She's Not Here

by Mandi Lynn

  Sam was already halfway out of her bed, her socks on the floor and hospital gown exposing her backside. Her feet, which wore the socks with grips pads on the bottom, touched the floor. The fabric did little to protect her from the laminate, but she was thankful for that cold feeling at her feet.

  “I want to walk,” she said.

  He held his arm out for support, but she didn’t reach for it. They stood side by side as they walked down the hall.

  “Are we really going outside?” she asked. Her eyes were full, and there was a spark of life there that he hadn’t seen before.

  Dr. Ash looked down at her feet at the socks. Sam’s eyes followed his and she frowned.

  “Sort of,” he said and the two of them walked down the hall and entered an elevator.

  “What day is it? Sam said.

  “May 2nd. Tuesday.”

  She had hoped once he said the date the information would cause things to fall in place, but it didn’t. She wanted to ask the date she was admitted in the hospital, but she was too afraid to hear the answer.

  “How have you been feeling today?” he asked. His voice changed when he asked how she felt. His voice deepened and became more pronounced. She could feel him shifting into doctor mode, and it made her want Jamie back.

  “The itching is gone. I felt a little sick right after I ate, but besides that good.”

  The doors to the elevator opened, and he led her down the hall. It felt good to stretch her legs. The pads of her feet beat against the floor and she felt human again, even if she didn’t have shoes.

  “Here we are.” Dr. Ash turned down a small hallway and cracked open a door. As soon as he did, Sam could feel the air get humid. Scents far beyond what she could describe filled in around her. She stepped through the room, still in socks and hospital gown, but if she closed her eyes she could swear she was outside.

  “Our small greenhouse,” Dr. Ash said. “We have volunteers that come in to take care of it and make sure everything is watered and maintained.

  All the plants were potted, so nothing was too large. A few plants here and there, herbs, tiny bushes that were only in their infancy.

  “Everything starts off in here, and when it grows too big, the landscape team moves it outside.”

  Sam stepped toward a potted plant with deep green leaves. She ran her fingers over the leaf and down the stem until she could hear a small trickle of water off to her left. When she turned there was a small little water fountain running. She stepped forward until she was close enough that she could sit on a rock and dip her hand into the water.

  Dr. Ash stayed close to the entrance. The moment she was having in the greenhouse felt like a private one. Her eyes lit up when her hand touched the water, experiencing the world for the first time. Dr. Ash thought about how a group of volunteers asked to bring butterflies into the garden, but the idea had been shot down by executives before it could go any farther. He could image it now, how the butterflies would have completed the garden. How one would have landed on Sam’s knee and her face would have lit up ten-fold of what it had when she touched the water.

  Dr. Ash was watching Sam when he heard her cough. It started off as a small cough to clear her throat, but after a moment of short silence, she coughed again. This time, it was louder and where the first cough had left Sam still smiling, the second cough was enough to bring the edges of her lips down.

  “Sam?” Dr. Ash said. She looked over to him and her eyes were watering. She coughed again and she took her fingers from the edge of the water and brought them to her chest.

  Dr. Ash didn’t think, he acted. It was the only thing he knew to do. Part of him wanted to scoop her up and bring her into the emergency room to another doctor, someone else who knew what to do, but when she kept coughing, she leaned forward and soon enough the coughing turned to vomiting.

  He touched her back, trying to steady her until her coughing slowed. The vomit at her feet was clear, totally devoid of any color or texture. She stopped vomiting, but her body was still shuttering and Dr. Ash realized it was because Sam was crying as she took gasping breaths. He knelt beside her as she covered her face with her hands.

  “Do you still feel nauseous?” he asked.

  She looked up, the white of her eyes a bright red. Tears were still streaming in ripples, but what shocked him most when he looked at her was the bright terror he saw there.

  “I always feel sick,” she said, and she buried her face again.

  “Can you stand?” He stood up, trying to pull her up beside him. Her body was heavy, but he was able to guide her out of the greenhouse. Once he opened the door to enter the hospital, a chill of air greeted them.

  “I need a wheelchair,” he said, keeping Sam close beside him. He shouted the words to no one in particular, but soon enough a team of passersby came to attention.

  “Here you go, Dr. Ash.” A nurse came from a little way down the hall with the wheelchair in hand. She helped lower Sam into the chair. Her eyes were wide and when the nurse was about ready to wheel her away, she turned around back towards the greenhouse door.

  “I don’t want to leave,” she said. “Dr. Ash, please let me stay in the greenhouse.”

  “You’re sick,” he said. Sam knew his words were true, but they were a crushing blow as she sunk into the wheelchair. That spark that had been there when she touched the water was gone, only to be replaced by a sense of dread. She was trapped in her own body.

  “Page Jamie. She vomited in the greenhouse,” Dr. Ash said. The nurse nodded her head and turned toward the greenhouse. She disappeared into the room to clean up the mess.

  Sam was silent as she was rolled back to her room. She hadn’t felt sick in the moments before vomiting. It felt good to finally touch water again. When she had closed her eyes she had imagined she was outside. The beeping of the machines, the constant hum of voices, it was finally gone and replaced with the sound of trickling water. And then it was gone again.

  Sam’s body was betraying her. No matter how hard she tried to fight it, she kept becoming sick. She imagined her body covered in small scars from being poked and prodded.

  “Does she need to be stabilized?” It was Jaime’s voice. She rushed over to Sam and took the wheelchair from Dr. Ash’s hands. He didn’t protest and walked beside her as they ran down the hall. Sam looked through each hospital room as they went by. Some people were sleeping, others watching TV, some beds were empty. It had been so long since her bed had been empty, but it was about to be filled again.

  “Sam?” It was Dr. Ash talking this time. He was walking beside her, crouched down to meet her eyes. Sam looked at him and blinked too many times. She couldn’t get herself to focus. His mouth kept moving, she knew he was talking, but she couldn’t hear them.

  Her head began to fall forward. She wasn’t aware of her own motion until Dr. Ash fell from her vision and soon enough she was looking at her lap. She coughed and vomit came again.

  She remembered being sick when she was little. Whenever she had the stomach bug she always felt worse and worse until she threw up. Once it was out of her system, she felt better. This wasn’t the same. Sam felt fine, always felt fine, up until the moment the vomit came. Then she felt worse. That’s why was she was looking at her own vomit as it sat in her lap.

  The moments that proceeded were a blur. She was floating from her wheelchair and in the next moment her skin was cold and exposed. Her naked body was on display and hands were touching her arms, softly guiding her. She didn’t feel scared as warm water poured over she skin.

  “We’re going to get you cleaned up,” a voice said.

  Sam felt coarse cotton against her skin. The fabric fell just above her knees and over the tops of her arms. She still felt exposed until she felt her backside come into contact with a bed—her bed. Blankets were rolled over her body until she was the only one left in the room again. The machine by her bedside beeped to remind her she was alive.

  Chapter 33

  Willow was ta
king the blood pressure of a patient when she felt her balance tip. The patient, a middle-aged man, was lying in bed with an IV in his hand and blood pressure cuff around his arm. She was watching the computer screen reading off his blood pressure when she put her hand out to catch herself. Willow was leaning against the wall at the head of his hand, thankful the TV in the room was enough to distract him.

  “Everything looks good,” she said. She took a deep breath as she tried to push herself up to stand. The pit of her stomach felt like it had dropped to the floor. She was nauseous, like at any moment she might fall to the floor.

  Willow’s legs were shaking as she found her balance enough to lean forward and take the blood pressure cuff off the man’s arm. He grunted as she lifted his arm, but even though she could feel herself swaying as she walked out of the room, she knew he wouldn’t have noticed.

  “Willow, did you want to order lunch?” Terry, one of the nurses on call, was the first person to walk towards Willow once she left the patient’s room. Terry had a takeout menu in her hand from the Chinese restaurant.

  “No, I’m all set,” Willow said. She meant for her voice tobe calm, but it came out as one large breath. She was walking too fast, but her eyes were on the bathroom down the hall. She just needed to sit, take a breath and she would be all right. Willow didn’t want to stop walking for fear that she may tumble in front of everyone.

  “Willow?” Terry said. She was behind her now and Willow knew without looking that Terry was following.

  Willow’s stomach bunched into a twist, and she practically ran to the bathroom, darting for the door.

  “Are you okay?”

  She could hear Terry behind her, just barely, but the sound of her own breathing was a loud pulsing in her ears. She got to the bathroom, tugged on the door, and it was locked.

  “Damn it,” Willow said in the breath. She began coughing once her body paused and she cursed at the single-stalled bathroom. Terry was close behind, shouting, but Willow couldn’t hear over the buzzing noise in her ear.

  She fell to the floor when her hand slipped from the door. She supposed her body made a thud as it hit the ground, but she wasn’t sure. Her vision went blank, so she closed her eyes as she lay on the floor. The only thing she was sure of was the prickle of tears that were streaming down her face. She wanted to get up, to move, but she was trapped inside her own body, betrayed.

  — — — — —

  Dr. Ash was pacing in his office long after Sam had fallen asleep in her room. The last he had seen of her, she was flushed a healthy shade a pink and her vitals were perfect. The only giveaway that she had been sick was that her hair that was still wet from the bath the nurses had given her to clean up the vomit.

  In one way, he was amazed. Her mind was healing. She could retain thoughts, recall long-lost memories and recognize people from her past. It was as if the dementia that had been infecting her brain had never been there.

  But then there were the rashes, the vomiting, the constant reactions her body made in protest to the vaccine. He hoped her body would adjust over time and that she wouldn’t need any further injections of the vaccine, but if the dementia came back and she started reverting to her old ways, he would have no choice but to administer again. She was a person conscious of her own existence, but now she was aware as she suffered through it.

  Dr. Ash was clenching and unclenching his fists, pacing his office that he practically lived in. There seemed to be more nights, long nights of confusion. His hand brushed against the papers laying across the desk and he wanted to throw it all away. His fingers found one paper, a sticky-note laying on the keyboard of his computer. It was Willow’s soft script: I’m sorry.

  The words were written small, like a whisper, but he could still hear the sound of her voice loud and clear in his mind.

  He crumpled the note.

  “Dr. Ash?” The was a quite knock at the door and he hid the note in his pocket.

  “Come in,” he said. He stood behind his desk, trying to wipe his face of the emotions and lack of sleep that he was sure was etched there across his skin.

  “I’m sorry to disrupt you, but I think Willow needs you.” It was Terry, a nurse that usually had the same shifts as Willow. She was an older woman, someone who took on the world with no nonsense. He’d seen her on the floor and how she took on any patient without even the slightest look of doubt on her face, but now she seemed unsure.

  “Where is she?” he asked. The sticky note was still crumpled in his pocket, but he began to unfurl it again.

  “We found her unconscious on the bathroom floor.”

  — — — — —

  If he was honest with himself, he had wanted to rip the sticky note in half or burn it or do anything but what he was doing right now. Willow had gotten them into this mess; she had let her own feelings compromise another patient and now he had to cover it up. He wanted to yell and scream, to make her find sense. Yet there he was, at the side of her hospital bed, holding her small, tender hand. Sometimes when he held her hand he could feel her spirit lifting him up, but now he could only feel her dragging him down.

  Her eyes never fluttered. She was a pale pink on the hospital bed, alive and so lost. He wanted to be angry with her, he could still feel it rumbling inside him, but he could only hold her hand and hope she opened her eyes.

  “Her vitals all seem okay. What blood tests do you want me to run?”

  He still had his eyes on her when Terry was talking to him. For a moment, seeing her face so at peace, so still, he could imagine it was just the two of them and they were home after a long night. They were both still in their scrubs, too tired to get changed and too tired to let go of the other person’s hand.

  “I’ll handle it, Terry,” he said, taking his eyes off his wife. “Thank you.” Terry smiled and rolled a cart forward, the syringe and tubes laid across it.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “I’m sure,” Dr. ash said, taking the cart and rolling it closer to his side.

  “Page me if you need anything,” she said as she left the room.

  He worked quick to prep her arm and take her blood. She opened her eyes when he wrapped the rubber band around her arm.

  “What are you doing?” she said. Her eyes were wide, more frightened than he had seen them in a long time.

  “I’m just taking a sample so we can make sure you’re okay.” He put his hand over hers to try to calm her down but she pulled away.

  “No, please, Randy, I’m fine.” Willow untied the rubber band from the top of her arm and tossed it to the side.

  “Willow,” Randy said. He gripped her wrist. “Do you even know what happened?”

  She kept trying to pull away, but Randy’s grip only grew tighter. He wasn’t hurting her, and that frustrated her even more. She wanted to be angry with him, but he only gave her reasons to calm down.

  “I’m fine,” she said. She pushed him away and pushed herself off the bed.

  “No, you’re not.” Randy stepped in front of her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her so her back was to his chest. She could imagine the two of them at home, making dinner, just another day, but his grip was too tight to be a normal embrace. “Willow, Terry found you passed out on the floor.”

  She was glad that her back was to him when he spoke to hide the surprise that coated her face. She shook it away quickly.

  “I’m fine. Terry was just being dramatic.”

  She wanted to wriggle free, but Randy pulled her farther away from the door and closer to the bed until he had her seated.

  “Stop it,” he said.

  “Randy, I’m fine!” But he wouldn’t let her get up. He didn’t say anything to her. He just stood while he held her onto the bed, waiting for her arms to relax and when he felt her release the tension in her arms, he leaned away.

  “Dr. Ash?” Terry poked her head into the room. Her face was still as she took in Willow sitting on the edge of the bed like she was ready to jump
up.

  Randy sighed and looked at Willow. His eyes were a mix of anger and sorrow. He was begging her to sit.

  “Terry, can you get a blood sample from Willow and send it off to the lab?” His eyes never left Willow’s face. She could feel herself sinking with submission. “Willow, I’ll be back soon to take you home. You need to rest.”

  He walked out of the room and a panic set fire to her bones. Terry stepped through the door and grasped her hand.

  “I’ll be quick,” she said. Terry worked fast to sanitize the area, wrap the band and plunge the needle. Willow couldn’t ignore the urge to pull away, to hide what was hidden in her blood. She watched the syringe as it filled with the bright red liquid.

  “All set,” Terry said. She covered the pin-prick in the crook of Willow’s elbow with a small bandage. If the area hurt, she couldn’t tell. Her body was on fire all over, begging her to run.

  Chapter 34

  Sam was shaking. She was burrowed under the cotton blankets of the hospital bed, but it felt like sandpaper against her skin. Her skin had droplets of sweat which only seemed to catch the cold air more.

  “One of the nurses said we could use this blanket,” Shelly said. She walked into the room with a fleece blanket with pink hearts. Paul took it from her and began to wrap it around Sam’s body. “Feeling any better?” Shelly said as she came by her bedside.

  “Fine,” she said. She was trying to hide the shaking from her grandparents. The rash on her arm had finally healed, but with it left all heat in her body.

  “She has a fever,” Paul said. His voice was firm, aggressive. “No one in this damn hospital is treating her. She’ll die because of them!”

  “Paul,” Shelly said.

  Sam sunk deeper into the mattress. She wanted to think that her grandfather was being over dramatic, but the longer she stayed at the hospital, the surer she was that she might not ever leave.

  Paul looked from Shelly to Sam, his hand in a tight fist. There was a knock at the door and Dr. Ash entered. His body was slumping in on itself as he walked. There were things about him that seemed off, and for a moment Sam wondered if he was as delicate as she was.