by Mary Ramsey
How could an angel behave in such a cruel, vulgar manner? “Fine, you win.” I swallowed hard. “Please, just let go of my hands.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Ok…” With trembling hands and a trembling voice, I started my tale, the story of how I lost the love of my life.
Three Years Earlier:
The VA hospital in Biloxi, Mississippi, seemed like a nice place to work, especially for a small-town girl looking to upgrade her trade school degree. I knew I should be grateful for any position, but damn if the hours didn’t suck. With the ten-hour shifts, I felt like I practically lived there. But Nate Greyson, he made it worth it.
I happily ran up the three flights of stairs to the room that Nate had occupied for nearly a year. My long legs took multiple steps at a time. The idea of spending time with Nate always filled me with joy. I made sure to check my hair and make-up before pushing the call button. I needed to look like a professional, as opposed to someone who was getting paid to hang out with her best friend.
I was buzzed in and quickly ushered to Nate’s room by a very anxious lead nurse.
“Is something wrong?” I knew the forty-two-year-old former master sergeant had been forced to stop chemo a few weeks back when he coded for the third time during treatment.
“No, nothing’s wrong, just Nate being his usual self,” the woman said with a sigh.
Whatever. “Hey, Nate!”
He turned to me, his dark blond facial hair obscuring the deep scarring on his face. He still had a port in his chest for antibiotics and pain medication, but these days it was rarely used for anything more than saline.
“Hey, Raven.” Nate smiled at me as best he could with his disfigured face and light blue eyes. He had lost part of his jaw in an incident in Kandahar. His face had been rebuilt with bone implants and muscle grafts. For whatever reason, thinking about the incident caused migraine headaches. This was either due to the bone shrapnel lodged in his brain or the late-stage blood cancer.
“You look good, man,” I said through a forced smile. “You look strong.”
“You always look good,” he said in a tired, scratchy voice. He’d been fighting for as long as I’d known him. Nate, he had the mind of a scholar, the heart of a poet and the soul of a warrior.
“Did you sneak out of bed again?” I asked at the sight of his wrist restraints. With how sick he was, I could see no other reason to have him handcuffed to the railing. Even when he suffered from violent sleep seizures, raising the bed was enough to keep him secured.
“Sometimes a lost soul needs to find its way home,” he muttered in the same weak, pain-stricken tone. “Or maybe I was just looking for a place to smoke a blunt.” Nate smiled with a broken grin.
I knew Nate was in so much pain. The cancer had taken so much, and the chemo just nuked the rest. His immune system was so weak, he was constantly sick with infection and fever. His kidneys were already shutting down, and it was likely his death would come via heart or liver failure.
“We need to talk to your wife about hospice and palliative care.”
“My mother,” he replied in a groan. “The divorce was finalized earlier this week. Gia no longer has medical power of attorney.”
“That’s good, I guess.” I’d met Gia when she was three months pregnant, with the child of Nate’s previous doctor. She still visited him, likely out of guilt, or even more likely because her new fuckboy worked in the same hospital.
Nate nodded. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” He had been sterile their entire relationship; together for ten years, married for seven. “She always wanted a little girl,” his voice faded into a hoarse whisper, “we always wanted a little girl.”
I knew he wouldn’t live to see the birth of Gia’s baby. Or maybe he would. Nate was just that bad-ass. Or maybe that was a horrible thing for me to wish on my best friend. Placing my hand upon his I could feel the bones through his skin. “You have me. You’re cooler than my real dad ever was.”
That was kind of a lie, but it got a smile. “Can you stay for a while?”
“Of course.” I stood up and worked on flushing his IV to start a saline drip. “I wish I could give you something for the pain.” Nate had been denied any further pain treatment, as even the highest levels of morphine failed to ease his body. Nothing short of a medicated coma would’ve been even therapeutic.
“You do,” Nate said, motioning to a secret compartment between the mattress and the bed. “You give me peace.”
I reached over and pulled a vape pen from a space under his mattress. The find caused me to chuckle. I knew he had visitors from a local charity that supplied terminally ill veterans with CBD products. Sometimes he asked for gummies or other edibles but mostly oils and lotions to help with the muscle pain. “Did you bring enough to share with the class?”
Nate smiled. “I always do.”
I walked my fingers down his arm to his wrist. “Do you want to talk about the wrist restraints?” I asked as I held the vape pen to his lips. I discreetly angled my wrist, hoping to not set off any alarms. There were cameras in the room in addition to the heart monitors on his chest and oxygen reader on his hand. But he was my patient and I knew what he needed. I allowed him one long drag to calm his nerves before returning it to its hiding place.
“Sure, I’ll talk,” Nate said with a shrug. “Maybe you’ll actually believe me. Hell, I don’t even believe myself.”
“Ok.” I carefully read his facial expression. Was he suicidal? Insane? No, I knew him better than that.
Nate relaxed his neck, resting his head on the pillow. “Have you heard the legend of Kenneth Sugarland?”
“Can’t say that I have.” I took a seat by his side. Leaving his right hand restrained, I stroked his fingers, or what was left of them. He had a pinky, a partial ring finger, and a thumb. It was hard to tell what parts were left behind in the desert and what was lodged in the tissue of his arm or brain. Either way, Nate had little to no feeling in his hand. “Tell me the story, I like fairytales.”
“The life of Kenneth Sugarland was no fairytale. The boy was a soldier in Vietnam who served his country and came home in pieces.”
“Pieces? Are we talking mental or physical?”
“He murdered his wife in a drug-induced rage, before killing himself. But he had brain cancer at the time, so…” He motioned for me to take the vape pen back out and took another hit when I held it up.
“Yeah, life must have been tough before the legalization of medical marijuana.”
“He left behind a daughter and his grieving parents.”
“Interesting,” I muttered as I helped myself to some lotion. It was just enough of a ‘high’ to relive my tension headache. The story was a sad one, but not as unique as I had been expecting.
“He died when I was just a boy, but his spirit wanders these halls. So, for whatever reason, I’ve been seeing him.”
“You’ve been seeing him?”
“I think he wants to take me someplace.”
“Wow,” I said as I massaged his hand. “Why do you think that is?
“Hell if I know. It felt like a dream, but when I woke up, I was on the roof.”
And that explained the restraints. I made a mental note to google Kenneth Sugarland during my smoke break.
“The doctor told me I’m going blind.” He blinked his blue eyes, catching the light of the window. “That part of my brain is just going to shut off if I don’t die soon.” His voice trembled. “I just wanted to see the world beyond this bed one last time.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Stroking his face, I could tell he had a fever from an infection that seemed to never be treatable. “That really sucks.”
“Don’t fucking cry on me, soldier,” he said with fake seriousness.
I laughed, which of course made me cry. I truly couldn’t picture a future without him. “I need to examine the abscess on your back.” Nate had bedsores on his back and legs. How he was able to walk on his
own was a miracle. “To do that I’m going to have to remove your wrist restraints.” I kissed his hand as I removed the left restraint; a cotton wrap enhanced with metal lacing. It was a relic from the age of mental hospitals.
“Leave the other one.”
“Ok, sure.” I wanted to ask if he was afraid; of death, of dying, or of random Vietnam-era ghosts. But I knew better. There were plenty of other things to talk about. I stayed by Nate’s side talking about travel, hospital food, and the local news. And then there was the beautiful history of his stories; there was enough to write a memoir.
Nate had enlisted as a ground pounder who moved up just enough over the course of his career to lead a squadron. He had been deployed all over the world, as a soldier, a leader, a hero. He’d seen places I’d only dreamed of; he’d saved the lives of hundreds in Kuwait, Bosnia, Russia, and even in locations throughout Africa. Nate was a hero, but all that amounted to was him being a man who was going to die alone from cancer.
Within an hour, he quickly got tired and drifted off to sleep. I made sure to fully examine his body for bedsores. He had a bad infection on his leg, back and shoulder. I had been putting off cleaning the wounds since I had neither the skill nor the expertise or job title to be doing so.
The wounds were caked over with dried blood. Any one of them could have been the source of the latest fever. Upon leaving the room, I told his primary nurse of my findings. “He has bedsores that might be infected. Someone really needs to check on him on the hour.”
The elderly nurse pulled me to the side. “Did he say anything about the roof?”
“The roof?” I had nearly forgotten. “He said something about a really vivid dream. Something about the ghost of a Vietnam veteran leading him up there.”
The nurse rolled her eyes. “Just as I suspected, the ramblings of a madman.”
I couldn’t help but be insulted on Nate’s behalf. “The ghost had a name; Kenneth Sugarland.”
The nurse laughed. “Does that even sound like a real name to you?”
“Nate is in need of antibiotics for his bedsores or at the very least a bath. The entire ICU staff leaves him alone like an unwanted dog.”
“Raven, sweetie, your heart is in the right place, but that dog is on his last legs.”
“What can you do?” asked a voice that was certainly not the nurse. In fact, it seemed to come from the air vents.
“What did you say?”
“I said your heart is in the right place. But as a medical professional you have to realize that our focus has to remain on the patients who we can actually save. Nate Greyson needs to be in hospice.”
“I-” I bit my tongue before I said something I would regret.
“Do you have something more to say?” she asked in the most condescending tone.
He needed more than hospice. Nate needed compassion, love, and hope. But I was too much of a coward to say any of that. I shook my head to avoid crying in front of her. “I’m going to the restroom.”
I went outside to the parking lot where I knew I could find the best wi-fi signal for my shitty, obsolete iPhone. ‘Kenneth Sugarland,’ I typed into the search bar. He died at the age of twenty-six after years of living as a prisoner of war. He left behind a five-year-old daughter, who was raised by his parents. Strangest part was, according to autopsy he had been dying of late-stage cancer, self-medicating with a combination of illegal and prescription drugs. This led officials to the conclusion that Kenneth Sugarland was completely out of his mind when he butchered his young wife before cutting his own throat. “Wow.”
“He shouldn’t be alone,” said a male voice.
I turned to see a young blond man wearing a dirty t-shirt and sweatpants. “Excuse me?” I assumed he was homeless, just looking for a handout.
But then he looked at me with his glowing sapphire-blue eyes, “No one deserves to die alone.” The man took a long drag from what was clearly a joint.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke out here.”
“Where I am, I can do whatever the fuck I want.”
“Are you Kenneth Sugarland?” I asked with a laugh. I assumed all that CBD lotion had gone straight to my brain.
“Am I that famous?” he asked. As he turned towards me I could see a massive scar on one side of his face. “Does that little device of yours say how I lost my eye?”
“No,” I said quietly, in case I was truly hallucinating.
“It was kinda like what happened to your friend, just taking over the course of two weeks. Can you imagine?” He gripped my throat, hard. His hands felt like ice; not even cold human flesh—he felt like he was made of actual water droplets frozen into spikes. “A chunk of God knows what, cutting in your skin. And then your meat down to the bone. You start to think about all the cows and chickens who die every day,” he paused to kiss my cheek, gliding his sandpaper hands along my throat, “how lucky they are, to be dead before the butchering begins.”
“No, sir.”
Kenneth smiled as he took a step back. He rolled his head, flexing his shoulders like an athlete. I could hear the sound of his flesh cracking along the wound in his neck, revealing his cut throat.
This couldn’t be real, I just had to keep telling myself that. “If you’re Kenneth Sugarland, tell me, why did you kill your wife?”
“Because she let me,” he said with a laugh. Blood trickled down his chest, staining his shirt. He continued to laugh until he cried. “She just laid there and took it. You know why?”
“Because she loved you,” I blurted out. It felt like the right answer.
Kenneth was no longer laughing; instead, he looked at me unblinking. “She was the best thing to ever happen to me.” At that moment he looked human.
“So, why’d you lead Nate Greyson to the roof?”
He smirked. “You’re bold for a little girl.”
“I’m not a little girl.”
Kenneth chuckled and blew a cloud of white smoke in my face. “You remind me of my daughter, headstrong and brave. She was too good for this world.”
The article I read made no mention of the fate of his daughter, only that he had one. “Answer my question; why were you trying to kill Nate?”
The world went white, as if he had summoned a cloud of fog. “I can’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to do.” His eyes stared into my soul with an icy intensity. “War has collected so many lost souls; men, women. These proud warriors die with anger in their hearts and pain in their souls. But all it took was a vision of you, a girl he just met, to bring him back. I have to say I’m impressed and more than a little pissed off.”
“Well fuck you too!” I screamed.
“Then I realized: no one deserves to die alone.” He cupped my face, dragging his nails along my cheeks. “You will make a beautiful bride.”
I could feel a sharp pain as he faded away, leaving a single cut below my eye. The smoke smelled like lavender, lime, and cedar; it smelled like incense. The afternoon sun felt nice, and combined with the lovely smell, it was hypnotic.
The white smoke seemed to form a human figure; a doll-like woman with long hair. Even with her blurred features, she was undeniably beautiful.
“Hello,” I said, stroking my hand through the figure. “What’s your name?”
The figure dispersed, then reformed. “Thuy, but my husband called me Lily.”
“Lily Sugarland?”
“You know me?” She sounded just the way I always imagined a Vietnam war bride to sound; soft, sweet, subservient.
“I know your husband brutally murdered you,” I said in a meek tone as if part of me didn’t want her to hear.
“To bring men comfort in their dying hours, it is what all women should aspire to.”
“Maybe in third-world countries.”
“Think as you wish.” The smoke woman vanished into the dark night sky.
A rush of cold surrounded me. I knew it had not been night out when I first left the building. Looking at my phone, it wa
s around midnight; I had been on break for hours. “What the fuck?”
I could have gone home; I should have, but I felt the need to check on Nate one last time. My card still worked, and I easily got into the ICU after hours. The world seemed to be on mute as I made my way to his room. “Nate?”
The room was dark, with the only light coming from the side window. Nate was crumpled in the fetal position, sobbing.
“Hey, Nate? Talk to me, buddy.”
He was no longer restrained, but his body was so limp he looked dead. “Hey, Raven.”
The front of his gown was covered in vomit. He could barely hold down food, so whatever he coughed up was mostly liquid and bile. “C-can I have some water?”
He had a cup of water with a straw. Upon removing the lid, I could see that it had once held liquid but had not been replenished for quite some time. “Wow, they really do treat you like a dog. I’ll refill your water and get you cleaned up.”
I was about to head to the supply closet when I heard the unmistakable sound of the doors locking. “I think the building went into lockdown.”
Nate turned his head to the window, looking out at the clear night sky. “I don’t hear any rain.”
“Maybe the bad weather is on the other side of the building?” I tested the sink; luckily there was still warm and cold water. “Just lay back, I’m going to get you cleaned up. When’s the last time your nurse changed you?” I helped him sit up, to get fully undressed.
He started to cough. “Fuck it’s cold in here.”
“Keep the blanket on, I’ll see what I can dig up.” There were some clean towels, blankets and washcloths.
“My mother called; she’s coming to visit next week. She’s working on having me transferred to a clinic up north.”
“She lives in Kansas, right? I heard it’s really beautiful there.”
“Kansas City.”
“Wow, Missouri, even better,” I said, taking a seat by his side. “But you grew up in Kentucky, right?”
“God willing, I hope I can make it back there,” Nate said as he sat up, crossing his arms over his chest, “to be buried near my grandparents and my old man.”
