“When can I go home?” Fear timbred his voice. “I don’t
like it here.”
“No, it feels like a morgue,” he replied.
“The doctor said you looked good today. She said if you’re
doing this well tomorrow, they’re going to send you home,” she
said.
“I can go home?”
“Maybe, we have to see what tomorrow brings,” I added,
ending the statement on an up note.
*
Two weeks pass before I hear from the director again. She
time she called, he just said he wasn’t paying for nothing and hung
up. It took a couple tries before she could speak to him again.
She says he made it clear he’d be responsible for nothing. He was
Furthermore, he couldn’t make it up to sign for the body. She says
he threatened her with harassment and vowed to call the police
and he gave her the boy’s number. She says he doesn’t want to be
contacted any longer. This is all news to me. I never knew he had a
son.
*
My wife had tended to him for the last two days and three
nights, since he’d been admitted, and you could see the wear in her
body. The only thing to sleep on was a lounge chair that pitched
back at the most torturous angle, but even if she could sleep he’d
cry out through the night, out of discomfort, out of panic, but
mostly out of fear that he’d been left alone. She’d be seated outside
the range of his vision and if I opened the door, he, still clutching
that side rail as if the consequence of letting go meant disappearing
forever aimlessly into the ether, would scream out with muted
strength, ‘Where you going?’
“I’m just going for coffee, Lewis. I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t leave me,” he’d say with panic stricken eyes.
“Karen’s right there,” and I’d point in the corner, “she’s
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