Regretful Love

Chapter Thirteen

                  

It was still dark, not completely but almost. The night nurse was a smiling woman who'd been excited about his adventure.

"Like one of those romance stories," she'd said, when he'd told her where he was going. "Finding your lost love. I like that. Romantic."

Together they'd struggled to get him into his clothes, and she'd even thought to bring him a little breakfast as well, though he didn't feel much like eating. He was carefully chewing a corner of bread when the doctor arrived, sticking his head around the door.

"You ready?" he asked.

Kell nodded, and the doctor opened the door further to push a wheelchair in.

"Best save your strength for when you need it," he said.

Again, Kell nodded, and almost as an afterthought, he grabbed his pack on the way out of the door. He might need it, you never knew, and he didn't feel good about leaving it here. There'd been no sign of the girl, and he reckoned she'd meet them down at the bus station if at all.

Getting into the car, Kell struggled with his seatbelt. It'd been a while since he'd needed to wear one of these, and the metal was cold against his fingers as he finally managed to slide the latch into the holder. The doctor jumped into the driver's seat and handed Kell a package before turning the key so that the engine roared to life.

It was a chilly morning; the heat of the sun just a memory, and clouds of steam came from Kell's mouth as the car began to move down the track from the nursing home and out onto the road.

"What's this?" he asked, looking down at the package he'd been handed.

"Open it and see," said the doctor, checking his rear-view mirror for traffic.

The roads were empty though, no one out and about this early unless they had to be. Kell thought about how he was more used to seeing this time from the other end. More likely to be still up rather than just got up. In his past life, he'd liked the night, liked the darkness and anonymity it had given him. He opened up the box that he'd been given and looked inside. Drugs, as he'd suspected.

"You should have more than enough," the doctor said, driving sensibly and slightly below the speed limit. "It's not really the done thing to hand out vials of morphine, but we do have a principle of allowing self-medication in end-of-life care, so legally I think I'm covered. You know how to inject yourself, I take it?"

Kell smiled. "Sure do. Been doing it for more time than I'd care to remember."

"Good, just be careful. Make sure the needles are clean and that you're getting into the vein. Wait for the blood to show before you push the plunger down. It might be tougher than you're used to; your veins will be thinner, and your blood pressure not as strong. You might need to try a few times before you get it right."

He understood that the doctor was nervous about letting him go, and was filling the space with words; advice to try and cover all bases and make him feel like he had done everything he could. So Kell said nothing, even though he knew all this stuff; he had probably been injecting long before the doctor had.

"The mission sent through some funds," said the doctor, and they turned onto a more main road now, a couple of other cars up ahead. "This should be enough to cover your ticket, some food, and a bed for the night, if you need one. I don't recommend staying out overnight unless you really have to. Best to come back here. It's not a long trip; I checked it out. No more than a couple of hours. You'll have plenty of time to get out there and back here."

"Sure," said Kell, not really thinking now, but looking out of the window, letting the road and the houses speed past him.

Each of those houses had a person or people inside. Each held a life: a normal, ordinary life, perhaps, or maybe one not so ordinary. Each had seen death and life and happiness and sadness. Some held pain, some joy. He wondered what it would have been like to live in a house of his own—a house with Angelius. The house that they'd planned on having, with the children—a boy and a girl—though Ange had always told him that you don't get to choose that sort of thing. You get what God gives you, she'd said. But wasn't that true with everything? He'd received what God had given him, but he was the one that screwed up. He was the one that took his life and made a whole heap of mess out of it.