Waiting. That was the hardest part. The waiting. They’d taken her back about 2 hours ago and decided to go ahead and do the transplant now. It was taking forever. My wife had stayed with me at first and we’d waited and waited and waited, but she decided five minutes ago to go home and pick up a few things Mickey might want when they were done. It shouldn’t take this long; I knew it shouldn’t take this long. But it was. What if something was going wrong? What if she just started bleeding and they couldn’t stop it? What if the cancer was way worse than we’d thought and she really is lying on her death bed?!
A man sat down next to me. He was tall, sitting about a head higher than me with graying hair. He looked oddly like the man from the 7-eleven, but I knew that wasn’t possible. I remember seeing the bullet hole in his head and his glazed eyes staring unseeing up at me. There was no way he survived that when he’d obviously died on the spot. Yet, the man next to me had the same blood streaks in his hair and it was starting to creep me out, so I stood up to leave. As I walked past him I couldn’t help but take a closer look, just to reassure myself. I felt my heartbeat pick up and my breath came quicker as I stared at the bullet hole in the man’s head. In the same place as the man from the 7-eleven. I’m seeing a ghost. That’s it. There’s no way this is the same person. But it was. There was no mistaking it. He stood up and walked toward me, staring at me with dull grey eyes that had last been seen staring at nothing. He walked towards me and I backed up till I was against the wall and he was staring down at me from a foot away.
He reached his hand out towards mine, and I knew that this was the moment he was going to give me what I deserved. How did he know it was me though? I never took off my ski mask. I was careful; I left no fingerprints. And he was dead! There was no way this was the same man!
“Can I help you?” I asked him a forceful manner, but he just took my hand and placed a piece of folder paper in my sweaty palm.
“Repent.” He whispered as he turned and walked away. He walked down the hallway, right past a nurse who didn’t even glance at him, and disappeared around a corner.
The nurse walked up to me as I stood there staring at the spot where he’d vanished, “Sir? Are you all right? Bobb?”
I finally recognized Wendy. She was Mickey’s normal nurse; she loved seeing her, “Yeah. Sorry Wendy, I’m just distracted.” Then I realized why she might be here, “Do you have any news?!”
She smiled at me, “Mickey’s gonna be perfectly fine, we’re going to keep her here for a few days so she can rest up, and then she’s going home. Ruth is in the room with her now, would you like to join them?” she walked away without waiting for the answer that she already knew was coming and I followed her. I felt a case of déjà vu as I walked away from one of the most terrible scenes in my life towards my little girl with a renewed sense of hope.
