Lewiston General County Medical Center was an unremarkable two story grey stone structure with a completely in-congruent new glass spire under construction behind it. The new hospital expansion spire was round and seven stories looked as if it would double the square footage of the hospital. Obviously, the appearance of the hospital was very important to the new building program. I wondered absently if the patient care would ever match the appearance of the exterior of the new building. Would the doctors and the insurance companies ever care as much about their clients? I wondered absently. Perhaps I was lucky that I was no longer in the system. Whoever needed to pay for the expensive german sports car or their wife's alimony wouldn't be doing my surgery.
Besides I'd had enough of prodding and poking to last me the rest of my life. If I never set foot in another medical establishment it would be too soon.
For a moment I was frozen in those horrible memories that now had begun to seem like a horror film that I'd watched instead of lived. If only I couldn't feel myself waking up all those times. With the burning of the skin reknitting, I would move and feel the sutures in my skin pulling, little pin pricks of fire. That feeling like I'd gone twelve rounds as a heavyweight boxers punching bag. My intestines feeling like I'd be shitting blood for the next week. That perpetual pain in one or both arms as fluids were reintroduced to my dehydrated body. Blood, fluids, drugs all mainlining into my blood stream. Always being dragged back from the brink of death. Each time I returned a little less human than before.
Healing only long enough to endure more cutting. I could see my flesh separating beneath the blade of Shen's scalpel. Had I been awake? I couldn't remember seeing it, but the vision was so viscerally real. I wasn't sure but maybe I'd had a hallucination that during one of the surgeries I woke up. I bundled that thought away.
For now, we found a space near the emergency entrance, pointed away.
Arlene turned to me, "I'm gonna run these keys inside, then we'll head out. I'm sorry I have to leave you out here." She cracked both windows down and pulled the shirt over her head and threw it on the seat.
I watched her enter the doors of the emergency room.
Time seemed to stretch and warp.
And then a brand new minivan pulled up to the ER. And a guy jumped out, and realized with a yelp that he hadn't put it in park, he jumped back in the car jerked to a halt. He jumped back out stuffing his phone in his pocket. He left the drivers side door open and ran around to the other side. The passenger side was opening all by itself. He tried to grab it before it got open. He looked frantic, but his obviously pregnant wife coming slowly to her feet. He reached to help but she was already stable. She turned and opened the sliding side door. He ran inside the ER. And moments later back outside and saw a wheel chair off to the side. He grabbed it and practically ran his wife down with it.
She had not lost her sense of humor, she smiled big and patted his face. He grinned a smile that sent ripples of warmth even through me. He leaned in and kissed her. A kiss broken by another contraction, he grabbed the bag and gently lowered her into the chair. She looked like someone had knocked the wind out of her. He gently turned the wheelchair and headed towards the door. And for a moment, the wind carried what she was saying to my ears, "You're going to be a great daddy. I'm glad it's you." And then they was gone.
Again I realized that I was not breathing. I was seeing what I would never have. That would never be me in the wheel chair, never with a husband, never a child. I would never feel the delicious terror of childbirth, wondering at my growing belly. Wondering what it would be - I wondered if I'd want a boy or a girl. I was sure it would be happy no matter what it was, I was sure that I'd be ready to love it no matter what. All those amazing possibilities inside of me... maybe another... Amelia Earhart, or a Mozart, or DaVinci.
I stared at the empty minivan. Empty like me, the side door open, and the drivers side still open, engine still on.
Oh come on Arlene. How long does it take to drop off keys?
