Page 73 - Vol. VII #8

She turned her head to me. Her eyes were wide as full blue moons. “Are you sure I’m going to be all right?”
I squeezed her hand and kissed her forehead, scan- ning the room for the doctor. I managed to catch his eye. Maybe there was something desperate in mine he noted, because he strode over with a big smile on his face. Underneath that smile was pure exhaus- tion. He took one look at the rash and told us it was definitely Lyme disease.
“It’s good you brought her in,” he said. “The sooner you take care of this, the easier it is to treat.”
“Awoman sat on the bed, holding his
I had to bite my tongue not to tell Michael I told you so. The doctor wrote a prescription for bubblegum- flavored amoxicillin and told us to wait for the nurse to give Megan the first dose.
I whispered to Michael, “Megan will be in college by the time the nurse gets back.”
hand, her face close to his. What a picture, an elderly couple clinging to each other like that.”
And you know what? Michael smiled at my lame joke, and we both started laughing so hard there were tears in our eyes.
Providence intervened, because a nurse suddenly ap- peared with a cup filled with pink liquid. I steeled myself for the inevitable battle, but Megan simply gulped down the medicine and handed the nurse the empty cup.
Just then, an alarm went off next to the old man’s bed. The woman stood and bent over her husband. “Hang on, Frank,” she cried.
A doctor and several nurses were there in an instant with a crash cart. I covered Megan’s eyes as the man’s body arced from the repeated jolts of electricity.
I’d never seen a person die before. My mother died before I reached the hospital. It took me an hour to find a neighbor to watch the kids. Fifteen minutes too long.
The doctor rubbed the woman’s shoulder and said something I couldn’t hear. They left her alone but didn’t pull the curtain all the way shut. The woman held her husband’s hand and pressed her forehead to his. I was so distracted, I didn’t notice Megan get up. Before I could stop her, she crossed the room, pulled something out of her pocket, and handed it to the woman. It was then I realized she’d brought the hermit crab to the hospital.
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