by Kris Calvert
“I’m looking forward to it, Indriel Luce.”
A nervous shudder overcame me and I secretly loved that Lewis Thornbury said my name with perfect Italian inflection. It made me smile and warm up to him immediately. “Please, call me Indie.”
“Four.” His voice reverberated in my ear.
“Yes.”
There was no goodbye, only the disconnect of his voice. And as quickly as my heart began to race it returned to normal with the click of the phone line.
I pulled the Bluetooth from my ear as I opened the car door and shoved it into my matching black polyester suit pocket before reaching across the seat for the old beat up green fatigue messenger bag I’d used since nursing school. I’d had to patch a couple of holes in the sides, but all in all it still held all the things I needed—my patients’ records, my phone and my blue spiral notebook.
I leaned my butt into the side of the car and gave it a quick hip-check to ensure the door closed completely and turned off the dome light. The last thing I needed was a dead battery today.
I thought of George Curtis as I climbed the steep hill to his front door. A retired Marine sergeant, the man was full of piss and vinegar. When still up and about he used to teach me Korean phrases. Some of them were bad, like how to ask a prostitute for sex, naneun segseuleul wonhaneun. Others were just so I could order kimchi correctly. He loved to tease and one of his favorite games was making me guess things about him or the endings to stories he would tell. It always made our visits drag on longer than they needed to be, but before his daughter came to live with him I was not only his nurse, but his entertainment.
After a long chat he would always lovingly accuse me of taking up too much of his valuable time with all my talking, calling me Windy Indie.
I laughed at him when we first met because he told me point blank he wasn’t leaving this world without a fight. If he could survive the “zipper heads” as he so politically incorrectly referred to his enemy in the Korean War, he wasn’t going to let “fucking cancer kick his ass.” Cocky to the end, George Curtis was a man of his word. Being bedridden found George’s cancer bringing other nasty friends to the party—most notably pneumonia. In the end I suspected it would be his undoing.
I rang the bell of the seventies style home that still sported burnt orange shutters from a time when the Partridge Family was the height of culture and put on a smile, knowing the person who’d answer the door had more than likely been up all night.
“Indie.” The mid-forties woman who’d become the sole caregiver of her dying father greeted me with a sigh of relief. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“How’s he doing this morning?” I asked as she motioned for me to enter the house.
“He was so restless last night. His breathing became…I don’t know, rattled and his blood pressure kept dropping. The on-call nurse was here for a while, but…”
“But what?” I asked as we paused outside the door of the bedroom where George Curtis lay dying.
“He kept rallying. Every time we thought maybe he was slipping away, his pressure would come back and his heartbeat would get strong. But there’s more. He’s talking to my dead mother.”
I took her hand, gave it a squeeze and smiled. “It’s perfectly normal. Everything you just said to me is normal.”
I took a deep breath, preparing myself for what I would encounter in the next room. If George’s wife had come to visit, she no doubt was there to cross him over. I knew George was not long for this earth.
“How’s his blood pressure now? I asked.
“Stable. He nodded when I asked him if he was in pain last night so I used the liquid morphine, hoping that would settle him down a little.”
George Curtis’ daughter had aged five years in the last couple of months. I felt sorry for her as I did for all my families who suffer as their loved one’s body lay dying.
“That’s good,” I said to her as I neared the bedside. “Sergeant?” I addressed him loudly so he would know I was speaking to him and not about him.
He opened his eyes slightly and gave me a couple of blinks. “Your sweet daughter was telling me you had a rough night. How is your pain this morning?”
His face tightened as if a wave of torment overtook him. “Are you still feeling some pain?”
He relaxed his body as if the constant agony caused by his organs shutting down one by one subsided as quickly as it overcame him.
Taking his hand in mine, I checked his pulse and listened to his heart. As I pulled away, he looked at me and tried to swallow. His open-mouth breathing had left him dry but as he moved his lips I knew he wanted to say something.
“What is it, Sergeant?”
“I…” He struggled and I squeezed his hand to let him know he didn’t need to say anything but yet he did his best to continue. “I can hear him… coming.”
I nodded and smiled to let George know I understood. “I know. It’s okay.”
George shook his head and winced in pain. “He’s coming.”
“What’s he talking about, Indie?”
I turned to his daughter and gave her a reassuring nod. “It’s okay.”
Turning back to George I released his hand. Slowly he lifted his arm from the bed, pointed directly at me and blinked as his tongue worked frantically to put together more words. “He’s coming…for you.”
He dropped his hand back to the mattress as his daughter came to the other side of his bed, laying her head on his chest.
And then I felt it. The warm feeling of home overcame me and I suddenly relaxed my body with George as his daughter lifted her face and brushed a tousled strand of gray hair from his ear.
“Daddy?” She whispered the word. George was hard of hearing, yet immediately turned his face into the palm of her hand and nodded with a silly grin.
Light filled the room and George’s eyes widened as an older woman came to his bedside and smiled at him. He turned his attention to her and as his breathing became shallow and distant I knew he was leaving the catheters, pain patches, bedsores and imperfect world he’d survived in for seventy-two years.
“Daddy?” His daughter called to him as he looked to the ceiling and smiled.
Spirit gave me a fleeting glance and as they left the earthly plane together something extraordinary happened. I’d witnessed Spirit for the last eight years, but none of them had ever come in contact with me. I was merely a spectator to their world of light and love. The room glowed and the usual warm feeling I had from my head to my toes was intensified as Spirit touched my hand.
I gasped loudly, causing George’s daughter to take notice.
“What is it?” she asked.
I shook my head that it was nothing, but at the same time I was dizzy beyond anything I’d ever felt before. Spirit never came in physical contact with me and as my body reverberated with life and light, my mind went blank and to the brightest spot. I was filled with pure energy and love and at the same time I was scared.
I could hear her calling to her father, and I was unable to perform my usual task of consolation. I was awestruck by the feeling in my body—in my soul. As the light in the room faded and George Curtis left his physical shell behind, he gave one final smile and crossed over, passing from one plane to another with a befitting arrogant grin on his face.
Still reeling from my close encounter with Spirit, I did my best to focus on the needs of George’s daughter.
She broke down, laying her head on her father’s chest, not yet ready for it to be over. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry.”
I stood in silence, wanting to give her all the space she needed with her dad. “Would you like some time alone with him?” I asked the same questions of all my families. Frankly, some of them didn’t want to be alone with the body and would always ask me to stay.
“I don’t know what I want,” she said in a muffled tone, her head still tight against her father’s chest. “I promised him I’d be brave when this happened. I told him I wouldn’t act
bad or cause a fuss.” She pulled her teary face from his body and looked at me––her eyes hollow and distant. “I’ve thought about this moment a million times. This wasn’t how I thought it would be. I mean, I don’t know how I thought it would be, but I never imagined it was this simple. It’s a fine line, isn’t it?” she asked.
“It is indeed––a very fine line.”
“What do I do now?” Her face was sullen and I knew she was immediately going from shock to a very dark place. “I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll just take it a moment at a time and figure it out as we go.”
I knew all of the arrangements had been taken care of months ago for George. There were just phone calls to be made. “If there are other family members you want to call, you can do that now. You can spend as much time as you’d like with your dad. I’ll disconnect everything so you or other family members can be with him.”
“Yes,” she replied. “Yes. I need to call my uncle and a couple of cousins.”
“While you do that let me take care of him. But if you need me, just knock and I’ll be right there. Okay?”
She nodded and wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand.
As she closed the door to the bedroom I pulled my phone from my pocket to call Jonathan and paused. I was on autopilot as a nurse and at the same time I felt shaken to my core. Who was coming for me? Was I going to die? And why did Spirit touch me?
I paced the room for a couple of minutes and tried to pull myself together. I needed to prioritize: first thing—call Jonathon. I wouldn’t make a four o’clock meeting today in the wake of George’s passing.
“What now?” he answered sarcastically.
“I have a situation.”
“What else is new?”
“Hush. Listen.”
“Jeez, what’s wrong?”
“The sergeant passed. I’m here with the family now. There’s no way in hell I’m making it to Lewis Thornbury’s office today. No way.”
“I’ll send someone straight away to help you.”
“No, Jonathan. They know me. They trust me.”
“That’s not true. They know me too.”
“What?”
“He was my patient before I took the promotion and came out of the field. I gave him to you specifically because I loved the old guy so much. He was a pistol.”
“That’s a good way of describing him but nonetheless, I’m going to need some time to clean him up and get him ready for his family to spend time with him before the funeral home comes.”
I glanced over to George’s empty body and gave him a smile.
“I’ll help you Indie. You can’t miss your meeting today. You just can’t.”
“If I’m done in time then I’m done in time. If I’m not then I’ll just have to call and hope the number I have still works and tell him we have to reschedule.”
“Indie, no one reschedules a meeting with Lewis Thornbury.”
“Indie Luce does,” I said, speaking of myself in third person. George was important to me and he was extremely important to his family. I wasn’t walking away from my responsibility—no matter what.
“Well, shit. I’ll see you in twenty.”
“Do you even know how to get here?”
“Didn’t I just say I’d see you in twenty?”
I hung up the phone and walked to George’s bedside. I could hear his daughter through the thin walls of the old home. “I’m not leaving you, George. The President of the United States might wait on Lewis Thornbury, but today he’s just gonna have to wait on me.”
By the time Jonathan had arrived I’d accomplished most of my duties. All equipment had been moved from the room, all signs of medication gone. I’d given his body a sponge bath before placing a fresh set of pajamas on the frame that was once George.
“Indie.” Jonathan knocked and opened the door at the same time, letting himself in. “Wow. You’ve really worked quickly.”
“His daughter wants to be with him.”
“What can I do?”
“It’s done.” I said as I smiled down at the body of my old cranky, funny friend.
“You go. It’ll take you two hours to get through traffic and all the way into downtown Atlanta.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Indie,” Jonathan said with exasperation. “I’ve already spoken with the sergeant’s daughter and the rest of the family waiting in the kitchen. They understand I’m here and you need to go.”
“What?”
“Yes.” Jonathan nodded his head and gestured for me to leave. “If you leave now you’ll have just enough time to freshen your makeup before your interview. You are a fucking hot mess.”
I shot him a dirty look. “Bitch.”
“I know I am, and you love me anyway. Now scoot.”
I turned and smiled at George, wishing as always that I could’ve done something more. In reality, I felt like he’d done something for me as he left the earthly plane. The experience I’d had was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. It was as if I was internally energized and yet I was scared to death. I’d always considered myself a fool in a world of the knowledgeable—merely bumbling my way through life but after touching Spirit today, I felt as if I could take on the world.
“Thanks, Jonathan.”
“You’re most welcome, beautiful. Call me later and let me know how it goes. And I was just kidding about you looking bad. You always look gorgeous.”
I sighed and dropped my shoulders as I reached for the doorknob to leave. “If only I could find a heterosexual man to say that to me.”
“And Indie?”
“Yes?”
“The sergeant would’ve thanked you for what you did for him today.”
I nodded and quietly shut the door behind me to make my way to the kitchen. I could hear the chatter as I walked into the well-lit room and found the stunned faces of those George Curtis left behind.
“This is Indie,” his daughter said. “She was Dad’s hospice nurse.”
“Well, I was one of them.”
“You were his nurse, Indie. You were his favorite.”
“That’s nice to hear. I really cared about your father. He led an extraordinary life. I enjoyed his stories of being a Marine.”
I looked to the small crowd and didn’t want to say the next words. “I hate to go, but I have an appointment in Atlanta and as much as I want to be here I need to be there.”
George’s daughter nodded. “We understand. I’m happy Jonathan came back. He was always so good to Dad in the beginning. And he’s adorable.”
I let out a little laugh as I looked to my feet and rocked back on my heels. “Jonathan is adorable.” With a shrug of my shoulders I tilted my head and looked to the family trying to take them all in one last time. “Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your family.”
A man sitting in the corner who looked exactly like George and could only be his brother piped up as I turned to leave. “My brother was a decorated Marine. Thank you for helping him to keep his dignity to the very end.”
I gave them a single nod and took a deep breath as I headed for the front door.
“Indie?” his daughter called to me.
“Yes?” I paused as I pushed open the screen door and allowed a warm spring breeze into the room.
“My father wanted me to give you something after he was gone. Can you wait just a moment?”
“Sure. I’ll just be outside.”
I stepped onto the old concrete porch and looked down at my car baking in the Georgia sun. It would no doubt be hotter than blue blazes inside and since my air conditioner hadn’t worked since 2013, I had a feeling I was going to look melted and windblown for my meeting with Lewis Thornbury.
“Here,” she said as she handed a plain white envelope to me. On the front was one word––Indriel.
“I didn’t know your father knew my real name.”
She shrugged. “He told me this one was for you. I
have one and so does my uncle. I think he wanted to say goodbye,” she said as her eyes filled with tears. “But didn’t know how.”
“Thank you,” I said as I held the envelope close to my heart.
“We’ll see you at the funeral. Right?”
“Of course.”
As she shut the door I hurried down the hill to my car and tried to wrap my head around the idea of meeting the billionaire after losing George. A rush of heat blew out of the car as I opened the door and I peeled the black suit coat from my body, leaving behind the holey t-shirt I wore underneath. Turning the ignition, priority one was to get all four windows down on the old Honda. I just hoped once I got them down they’d go back up. The forecast was for rain and the last thing I needed was a flooded car.
I pulled one of the many scraps of paper from my jacket pocket in the seat and quickly spoke the address scrawled on the back of a Target receipt into my phone, waiting for directions. Siri didn’t disappoint. I rushed through the neighborhood and made my way to the on ramp of the interstate and downtown only to be snagged by the first red light I came to.
The note from George sat in the empty ashtray of my car. I held it up to the light and saw that there wasn’t a long letter inside, but merely a few words. I looked to the line of traffic in front of me knowing I was going nowhere fast and carefully opened the envelope. Inside I found a single sheet of plain stationery and a few words written in George’s handwriting. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
I paused and slid the note into my messenger bag as I followed the others onto the crowded highway. “George,” I said aloud. “What the hell?”
FOUR
GlobalTech headquarters was a behemoth fifty-story skyscraper just off of Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. At three forty-five I pulled up in front of the building looking for either an entrance to a parking garage or a free spot on the street close by. I couldn’t waste too much time, considering I still needed to find a ladies room and change into the black pencil skirt and cream silk blouse I’d shoved into my bag before leaving the house this morning.
