6. One Week Later
560 Words
6
One Week Later
Pearland Medical Center.
“So, she’s lucid now?” a male nurse said in the intensive care unit, staring at Jane Doe.
“Yes, they pulled her off the propofol this morning,” another nurse replied. “She started regaining consciousness around two a.m.”
“And is she talking?”
“Yes, but only in fits and starts. They’ve got her on a morphine drip which keeps her pretty groggy. She keeps saying ‘he saved me, he saved me.’ That’s all we’ve gotten out of her so far.”
“Who? You mean the guy on the news they keep calling ‘The Terminator’?”
“I don’t know. I guess so.” Both nurses heard mumbling sounds coming from the patient. “Shhh, she’s saying something.” They leaned closer to her.
“He visits me, you know,” Jane Doe said, though her eyes were still closed. “He visits me.” A smile peeled across her bruised and swollen face. “Here in the hospital. He comes to visit me.”
The two nurses looked at each other.
“Who does, honey? Who visits you?” one of the nurses said.
“He saved me. Those men, they were hurting me. But he saved me. He came in and tore them off of me.”
“The man that saved you comes and visits you here in the hospital?” The nurses exchanged glances again.
“Late at night. You’ll see. He doesn’t want me to tell anybody though.” She giggled as a devious, drunken little grin painted across her face.
As Jane Doe dozed back to sleep, the female nurse said, “She’s out of it, all right. Ain’t nobody visiting her late at night. Must be the morphine talking.”
An hour and a half later several other nurses were in the middle of a shift change. A physician entered the floor while reading a chart. He was draped in blue-green surgical scrubs including cap and booties. He breezed past the patient rooms and stopped at a nurse’s station with his head buried in the clipboard. Without uttering a word, he walked up to one of the hospital desktop computers and tapped the keyboard several times. The chart on Jane Doe popped onto the screen.
“Can I help you, doctor?” said an attractive blonde nurse just starting her shift.
“Just checking in on our girl,” the physician replied as he pointed through the glass toward Jane Doe.
He studied the computer monitor a moment, then rose and walked into Jane Doe’s room. At her bedside, he placed his hand in hers, then squeezed. His touch was warm, firm, and reassuring.
“I knew you’d come,” Jane Doe whispered, though her eyes remained closed.
“How are you feeling?”
“Stronger. Much stronger.”
“Good. I’m glad. But this is the last time I’m going to visit you.”
“But . . .”
“No buts. The risk-reward ratio isn’t high enough,” he said. “When you’re discharged, when you’re at home, I’ll come. I’ll come to you, and we’ll start. It’s going to take a lot of work, but if you listen to me and learn what I teach you, nothing bad will ever happen to you again.”
He turned and walked out. After he was down the hallway and had pushed through the heavy door into the stairwell, the blonde nurse said to the other, “Who is that physician? I’ve never seen him before.”
“Which one?”
“The one that visits Jane Doe sometimes.”
“Girl,” the other said with a little smirk, “you just want to meet him, don’t you? I can see you; yes, I can. I can see you, and you want to get to know him just a little bit better.” Her laughter was infectious.
“Oh, stop.” It was a playful response. “Did you see his eyes? I could get lost in those eyes. And his hands. They look so . . . firm. It’s like he’s all covered up, but you can just tell, can’t you?”
“Tell what?”
“Oh, come on. Like you don’t notice his body. I bet he’s a sculpted piece of man under there.”
They both laughed.
- Writer
