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It was near dark as they arrived back at home. Alex was tired but wasn't ready to go to bed. His sleep cycle had been erratic since the time he left the hospital, but the one constant was being unable to sleep if he went to bed before midnight, and usually a couple of hours afterward was not late enough. He had asked Jessica to stop at a liquor store as they returned to Trumann. Jonesboro was in a dry county so the liquor stores were near the county lines of the neighboring counties. When he lived in Jonesboro Alex sometimes stopped at one of the stores near the Poinsett County line to purchase his favorite beverages. For the past couple of years though, he had drunk very little. He kept a few bottles around, mostly for visitors. But he didn't want to start taking pills to sleep, so he asked Jessica to get a couple of bottles of a good brandy. At home he sat down at his computer to order some more computers. An hour or so on the Amazon website and he was done. Couple of new desktops on the way, some USB sticks and external backup drives. That should do it. Download an image of Mint 21. Still not time for bed. He reclined in the chair and put his feet up to nap. Jessica went back to the unused bedroom where she had put his hospital records. She had brought home a large folding table and a lamp. Reading medical records was a pain at the best of times, and these looked dodgy. There were many pages of hand-written logs. Bad handwriting. She had had to wait two days to get them, and from their look they had been fed into a copier page by page. Any hospital should be able to push a button, or click a mouse, and wait for the paper to emerge with no further intervention. That had been the case at St. Bernards, but not at Arkansas Continued Care. Unsurprising. Jessica had lived in Jonesboro for some eight years. Arkansas Continued Care was a recent arrival. Very recent. The old hospital, Methodist Hospital of Jonesboro, something like that, had been closed for years. Sitting there empty by the 63 bypass. She remembered when it had reopened the first time, about the time she moved to Jonesboro. She had seen it on the local television channel. The big Baptist Hospital in Memphis had built a hospital there. NEA Baptist. Huge, no doubt state or the art facility. Up on 49, north side of town. But while it was being built they opened up the old Methodist facility. Used it for two years, then closed it down when the new facility opened. She wondered why they did that. A friend who was a nurse told her. Jessica had only worked at it for a couple of years, in a hospital in Bentonville. Probably not long enough to get a good look at the business, an idea of the kind of people and how they thought. Her friend told her that Memphis Baptist wanted into the growing northeast Arkansas market, and used the old hospital to establish a presence and a customer base that would be ready when they opened the new one. It sounded rather cynical for some reason, but she didn't give it any more thought. The big fancy hospital opened up and that should be a good thing, she thought. Now Jonesboro had two big hospitals. The hospital in Paragould, where she and Alex worked, didn't seem much different. She had only been there once, when Alex nearly dropped dead in her office, and he spent a week there, mostly just lying in bed and having a morning check. He was out of danger in a couple of days, but she supposed they were being cautious. But that was where they took him. Their offices were on the north side of town. Good twenty minutes. One way. Fooled around a couple hours. Still don't know what they were trying to do. Maybe something in the records, when she got to them. She had followed the ambulance, waited outside the ER. People running around. Nurse comes out. Going to need surgery. Abmulance on the way, take him to Jonesboro. Follow the ambulance to Jonesboro. Fifteen minutes down 49, good new four-lane. Fifteen minutes to the nearest hospital. Ambulance passed it, going downtown. Dammit! What are they doing? Another ten minutes or more, off 49, downtown streets. Midday traffic. Find a parking place. Where? Anywhere. Lucky it's not a big city. Pay to park, multi-level garages. Just find a place. She looked up at the hospital, two blocks away. Where did the ambulance go? She ran, glad she didn't have to dress up for work. Jeans and sneakers. Didn't even put her jacket on before leaving. Not cold now. Couple of nurses coming out the door. "Where's the emergency room?" "On the other side." She tried the door. Locked. "You can't go in that way," one of them said. "You have to use the front entrance." Sign on door. Covid-19. All visitors must use main entrance on Jackson Avenue. Running again. Rounding the corner. Don't see a street sign. That looks like the entrance. Run some more. That's not the... Ahead on a tunnel entrance. Big red letters. EMERGENCY. Run some more. Why did they come here?
She went back to the living room where Alex was working. Sleeping now. She'd lost track of time, looking through the records. What time? Almost midnight. She turned on the television, on the opposite wall. Muted it quickly to avoid waking him. Clicked through a few channels, read the subtitles on the news programs. Nothing much, Covid being the only regular subject. Glad she wasn't in that business. Looked like some bad things were going on, people lying about things. Government lying. News people lying. Hell, they are part of the government now. All kinds of ads for medical stuff. Talking heads. Everybody has an opinion. Prediction. Need to do this. That. Alex stirred, sat up. Looked around, saw the TV on. Turned around. "How's it going?" she asked. He looked at the screen of the computer he had been working with. "Got one of them loaded. I'll do the other tomorrow. About time to call it a day." "Want something to eat before bed? It might be a good idea if you're going to drink something." "Probably should. What have we got?" "Something you'll like. C'mon." He got up, used the walker for support until he had his cane in hand. Jessica walked close as he made his way into the kitchen. "You're getting better at that. I got your weights yesterday. Tomorrow you can try them, see what you can do." Jessica opened a package of Keebler cookies and set them on the table. "Double chocolate, you favorite." she said. "I'll get some drinks." "I got some E and J Peach, and some Irish Mist. I seem to remember you liking that." "Tough choice, let's try the Irish Mist. I'm mostly Irish. I think. Am I?" How do I remember just some random things? "You are," Jessica said. "Your father's side came over during the Famine. Your mother's side had a little of everything, including native American, Jewish, but a bit or Irish." Indian, Jewish? OK. Sounds good to me. Jessica poured a few fingers of the liqueur into tumblers and added a spash of water. Neither of them drank much, and when they did it was usually brandy. Alex had introduced her to Irish Mist, and she liked it. Several cookies with the sweet liqueur soon made him drowsy again. Jessica walked him to his room and once he was safely clad in his pajamas and in bed, she placed the walker close by and went to her own room. Alex didn't have time to think about how long it would take to fall asleep, as he even with the sleep aids he had been using. The next thing he was aware of was the morning light. |
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