“I don’t know. I’m afraid you’re going to flee before I have a chance to say good-bye.”
If you asked me seven months earlier how I would have described myself, I would have said fickle, indecisive, directionless, shallow, selfish, and utterly, obliviously ignorant of other people’s feelings. But all of that was changing, along with the rest of my life. Seven months ago, I might’ve walked out of that hospital room the moment I laid eyes on Adam. But now I was there with him and I wanted to change. To learn from his example.
So I made a decision.
“I’m not going anywhere, Adam. I’m staying with you. I might need to leave to get some of my belongings, but you’re coming with me.”
“What?” He set down his fajita and reached his left hand across his body, gesturing for me to take it. Squeezing my hand as best he could, he said, “You have a job and a life. You don’t need to do this.”
“I know I don’t need to; I want to. Are you going to tell me I can’t?”
“But . . .”
“No, listen. I’m sure you don’t need to be in here every second of the day. Am I right?”
“Well . . .”
I took my purse from my shoulder and set it down on the bed so Adam would know I wasn’t leaving. “I’m going to talk to your nurse. I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Okay.”
Adam’s nurse was standing right outside his room, talking to a doctor. “Hello.” I interrupted them. The doctor was an older woman in her sixties with a kind face.
“Hello,” the doctor said.
“Do you need something?” the nurse chimed in.
“I just wanted to know what the deal is with Adam? I mean, can he leave the hospital?”
“Adam’s condition is declining,” the doctor said. “His parents are paying for him to have full-time care here.”
“But he doesn’t actually require hospitalization at this point?”
I had never had so much resolve in my life.
The nurse said, “We’re keeping him comfortable.”
“Okay, I get it. Adam is dying but he’s not dead. Can I take him outside? Can I take him for a drive?”
The doctor shook her head. “You absolutely cannot take him off the property. There are all kinds of liability issues. As much as we would all love to give Adam some time away from this place, we just can’t do it based on the agreement we’ve made with his family.”
My head dropped to the floor. Just before walking away, the doctor added, “I’m sorry.”
When the doctor was gone, the nurse silently followed me into the room. Adam had finished eating and was still wearing a huge grin, which made the nurse smile. “I just realized I haven’t introduced you two,” Adam said. “Charlotte, this is my favorite nurse, Leah.” There was something about Leah that made me instantly trust her. She was older than me, maybe in her midthirties, but there was something in her big bluish-gray eyes that made her seem childlike and honest.
I shook her hand. “Nice to meet you,” I said.
“Likewise,” she returned. “I saw a picture of the mural. It’s beautiful,”
“Yes, that was all Adam, though.”
“Well, you were quite the inspiration for him.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling less than deserving of the compliment.
As she moved around Adam’s bed, adjusting his pillows and checking his vitals, she began to ramble. “So, Adam gets intravenous drips every four to six hours. It’s pain and antiseizure medication and we keep a line in him for fluids but . . .”
“But otherwise, he’s not being monitored?” I said.
“He is. But you know . . .” She hesitated, looking up at me. “I’m monitoring him from the station.”
I knew what she was getting at.
She stuck a tongue depressor in Adam’s mouth and peered in while she went on. “There’s a track out in back that you can take him around in the wheelchair. There’s a little garden, too.”
“How long can Adam be outside?”
“Well, as long as he’s here for his meals and medication. I check in every two hours to take his vitals, but if he skips once, it might be okay.”
“Uh-huh.”
The whole time the nurse was talking, Adam was just sitting there, happily watching me.
“Charlotte, are you gonna push me around the track?” he said.
“Maybe, if you’re lucky.”
He winked at me. The nurse was smiling as she left the room.
“What’s your plan, small-fry?” he said.
I gripped the handles on the wheelchair and pushed it back and forth a couple of times. “You want to go for a ride, Adam?”
“You’re talking dirty now.”
I laughed. “Come on, you can stand, right?”
He tore his covers off and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The nurse returned a second later and, without a word, she unhooked his saline bag, leaving the line in his hand but disconnected. She fiddled with a few other things and then helped me guide Adam into the chair. I put the footrests down and brought his feet up from the floor to rest on the metal flaps. “Your feet are freezing.”
“I’ll grab him some socks,” Leah said. When she returned, she handed them to me and pointed out, in a low voice, “The wheelchair collapses from the lever on the side.”
There was no reason for me to know that unless I was taking him in a car off the property. “Thank you. We’ll be back in an hour and a half.”
“It can get pretty congested on the track. He needs to receive his medication or he’ll have a seizure. Just be wary of the traffic. You know, in the hallways and whatnot?”
“Right, hallway traffic.”
On the back of the wheelchair there was a little bag with sunglasses, ChapStick, sunblock, and hand sanitizer. “Are these yours?” I said, holding the black Wayfarer shades out to Adam.
“Yep.” He put them on and smiled wide at Leah as we passed her on our way into the hallway. “Bye, Leah, see you in a bit,” Adam said.
18. Circumstances
I pushed him quickly to the elevator without making it too obvious that we were doing something wrong. The adrenaline rush, on top of my mounting emotions, was overwhelming but gave me a high that felt a lot like love, though I couldn’t afford to let my mind go there.
Adam didn’t speak. When I reached my Honda in the parking structure, I was thankful that no one was around to see me carting him away in his hospital gown. I pushed him up to the passenger door. In a hushed tone, I said, “You wanna come to my house with me so I can get some things?”
“Yeah, I’d love to,” he whispered back. His enthusiasm was sweet. I was worried about taking Adam, but I couldn’t leave him. When Leah said they were just trying to make him comfortable, I knew they weren’t really preventing anything; they were just managing him toward death. He didn’t need to be stuck there. I couldn’t believe that he was his mother’s only child and she was just going to leave him there to die alone.
As I helped him into the car, I said, “Has anyone come to see you?”
“Oh yeah.”
I tried to pull his seat belt across but he gripped my hand. “I can do this myself.”