The King's Nurse [Elvis]

Chapter 7 - Time To Do Something About All Those Pills

At around nine o'clock at night, there was knocking on my door. I hadn't even gotten ready for bed yet since I was pouring over one the medical textbooks I brought with me to the house. It was this one-thousand-page tome that was about four inches thick. I looked away from the book and to the door, my eyes stinging. I had been reading from it for the past few hours, since dinner.

"Come in," I said loudly, and the door opened. In came little Lisa, dressed in a pink night gown that went to her feet. I instantly gave her a friendly smile. "Oh, hi, Lisa. Come in."

"Okay," she said and came in after shutting the door. She walked over to me. "What are you doing?"

I looked at the book, then at her. "Reading a medical book."

She glanced at it and crinkled her nose. "For fun? There's no pictures, and the words are tiny."

I chuckled. "It's both for fun and research. I'm mainly reading about the medications that your daddy is taking."

"Don't you know about those, though?"

"I do, I just wanted a reminder. I'm also looking at his illnesses."

"Like his heart problem? I heard Mom talk on the phone with Grandpa about that."

She knew a lot about what was going on with her father. "Yes. But that isn't the main problem here. I would like to show you something..." I pulled open one of the four drawers on the right of the desk, the bottom one, which was the biggest. I took out one of the three prescription bottles in there. "You see this? This I took from your daddy's bathroom, along with those others."

She let out a little gasp and took the bottle from me. "You took these out of his bathroom? Way to go! I tried taking out bottles before, and he always yelled at me."

"Oh, he was upset that I was taking it. You see, when we were out meeting the mayor today, after the lunch social, Elvis went to the restroom. Well, he wasn't really going to the restroom, but wanted to sneak away and take some Aspirin. I caught him, and... we made a deal. As his nurse, I would be his pill bank, you know, like you mentioned before. He and I agreed that if he wanted any type of pill, he would have to get them from me. Since he was annoyed that I took the Aspirin and those sleeping pills that you're holding, I said that I would take those from him for now. Tomorrow, I plan on taking all the pills."

Lisa pressed her lips together as she looked over the bottle, and the pills inside it made noise as she moved it around. "He's not gonna like it, but it has to be done. I think I'll help you, and maybe I can get Grandpa to help, too."

"I think that's a great idea. What about Ginger?"

"Ginger's too scared to talk to Daddy about his health, like at all."

She wanted to remain on Elvis's good side, even though their relationship probably wouldn't last much longer. "I see."

"Thanks for taking these ones, though," Lisa said and put the bottle back in the drawer and shut it. "It's great that he's finally listening to one of us. Mom and Grandpa tried to get him to go on a vacation to a place where he could heal, but... he said no. He should've gone." Her chin trembled. "I don't want my daddy to die..."

My heart dropped to the floor. I took her in my arms, and I immediately smelled her soap. "Oh, honey... he's not going to die. We'll get him better."

She wrapped her arms around my neck as I hugged her boney little body as I sat in my desk chair, and she was standing. "But... he's really sick."

"Sick people can get better. That's why I'm here, okay? I'm going to do my best, and with your help and your family's help, too, your daddy will get better."