Real Love

Chapter Four

  “Hello.” Paul was polite, as if trying to apologize with a single word for his absence over the years. John’s face was hardened, his expression cold. “I saw your picture in the paper,” Paul continued, “the one with you and the house. And I just wanted to come and see if you were okay. I mean, I wasn’t just in the neighborhood or anything, I just… So are you okay?”

  John didn’t reply, instead just stood there facing Paul, his eyes seemingly blank.

  “Okay, good,” Paul continued, blabbering on even though John wasn’t saying anything. He was acting like a nervous fangirl in the presence of her celebrity crush. “I’m a stupid man, I shouldn’t have come.”

  Paul walked away, hopping into his car once again. He started up the engine, sweating nervously as he began to drive off. In his nervous haze he didn’t notice the fence along the side of the house, and he drove straight through it, causing it to tumble down onto the ground. His car came to a stop, and he jumped out, a sorry expression on his face.

  “You want to come in?” John asked, trying his best not to send a smile in Paul’s direction.

  “Okay.”

  ——————————————————-

  “This is a good story,” the male patient spoke, a grin across his face.

  “I’m glad you like it.” I smiled back.

  “I think I’ve heard it before…” he said with an unsure look.

  “Yes,” I reassured.

  “Perhaps more than once?”

  “Doctor needs to see you,” Sadie said, coming over to me and the male patient.

  “Me, now?” the patient replied.

  “No, you,” Sadie said, looking at me.

  “But he hasn’t finished reading his story yet,” the male patient whined.

  “I’ll read some more when I’m through with the doctor,” I said, reassuring him. “It won’t take too long, I promise.”

  “Oh… alright.”

  “Don’t you go away. I’ll be right back. While you’re waiting, maybe you’d like to play the piano. You do like that.”

  “I do?” the male patient seemed confused.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I don’t know any tunes.”

  “You can read music,” I smirked, walking away with Prudence to take a visit from the doctor, a man I had never seen before.

  “I’m Doctor Robert,” he said once we were in his room, “one of the new attending physicians. So I thought I’d examine you myself.”

  I nodded, listening to the words that were flowing out of his mouth like endless rain. He hadn’t been talking for too long, but I could tell he was the kind of bloke who blabbered on about nonsense.

  “Okay, so I see here you’ve had two minor heart attacks over the last six months.”

  “Yeah, minor ones. I think it was angina.”

  “Okay, any complications?”

  “Nope, feel fine.”

  “Okay, breath deep for me.”

  He put his stethoscope on me, taking measurements of my breathing as I took several deep breaths.

  “Terrific, terrific,” he said after a while, writing some things down on a clipboard. “You still taking your medications?”