed was something that I’m pretty sure all people in religious positions are required to learn before they’re allowed to do their thing. It’s that sign of pious disappointment where they lower their shoulders slightly, tilt their head, and have a pitying look upon their faces. It’s like they want to say, “Shame on you, good sir, for I’m sure that you know better.” They never say it, but you know they’re thinking it. Instead, they just do this little move and then try to chide you as if you were a child.
“Things have been rough. I understand.” Maybe I was being too harsh. There wasn’t any chiding in that. “But don’t become hateful.” The pastor put his hand upon my shoulder again. Now the chiding comes. Guy makes a living at it, though, so I guess I can’t begrudge him that. He continued, “Anger is a natural response to loss, but we must rise above it. Jillian was a special woman, we both know that. And we both know what she would do if the roles were reversed.”
“But they aren’t reversed, are they? Things are as they are.” It sounded rather poignant in my head, but unfortunately it just sounded like the misdirected anger Pastor Ben was talking about. I also noticed that a few people were lingering, obviously enjoying the show I was starting to put on. Even though I wanted to try to win the argument, Ben was right about something: Jillian was a special woman and I didn’t want to cause too much of a scene at the ceremony honoring her memory. He was probably right about the other stuff, too, but I didn’t want to dwell too much on that. Curse his common sense. Instead, I just turned and continued going down the stairs. The old pastor, however, was too concerned with my immortal soul or something to just let it go.
“Remember that Paul tells us: ‘For I am convinced that neither death nor life… nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Though you feel alone, know that you are not. Do not be discouraged and rejoice in the Lord.” To his credit, the man looked like he genuinely cared, which I’m sure I’d find touching in the weeks to come. However, ‘rejoice’ may have been a poor choice of words.
“You may be right, Ben. But I know something else: ‘It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back’,” I said, rather cleverly, with a subtle nod to the bells still chiming away. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go put my wife into a hole in the ground.”
***
The waiting room for Mercy Hospital’s E.R. wing smelled of Lysol. There wasn’t a terribly complex reason behind why this was so, though: a kid had thrown up all over the place about five minutes after I got there. It had been pretty gross – lots of little bits and pieces all over – though colorful, I’ll give the kid that much. I imagine the virtual rainbow that flowed from the little snot’s face was part of the reason why he was in the hospital. His mom, for one, didn’t seem too surprised by the whole display and the kid seemed to actually enjoy it a little. His dad just seemed annoyed by the whole thing. Prismatic vomit was also apparently a good way to get moved through the system quickly and within another few minutes it was just me, the janitor, and his mighty bottle of disinfectant.
After the young janitor left, I was struck by how uproariously silent the place was. You’ll have that, I guess, at 2:30 in the morning but it was still a little weird. Occasionally the beep of a machine or the ring of a phone would issue down the long, sterile hall leading into the hospital proper, but most of the time there was simply nothing. The walls seemed to scream silently at me, far too bright in that ridiculous hospital lighting, challenging me to do the same. And I wanted to scream, really I did. That, however, would’ve been rather unprofessional of me.
And so I sat there and stared at the walls. Nature couldn’t make anything that quiet, that stark, that loud. I quickly decided that I would go nuts if I had to sit there for much longer, so I got up and started to pace. Somehow, walking brought me back to the moment and I forgot to be angry at the devilish walls. Instead, I was angry at just about everything else. What in the bloody hell was I even doing there? It wasn’t fair; I should be in bed. I had a progress report due to the boss man on Monday and I didn’t have time to be sitting – or in this case, pacing – in a hospital. And who in their right mind goes driving in the middle of the night? I mean, I enjoy driving. I have a pretty little car and I enjoy how it gets me from Point A to Point B, but had never seen it as a way to vent frustration. That was just idiotic. Moreover, there had been rain and fog all over the place. It was just dumb to be out in that.
With that thought, I sunk back down into a seat, a discarded magazine crunching under me as I did. I absently noticed that my left foot was cold. Glancing down, I saw that I had at some point walked right out of the cheap flip-flop that I had thrown on in my hurried attempt to get down here. It was sitting over by the lovely looking fake plant that stood in one corner of the room. Not caring, I lowered my head to cradle it with my hands. She had been out in the rain and dark because of me, of course. That didn’t help anything at all.
“Mister… Fisher,” a feminine voice asked hesitantly off to my left. Without lifting my head, I nodded, which was harder to do than you’d think with your face in your hands. It probably didn’t look like much but the lady was obviously a professional. “Mr. Fisher, we’ve moved your wife to the ICU if you’d like to wait there. It would be easier to –”
“How is she?” My head seemed to finally muscle up enough effort to lift itself and look at the nurse. She was wearing possibly the ugliest pair of scrubs I had ever seen. They were covered in what looked like a cooking herb pattern, overlaid with a completely random variety of animals. There in one place was thyme, a monkey, a pig, rosemary, a cardinal, and some bay leaves. Weirdest damn thing I had ever seen. It was almost distracting enough for me to forget about why I was there. Maybe that’s why she wore it.
“As I said, she’s in the ICU,” she muttered, bashfully covering her chest with a clipboard. Maybe I had made a face or something. Oops. “There are a number of broken ribs as well as a broken collarbone, a punctured lung, and a bit of trauma to a number of organs.”
“What, exactly, does ‘a bit of trauma’ mean,” I asked, rather rudely. I wasn’t a mean man, I thought, but this was a special circumstance.
“One kidney is most likely damaged beyond repair while the other is at least bruised, if not worse. Damage is also present around her stomach, though it isn’t of major concern, as well as a portion of her liver. Her esophagus was also damaged, though the main concern right now is her kidney. She also suffered a concussion though there doesn’t appear to be any unusual swelling of the brain. She swallowed a lot of water but it isn’t a major issue, considering.”
“I see.” I didn’t. The Basil Lady had simply listed a number of body parts, as far as I was concerned.
“Now if you wouldn’t mind, will you follow me to the ICU waiting room? It will be easier to find you if need be.” To her credit, she could at least fake sympathy pretty well. I shrugged, indifferent to the whole thing, but my legs had other ideas. They hauled me up and – after retrieving my discarded flip-flop – slowly trudged along behind the nurse, dragging me along with them down the disinfected halls of blinding emptiness.
I suddenly saw this cheesy commercial running through my head. It starred a fat, bald little man in an ugly suit and snakeskin boots standing before one of these pristine walls. Around him were other obnoxiously boring things, such as a receptions counter, an end table, a fake plant; the works. Above him shone the brightest halogen light you’d ever seen. “Hello folks,” he said in a ridiculous accent. “I’m Sam Higgs of Hospitals R Us! Looking for the perfect thing to stick by those ugly waiting room chairs? Wanting to put the most distance between you and your clientele? Wishing to blind people coming in off the street? Then stop on by; we have everything you need to build yourself a proper hospital! Remember, nothing says ‘Health!’ like a big glowing wall! Stop by today!”
My imagination was cracking under the stress, I decided. Sam Higgs? I named him and everything? Maybe I needed to check myself in, too. With a shake, I looked up and realized that the door of an elevator was sliding open in front of me. I nodded appreciatively to my legs and took over from there, stepping forward into the ICU waiting room. I wasn’t more than two feet from the lift before the fecal matter hit the proverbial fan.
“Where have you been?!” someone shrieked from across the room. “I’ve been here for over thirty minutes, worrying and fretting, and you take your good old time to saunter in!”
“Mrs. Atkins, how nice to see you again,” I said in the driest voice I could muster, my hand subconsciously seeking my temple, as I walked over to the old woman. “Nice of you to stop by.”
The side of my face bloomed in pain as my vision blurred and my ears popped. Unfortunately, I hadn’t braced for a smack to the head and my legs were just as surprised as I was. They buckled under me and I haphazardly slumped into a nearby chair.
“Bloody hell, woman,” I said, my hand shielding the side of my head. “Sarcasm’s never had that effect on you before. I’m impressed.”
“Well maybe you need to take things a little more seriously. That’s my daughter lying in there.”
She had a point.
“I’m sorry,” I said honestly as I stood again. “I’ve been down in the ER waiting room. I didn’t know they rushed her up here.”
“Oh,” Jill’s mother said, some of the righteous anger seeping out of her. She just stood there a moment, seemingly lost, before abruptly turning and going back to where she had been sitting before. I noted that it was as close to the doors as possible. Surprisingly, they hadn’t needed to post guards at the doors to keep Mary Atkins from charging in. I guess I had missed the “you can’t go into the ICU” speech.
Sighing, I glanced at my wrist before recalling that I had forgotten to slap my watch on before leaving. There was this pale white strip where it usually rested and for some reason that freaked me out so I quickly dropped my hand. I don’t know, so don’t ask. Instead, I thought it best to go give my mother-in-law a little support. I plopped down into the chair beside her a few moments later and searched about for a clock. 2:43 am. I absently wondered how long we’d have to sit there.
About a week passed before I glanced up at the clock again.
2:51 am.
Damn.
“This is your fault,” Mary said, matter-of-factly, as way of an icebreaker. I didn’t really know how to respond to that so, for a time, I simply sat there. The evil woman obviously knew how to hurt people because that comment hurt a bit. But then, she’d been verbally slaying husbands for a number of years, so I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised.
“This was an accident,” I muttered, more defensively than I had wanted.
“Right, because she often went driving out around the lake in the middle of the night.”
“Listen here,” I said, whirling. Anger burned inside of me; more anger than I had felt in quite a while. More so, even, than I had felt earlier that evening when Jill and I had argued. I looked at Mrs. Atkins, ready to unleash my fury… but I didn’t. There was a bit of anger in her eyes, yeah, but that wasn’t the majority of what huddled there. Most of it was fear and confusion. Mary was simply doing the only thing that came naturally to her when she felt vulnerable: lash out at men. I sighed again and rubbed my forehead. “Let’s just focus on Jill’s recovery right now, okay? We can settle the blame game when the doctors finish patching her up. Deal?”
“Fine,” she sniffed, sharply looking away from me.
I didn’t feel like talking to the woman much, either, so I just looked the opposite direction. There were two other people sitting over on the other side of the waiting room. At first, I couldn’t see them very well, as they were holding one another tightly. I was suddenly aware of light sobs coming from their general direction. Then I recognized them. They were the parents of the kid with the magical puke. They didn’t look unconcerned or annoyed anymore. They looked terrified.
Did you know that the concept of the Intensive Care Unit was conceived by Florence Nightingale? That’s right, the Lady with the Lamp, herself. Back during the Crimean War, she wandered over into Istanbul and decided that the hospitals there weren’t running too efficiently. Apparently they were actually killing more people than they were helping, which is pretty much the opposite of a hospital’s supposed modus operandi. So she had the bright idea of putting the sick people by themselves in nice, clean rooms where they could be treated and where they couldn’t spread their problems to others. Apparently mortality rates dropped by, like, forty percent or so. All in all, I’d call it a good job on her part. She probably didn’t foresee the consequences of this, however; that being the waiting room.
They were like cesspools of dread and hopelessness. I had felt it as soon as I had walked out of the elevator; a lot more sorrow had been felt in this room than happiness. And the people within the room just fed on one another. Mary slapping me had probably caused that other mom to start crying, which had caused powerful sadness waves to rush over the room, sapping the strength from Mary and making her sit down. Now I sat there and watched those two – so distraught over their child’s problem, whatever it was – and couldn’t help but fear for the worst. Their kid had seemed just fine a few minutes ago, and now he was apparently in intensive care. I had seen him, colorful but happy. Jill had ran off the road and slammed into a tree at forty-five miles an hour before slipping down a small incline into the lake below. What kind of chance did she possibly have?
A month passed.
3:37 am.
The doors of the ICU popped open, the sudden noise startling me back to life. The doctor, looking exhausted, swept his gaze across the room for a moment before dropping his head slightly and walking over to the parents. They talked a bit, the father seeming oddly detached with the mother entirely too attached. Finally, the doctor nodded again, his back to me, before patting the mother on the shoulder and walking back into the ICU. The mom had a big grin upon her face while the dad looked resigned yet hopeful. What can I say; I’m good at reading faces.
So positive news for the kid, then. That was good. Florence saved another one.
At 3:53 am – I had become the self-appointed Warden of the Clock – the family left with a nurse, supposedly to go to the regular hospital room their son now occupied. I had never heard of anybody moving through the ICU that quickly, but I wasn’t a doctor. All I knew was that by 3:54 am, Mary and I had the place to ourselves. We got our own little doctor visit a short time later (4:21 am, in case you were curious) but it wasn’t as productive as I had hoped.
“We’ve managed to stabilize her,” the exhausted doctor – another exhausted doctor; not Rainbow Boy’s doctor – said. I suppose all doctors are exhausted in the middle of the night. Or maybe doctors are just exhausted all the time, I don’t know. “Unfortunately, that’s all of the positive news I have for you at the moment. We’re still got a long night ahead of us. I recommend going home and getting some sleep; the next procedures could take hours.”
“I’m not leaving my daughter,” Mary said at about the same time I said, “I’m not leaving my wife.” It was rather classic, I suppose, though I didn’t dwell on it. We were just two very stubborn people. Mary continued. “So when will she be moved to a room?”
“Ma’am, ‘stable’ isn’t the same thing as ‘better’,” the doctor said without trying to be condescending. He didn’t do a good job. “I’m saying that your daughter isn’t likely to start randomly bleeding on the table. We still need to do a lot of work to get her to the point of safety.”
“Then get back in there,” I said, pointing at the door. I knew that the guy was having a long night. I knew that you typically didn’t sign up for a job like this unless you really cared about saving people’s lives. He was doing his best. And I didn’t care.
He wasn’t doing enough.
He was apparently used to mean families, though, as he simply bowed his head, then nodded and headed back in. Mary sighed and looked at me. All of the anger was gone now. It had been replaced with fatigue. To be honest, she looked like crap and I was sure I looked no better. We both settled back into a chairs and I tried to get a little sleep. It was hard, but I managed it.
I awoke to a sudden pain in my shin. Eyes creaking open, I saw Mary looming over, two cups of coffee in her hands. “Here,” she said, handing me one, before settling back into her chair. I grunted my thanks as I slid a bit up in my chair and rubbed my face. Warden duties returning, I checked the clock.
5:49 am.
I had slept for a while, then. I took a sip of coffee and felt the stuff burn down my throat. It was black, which was disgusting, but I didn’t care. There were more people in the waiting room now, most looking somewhat rested if a little run down. Hospitals will do that to you, I guess. These were the people that I didn’t want to be like. They were the ones that had probably come back to this room day in and day out for weeks, maybe even months. Their lives now extended no further than the vending machine down the hall, excluding wherever they found a place to sleep. I didn’t think that I could survive a prolonged stay in a place like that.
It turned out that I wouldn’t have to.
6:12 am.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor was saying, a hand resting gently upon Mary’s shoulder. “Her kidneys were simply too damaged. She gave a valiant effort, but the procedure…”
Mary was crying.
6:13 am.
At some point, my coffee cup had slipped out of my hand. The polystyrene shattered on impact, the little heat sleeve unable to contain the contents of the cup. Lukewarm coffee shot out of the thing, running across the spotless linoleum tile in haphazard streams. It would probably stain if it was left for too long. I should probably clean that up.
Mary was crying.
6:14 am.
There would be a lot to do, now. Funerals were expensive and took a fair bit of planning. Did we have enough money for that? Did Jill have life insurance? I had no idea; she always took care of stuff like that. Actually, I knew virtually nothing about how our finances operated. I remember that one time I wanted re-shingle the roof because of its weathered color bothered me. She had spent twenty minutes explaining to me how that would be a gigantic waste of money. We’d ended up laughing over my complete lack of understanding of even basic accounting principles. I’d be lost if anything ever happened to her.
Oh. Right.
6:15 am.
I shook. Jill... She was gone. How? How could she leave us? How could something like this happen? We were still practically kids. This didn’t happen to people like us. Jill. Gone. I was paralyzed and not even the coffee sloshing around my flip-flops could touch me. What was I going to do?
Jill was dead.
Mary was crying.
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