by Mandi Lynn
— — — — —
“He cancelled?”
Paul was standing at the reception desk. Both hands were planted firmly to the counter, and Shelly was standing behind him, her arm outstretched to touch his arm. She was trying to reel him in, but the effort was a wasted one.
“I’m sorry, sir, but an emergency came up,” the woman at the desk said.
“Am emergency? My granddaughter is an emergency. She’s been here for weeks, and she’s only gotten worse.”
“Dr. Ash may be able to see you later today, but we don’t know how long he will be,” she said.
“No, I’m not waiting for him. We’re leaving, and my granddaughter will be leaving as well.”
“Sir, it says here that Dr. Ash wanted Sam to see a psychologist. Would you like to make an appointment? We have a few different psychologists located in this hospital. We may be able to squeeze you in today due to your situation.”
Shelly looked over to Paul. She was already bracing herself for his response.
“Psychologist.” He spit the words out. “I don’t want my granddaughter anywhere near this hospital.”
The woman at the desk took a moment to compose herself.
“I understand, sir, and we’d like to assist you in every way we can, but there are steps that need to be taken. If you’d like to take Sam out of this hospital then you’ll have to let us know where she will be sent so we can forward her medical records. Have you contacted your insurance company yet?”
Paul looked at the women at the desk, shaking his head. He could feel Shelly staring at him from the corner of his eye. She wanted to walk away from this moment, but she also knew she was the only thing stopped him from losing it in public.
“Sir, if you’d like, we can make you a referral,” the women said.
“Oh, fuck you,” he said. He wanted to storm off, slam a door or two, but instead he walked away, hand-in-hand with his wife, resigned to the fact that his granddaughter was dying and the doctor wasn’t doing a damn thing about it.
Chapter 23
“Okay, Sam, I’m going to give you an address to remember,” Dr. Ash said. He was in his chair at the foot of the bed while Shelley was in another chair at the head of the bed next to Sam. Paul was standing beside her, his arms crossed and one wrong word from storming out. He promised Shelly this one last appointment, then they would get whatever they needed to transfer Sam to a new hospital.
Shelley watched Sam like she might disappear if she looked away, but Paul never stopped glaring at Dr. Ash. He was two hours late to the appointment that he had asked his admin to cancel. Apparently, Paul and Shelly never got the note.
Sam smiled when she looked around to everyone that was in her room. She smiled because she didn’t know what else to do. She looked around the room like there was a film over her eyes—she was only half there.
“15 Turn Street, Walkins, New Hampshire.” He made up the address on the spot and wrote it down on his clipboard. Sam nodded and whispered the address to herself quietly. The stuffed dog was in her hands, clutched too tightly.
“Okay,” she said, still whispering to herself.
Dr. Ash pulled cards out of a pocket of his jacket and heldthe first photo up. He felt all eyes in the room turn to him. The cards were simple. Perfect drawings of everyday objects, simple enough a small child could do it, but for someone with Alzheimer’s, the answers would come slowly, if at all. He already knew how Sam would respond to the cards, but he hoped that his knowledge would fail him.
“15 Turn Street, Walkin, New Hampshire,” Sam said. She didn’t bother to look at the card.
“Sam, the address is for later. I’ll ask you for it at the end of this session,” he said.
“But I remember it now. I won’t remember it later.”
He wanted to say, that’s the point, you have Alzheimer’s. Instead, he said, “You might.” He looked at the card in his hand. “Now tell me, what’s this?” He pointed to the card.
“That’s a dog!” she said. “Just like Pup!” Sam held up her stuffed dog.
“And this?” He switched the cards.
“How is this supposed to help?” Paul said, his voice cutting off Dr. Ash’s. “Anyone can tell you what those are. She’s not in first grade.”
“It’s just a test of her memory to see if she can put names to objects,” Dr. Ash said. “Sam, can you tell me what this is?”
She had dropped Pup to her lap and stared at the photo. She bit the edge of her lip as she examined the drawing on the page. She knew what it was. She had seen the shape before, many times in fact, but the name escaped her.
“Sam, just tell him what it is,” Paul said. His voice edged on anger and made Sam lose focus.
“Umm,” she said. Wings. It had wings, so she knew it flew. Like a bird!
“Take your time, Sam,” Dr. Ash said.
It was sorta like a bird, wasn’t it?
“Sam?” Shelly said. Her voice cracked. Sam turned to her and saw there were little sparkles of tears in her eyes. Why was she crying?
Sam let go of Pup and reached out for Shelly’s hand. She blinked, and a tear escaped.
“It’s a plane for Christ’s sake,” Paul said. He dropped his arms to his side and stepped closer to Sam’s bed. Shelly closed her eyes and brought her hands to her lap. “Just tell him what it is so we can all move on and get your paperwork done.”
“Paul, I need Sam to tell me. Interruptions will only make this harder for her. You can sit if you’d like.” Dr. Ash pointed a second chair that was in the corner of the room.
Sam held her head down as Paul slid the chair across the floor and sat between Shelly and Dr. Ash. He didn’t look at anyone, just the floor. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Sam?” Dr. Ash asked. He flipped to a new card.
She blinked once, twice, and smiled when she saw the feathers. “It’s a bird!” she said.
Dr. Ash flipped the cards again. The room paused as Sam looked over the card. Shelly’s eyes wandered back and forth between the cards and Sam. The picture was so simple.
Rose, Shelly thought to herself.
The room stayed quiet. Everyone feared interrupting Sam’s train of thought. Paul stared straight ahead, trying to ignore the situation unfolding in front of him. The silence was thick in the room.
Rose, Sam, a rose. Shelly tried to push the thought into Sam’s head. Maybe flower would suffice…
Dr. Ash watched Sam’s face as her brows relaxed and her gaze veered off. He flipped to the next card. Paul looked up, eyes ablaze.
“What the hell?” He stood up and Shelly cowered. “She was about to say what it was,” he said.
“She wasn’t,” Dr. Ash said. He had hoped Sam would know the next card and maybe the card after that as well. He needed her to have an answer to ease the tension in the room.
“Can we do another test?” Shelly was the one to speak. She was caving in on herself. She reached her hand out to touch Sam’s, and for now that seemed to be the only thing holding herself up-right.
Dr. Ash put the cards down and eased them back into his pocket. “Is that all right with you, Sam?”
She still held her head down. Her eyes would stray up, but only for a quick glance. Nothing more. She gave a small nod.
“Why don’t you give me the months of the year,” Dr. Ash said.
Sam’s hand twitched in Shelly’s grip. She took a few moments to compose herself, running through the months in her head. She didn’t want to mess up. She had one chance to show everyone she was okay. She didn’t want her grandfather to yell again.
Shelly held her breath the longest before Sam spoke.
“January, February, March, April, May, June, July.” She spoke as she breathed, too scared the thought might leave if she paused. “August, September, October, November, December.” Once the words were out of her mouth, she went through the months again in her head to be sure she was correct.
There was a release of breath from
Shelly.
“Now tell me the months backwards, starting with December,” Dr. Ash said.
Sam lifted her head to see if he was serious. She wanted him to be laughing when she looked at him, but his face was as placid as ever.
She sorted through the months in her head. When that didn’t work, she whispered the months to herself again, trying to make note of the order, linking the names to each other so she could rattle off the months in the opposite order.
“December, November,” she paused, said the correct order quickly in her head. “September, no, October then September.” Again, running through the order. “August, July, June, May, March.” She stopped herself. “Wait, not March. April then March.” Shelly watched her as she whispered the orders to herself. “February, January.”
Dr. Ash flipped a paper around on his clipboard and handed it over to Sam. The page was blank and he held out a pen.
“Now, why don’t you write me a sentence about today’s weather?” he asked.
“Aren’t you going to correct her?” Paul said.
Sam had gripped onto the clipboard excited to write, but once she heard her grandfather’s voice, her arms went slack and the clipboard fell to the floor. She looked at her grandfather in the way a small child might look at their parents after they’ve been yelled at. If she were a dog, her tail would be tucked away.
“I only want positive enforcement, so we can encourage her as she takes these tests,” Dr. Ash said.
Paul didn’t say anything further while he looked around the room. Shelly bent forward in the silence and picked up the clipboard to hand to Sam. Her eyes were timid as she took the clipboard in her hands.
“I think it’s time for you to go,” Paul said. His voice was level as he spoke to Dr. Ash.
Dr. Ash thought about the serum that was running through Sam’s veins. The moment Sam saw another doctor they would detect something was wrong. They’d trace it back to him, to Willow. He couldn’t let them leave this hospital, but it seemed there was no more they could do. Would another doctor be able to find a cure for Sam? For Alzheimer’s?
Paul didn’t wait for Dr. Ash to step out of the room before he began making his phone calls. Paul escorted him out the room, his phone to his ear the entire time, and the moment Dr. Ash was out of the room he closed the door. He stood at the door, listening to Paul’s mumbled voice through the walls before he walked away.
Randy walked by Willow as he went through the halls. She looked up from the nurses’ station and smiled, trying to maintain some sense of normalcy. He looked back at her, but he turned away before she could have a chance to read into it.
“Randy?” she said. He continued to walk even though he felt her following him. “Is everything okay?”
He didn’t want to walk away from her, but he couldn’t look at her. Each time he looked at her, he could see that crazed piece of her staring back at him. There was a part, a strong and vital part of her he loved, but there was also a part of her that even she couldn’t control.
“Willow,” he said, his voice was rough, pained. His fingers twined and trailed through hers before he walked away. He had other patients he needed see. It was a busy day—some appointments were overbooked—yet, here he was, retreating to his office. To do what? Sulk?
He stepped into his office, and Willow slid in as well. He shut the door behind her and sat on the couch as he buried his face in his hands.
“They would like to see another doctor,” he said.
Willow looked at the ground as she thought. Randy glanced at her through his fingers and could see her working through the situation in her mind. All she had to do was exactly what she had done to Randy. Be the one to administer the tests and MRI scans. Let no one else get a moment to see what was going on in her brain. It would be hard, but she had done it for Randy, her own husband, how hard would it be for another doctor? She just had to find out who the new doctor would be. Her eyes darted from side to side as she thought.
“No, Willow,” Randy said. She looked up. Her face was written in ideas. It didn’t display the same type of fear that was painted across Randy’s face. She was ready to continue with the experiment. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“But I can--,”
“Because they’re transferring her to a different hospital. They don’t trust me, or anyone else here. They want her care to come anyplace else but here. Sam will be transferred away, and everything you’ve been hiding will come to the surface.”
Willow could only blink.
“They could sue,” he said. “They should sue.”
“Randy,” she said. And there it was, that panicked look Randy felt like he had been hiding for so long. Now, Willow wore it. Her lower lip trembled the slightest bit as her eyes began to dart.
“If that was my daughter or granddaughter in that hospital bed, I would stop at nothing to find out what was wrong with her.”
“Randy, please,” she said. Tears were at the corners of her eyes. Before all this happened, he would have wrapped her in his arms until she stopped crying, but now he couldn’t find it in himself to so much as offer a hand to her. He knew her tears. She was not crying for sympathy, she was crying because she got caught. But most of all, she was crying for herself. Her body jumped, begging to do something, to fight for the cure she was so close to grasping but about to lose. Her arms shook at her sides. She wanted to hold onto something, something that could hold her together.
“You realize I have to report this, don’t you?” His voice was soft. She sat on the other end of the couch, away from Randy, and wrapped her arms around her knees.
She couldn’t speak. She wanted to scream, but she didn’t want to do that to Randy. He was the only thing she had left to hang onto.
He looked at her, her wide eyes and shaking body. Whatever world she knew had just shattered in front of her. The sobs came quickly afterwards. He wanted to be mad at her, to scream at her to at least try to knock some sense into her. He was confused as to what she had done, but most of all he was confused as to what he was supposed to do.
He left her in his office, locking the door so no one else could come in. She would be there, he knew, when his day was over and he reported the incident. Only a handful of times had he seen her give up, and that woman on the couch, that was it. She was defeated in the most infinite sense of the word.
Chapter 24
He couldn’t do it. He knew the measures and steps he needed to go through to report Willow. He knew that if he explained things clearly, he would be left out of harm’s way once an investigation was conducted and he was deemed innocent. He also knew Willow’s life and reputation would be ruined. What she had done was not something to be recovered from.
Willow was asleep again when Randy found her. This time, she was at the dining room table, paper littered around her. Her hair was pulled back in a braid, but small strands of hair escaped and curled. Her cheek was pressed into the crook of her elbow, the laptop open in front of her, though the screen had long fallen asleep.
He was careful to walk by quietly, taking small steps as he put his bags down for the day. The papers around her had long scripts of text and charts that he tried to ignore. He could already feel the word Alzheimer’s floating off the pages. The words wanted to suck him in, but they were guarded by Willow’s body. With her eyes closed and face relaxed, she looked like she always had. He pulled a chair out from the table and sat across from her. If she woke up, would she return to her crazed fight for a cure? He reached out and placed his hand over hers. Willow’s fingers curled around his instinctively. She didn’t need to be awake to know it was him. He thought he saw the corner of her lip rise.
He wanted to pretend there was only this. That was always his dream wasn’t it? To fall in love and live the type of bliss you only saw at the end of movies. But then Tom got sick. Willow was strong, she could handle herself and her father, but when he eventually passed away, a piece of herself was cracked. Randy always imagined he could f
ix that crack by the research he was doing for Alzheimer’s, but it hadn’t been enough. The search for a cure only deepened the fissure.
He rubbed his thumb over the top of her hand and she mumbled as she woke up. These were his favorite moments. When the sleep was still heavy in her eyes and the weight of the world had yet to bear her down.
“What time is it?” she said as she pulled her head up.
He looked at the watch on his wrist. “9pm,” he said.
The words worked to sober her, and slowly, Randy could see her stature change. As she woke up, worries pooled into her eyes. Wrinkles formed in the corners of her eyes. They were taking Sam away.
“Is she gone?” Willow asked.
Randy frowned when he heard the words.
“Not yet. Last I checked, her grandparents were fighting about where to send her. They started the paperwork for the transfer, but they can only do so much until they pick out a new hospital and doctor. It may be hard for them to find someone willing to take on her case.”
“We still have time.” She tapped the space bar on her laptop until it came back to life. She ruffled through a few papers while her browser was loading.
“Willow,” he said. He let go of her hand and pulled away.
“See this?” she pushed an article towards him. It was on an experiment conduced in the last year that had recently come to a close. The abstract said the goal of the trial was to stop Alzheimer’s in its tracks. The article was hefty, the papers about an inch thick printed, but as he read the first page he had to admit his intrigue.
The solution was injected into mice to bring on the likeness of Alzheimer’s. Because of the artificial form of Alzheimer’s, scientists are now led to believe that the disease is caused by something present in the body that remains dormant until old age. Within days, symptoms of Alzheimer’s began to surface in test group A of the mice. Scientists extracted cells from the mice in hopes of using their DNA for further research. With a dozen mice in test group A artificially infected with the disease, scientists were able to extract cells and use them to create a vaccine that was later injected to test group B of mice. After receiving the vaccine, test group B was administered the artificial disease, which had no effect. The second round of mice are thought to have immunities towards Alzheimer’s disease, though further testing may prove otherwise.
