The Pain Nurse - страница 42
All this was on his mind as he watched Cheryl Beth and the guard pass through the last set of automatic doors into the garage. Will had wheeled himself up the ramp into the glassed-in bridge that connected the hospital to the parking garage. He was alone in the long, glassy, carpeted expanse. It looked like a part to a space station in an old science fiction movie. He spent a long time just watching the empty winter street below, watching the traffic in the distance, where healthy people were living their lives on the outside. He held his hand against the glass and let the cold move from his fingers up his wrist and arm. The feeling was good.
The sound behind him caught him daydreaming. His fright seemed to expand every blood vessel. Chambers. Damn. But, no, it was just a doctor or hospital worker striding past toward the parking area. He wore only green hospital garb, no coat. An iron man. At first Will wondered if the man might challenge him, sitting alone out there. It was past visiting hours, past time for him to return to the neuro-rehab ward. He wondered if they would even miss him if he just took an elevator down to the lobby and wheeled himself out into the big world.
With his chilled hands back on the rims of the wheelchair, he reluctantly turned himself around and rolled back inside the hospital. The usually bustling offices on these floors were closed and the hallways empty. Oncology. Diabetes Center. Endocrinology. Blood Services. The signs neatly denoted doorways or directed people down hallways. The signs pointed to dread and pain and suffering, but maybe that was just the mood he was in tonight.
He turned the corner as he heard the voices, a man and a woman arguing. They were standing maybe fifteen feet ahead of him, facing each other but with their sides to Will. They were holding each other’s hands, but the body language was tense, as if the connection could quickly be broken. Will immediately retreated back behind the wall. Her voice was young and emotional, his older, rich-timbred, slightly condescending, words with extra enunciation. He was trying to get her to do something, or calm her down, and she was having none of it. Will knew the woman. It was one of the physical therapists that worked with the neuro-rehab patients in the gym each morning. Her name was Amy and she was cute and kind. The other man was tall and lanky, with a neat beard and wearing a white lab coat over well-pressed slacks, white shirt, tie-a doctor. He couldn’t make out the words, just the mood, stormy, until he very clearly heard the words from the man: “Cheryl Beth” and, a few beats later, “police.”
“Police?” Amy nearly shrieked before bringing her voice down and then Will was back to hearing angry gibberish. He didn’t dare show himself. He strained to hear more.
Then there was silence, too long a pause, followed by footsteps coming toward him. Will hunched forward and fired his arms to get the wheelchair moving. He slid into a deserted waiting area. Muzak piped annoyingly from the overhead speakers, made louder by the emptiness of the room. It was just rows of chairs, tables with sticky magazines, a couple of sickly plants, and windows looking into blackness. Will put his head down and his hands together.
“Hey, Will, are you all right?”
Will raised his head. Amy was bent down on her haunches to be on his level, a position you’d use to speak to a child. He pushed the thought aside and said, “Long day.”
“I bet.” She forced a smile and gave a long sniffle. “Allergies,” she said. Her eyes were red and swollen. Will fished in his little pack and produced a small packet of tissues. She pulled one out and wiped her nose and eyes.
“Thank you. I heard about your fight with Crazy Lennie at the old entrance today. Wow, all those lat pulls you’ve been doing must have paid off!”
She was so young and pretty it almost made him ache, but it also made him sad for her. She spoke with the voice of the young and pretty and innocent. “You know, I was taking a shortcut from neuro-rehab to the cafeteria the other day, and I turned the corner and there was Lennie. I will still shaken up by what happened to Dr. Lustig, but I didn’t put two and two together. It was just Lennie.”