In the emergency room of the hospital, Bill watched as a young boy of only about eight or ten was being cared for by the same female doctor that had attended to Nathan on the night of Kathleen’s funeral. Her gentle and sympathetic tone with the boy was quite the reverse of her tone with Nathan. He figured that the boy was already in enough peril as she placed plaster fabric on the cotton use to pad his broken arm. At least Bill’s best assumption was that it was broken.
The Boy’s mother sat beside him on the hospital bed inspecting her freshly manicured finger nails, while the doctor continued. She didn’t talk to her son but instead directed all of her words to the doctor, which Bill found strange. There were no words of sympathy to her son, only a cold shrill interrogation of how much she would be inconvenienced.
“He can go to school today, can’t he?” The woman asked as if the doctor knew how very special and important she was.
“That is up to you but I think he might need a few days of rest so his arm can to begin heal.”
“Well I can’t just take off from work all willy-nilly you know?” She stated looking down her powdered nose and through the lower half of her fake gem encrusted eyewear.
“Oh, I’m sorry; you must be a very important person then.” The doctor said with mock admiration.
“As a matter of fact, I am.” She replied with satisfaction.
The doctor never stopped or looked up from her work, “That must be terrible, having all that pressure and demand on you.” When she finished, she placed a pad under the boy’s arm, “Now, try not to move your arm for a bit. We need to let the cast dry and then I’ll be back to check it. Ok?”
“Ok.” The boy said quietly.
The doctor looked at the mother who had taken out her cell phone and became immersed in her emails or texts or whatever. “So I think he should stay at home a couple of days…” The boy jerked his head up and the mother huffed. The boy shook his head slightly. “Or at least today.” The boy smiled and looked down again.
“Ok, ok, this is just great. I guess I’ll just have to reschedule my appointments.” The mother said dropping her phone into her tan knock off Coach purse. “You know I had two showings today. You couldn’t have picked a worse day to do this to me.” She snapped at the boy.
“Real Estate?” The doctor blurted out.
The woman looked at her offended; unsure how to reply. “Why?”
“You think that’s more important than taking care of your son?”
The woman looked at the boy and quickly announced, No, no, no,” she said putting up her hand at the doctor and smiling a horrible grin, “He’s not my son. He is my husband’s son.” She said as if that would justify her annoyance in her day being ruined.
The doctor nodded and walked away before realizing that Bill was standing by the nurse’s station watching. She walked up beside him and set her clipboard on the counter, made a few notes on the chart and then handed it to an athletic looking woman with a fountain of peacock blue hair behind the counter to be entered into the computer. She looked at Bill and they both sighed.
“I didn’t realize that you worked with such important people.” He said in jest.
“Can you believe that woman?” She replied looking back at the two of them. The boy remained still and quiet and the woman was on her phone speaking loudly about how she was unable to show a house due to her husband’s trouble making child. “So, what can I do for you?” She asked tuning back around.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but, I was wondering how my friend is doing.”
“Mr. Foster. She slid her hands into her lab coat pockets, “haven’t you been up to see him?”
“Ya, I was up stairs last night and he just seemed a little, oh I don’t know… High!” He announced with more emphasis than intended.
“Mr. Foster has been through quite an event. I’m not at liberty to go into detail but, he’s a very lucky man. He isn’t unlike many others who have had a near death experience. He may seem to be different for a while but he’ll be back to his old self in time. Besides he is taking pain medication and that can make him a bit loopy also.”
“When do you think he’ll be ready to go home?”
“Actually, I was going to check on him again today, and if all looks good then he can go home this week.” The woman behind the counter with the blue hair handed the chart back to the doctor. “I think it would be good if you were to check in on him for a few days when he gets home.”
“Oh, I intend to.” He replied the way a detective makes a statement that his detainee would be under tight surveillance.
She waved the chart slightly and said, “I need to go.”
“Thanks Doc. Maybe I’ll see you later.” He said walking away and nearly running over an elderly man in a wheel chair ad knocking his dusty hat to the floor. “Oh sorry sir.”
“Dang kids, always in a hurry.” The old man muttered. “Why don’t ya watch where you’re going?”
“I’m so sorry. I will.” Bill gathered his balance and his composure, handed the man his hat and checked to see which way he need to go and quickly disappeared into the labyrinth of halls of the hospital.
His Nike sneakers squeaked on the glossy tile floor as he made for the elevators that would carry him to Nathan’s floor. He noticed the hand drawn pictures on the walls from children, depicting what they knew of doctors and nurses. It made him think of what the boy in the emergency room would draw if he was asked to. Hopefully he would see his doctor as a good woman, in comparison to his father’s wife.
When he arrived on the seventh floor, the doors opened and a bulky man stepped in as he stepped out. The man looked friendly enough but a little out of place. He wore a bandanna on his head, a leather vest and blue jeans with a chain than held his wallet to his belt. His fingers were weighted with large rings and his arms were covered by bracelets and bands of all kinds. His heavy black boots shook the elevator as he stepped in and then he reached for a floor button as the doors closed again.
Bill blew it off and continued on to Nathan’s room. He knocked gently but heard no reply so he walked in quietly. Nathan was asleep in his bed with the sound of soft monitor beeps in the dimness of the room. Bill saw his Bible resting on his chest, and reached over him to retrieve the book. He looked at where it was opened to and saw that he had found his much loved verse. He read it again and softly closed the pages and placed Kathleen’s Bible in its place on his chest.
Nathan rustled about for a moment and Bill stood statue like trying not to wake him further. Then the door opened and in walked a thirty something woman moving around the room at a brisk pace, checking monitors and then the iv bag and then stopping by the side of the bed. She looked at Bill and Bill at her. He thought about making a dash for the door so Nathan wouldn’t think he had been hanging around watching him sleep, but didn’t.
“Mr. Foster.” The woman said taking his hand. He slowly opened his sleep filled eyes. “I need you to take you medication.” Nathan cleared his throat and blinked a few times. Then looked at Bill and then the nurse. She handed him two tiny white pills and he put them in his mouth, looked at Bill again and then took the glass of water she offered and drank it, sending the pills down his throat. The nurse made a note in the laptop and hurried out of the room to do more rounds.
“How long have you been here?” Nathan asked Bill
“Just got here before the nurse.”
“Oh. Why so early?”
“I wanted to give you Kathleen’s Bible.”
Nathan looked down and picked up the book. “Thanks.” He flipped through the pages as it made a breeze across his face. “And you wanted yours back too I suppose?”
“Ya, it felt like I left my right arm here last night.” He said with a chuckle.
“I know the feeling.” Nathan looked at Kathleen’s Bible, “Since I’ve got you here, I wanted to ask you a few things if you have time.”
“I
have plenty of time. And a few questions for you too.” Bill pulled up a chair and sat down. “What’s up?”
“You read to me while I was in a coma, didn’t you?”
“Ya.”
I want to know if what you were reading made me dream certain things.”
“Ok. You tell me about what you saw and I’ll tell you if it corresponds with what I read.”
“I saw a path, no wait. I heard a voice. Actually I heard two voices. One was clear and calm and the other was like…” he regarded Bill for a time, and then said. “It was pure evil.”
Nathan recounted all he could of his journey and those he met along the way. He told of the warriors and the obstacles he encountered; the beasts and the boy named Amos. The more he told Bill about his adventure, the more it became real again and the details he remembered, like the smell of the giant roses of the feel of the grass under his feet. He recalled the banquet tables and the castle with all of the doorways. Then he paused.
“Then I met with Jesus and I talked with him. He didn’t look like I thought, but I knew him at once when I saw him.” He went on and Bill listened without interruption, not wanting to break Nathan’s train of thought. He listened to each detail trying to picture what he saw.
When Nathan finished he sat back and opened up Kathleen’s Bible and asked, “So does any of that correspond with what you read to me?” He was hoping that it didn’t and that he really did experience everything just as it happened.
“Um, no.” Bill said surprised. “Not at all.”
Nathan looked up, “Then what were you reading to me?”
“I read the twenty-third Psalm.” He opened his Bible, “in fact I read all the Psalms. But I read Psalms 23 a few times. Maybe you heard some of what Kath…”
“Stop!” Nathan hollered, “Knock it off Bill. You're a preacher, aren’t you supposed to help people to believe in God? I mean, come on, aren’t you tired of everyone trying to explain God away? Oh, it’s a coincidence, or you sure got lucky, or whatever. This is more than that. You can’t tell me that this is just some weird near death occurrence. I believe.” He raised his hands as if he said all there was to say about it.
“I just want to know that what you saw was real.”
“Why? What happened to me isn’t the proof, the word of God is the proof.”
“Nate, I know I’m the pastor, but I’m also just a guy and I have my doubts like anyone else.”
“So if you had seen what I saw, then you’d believe, what…better? More? What man? Tell me what you need to believe.”
“I believe in God and that Jesus died for me, but sometimes it feels so far away, like what I do today will have little or no effect on what’s to come.”
“Come on Bill, even the Devil knows there’s a God, but maybe the real genius behind the enemy’s plan is to put thoughts in your head like, ‘you're insignificant and that what you do today doesn’t really matter in the whole scheme of things.’ Maybe he starts with that and then goes deeper like, ‘I’m just one person, what can I do?’ And then one by one people stop fighting for him until the majority of Christians have become passive. Because I don’t want to be passive.”
Bill sat there stunned. He was being preached to, and it felt good. He had nothing to say, he was just absorbing what Nathan was saying. It was like he was being recharged. He felt a lump in his throat and his heart began to pump a little harder. He hadn’t felt this kind of excitement in quite a while.
“I mean,” Nathan continued, “I don’t remember hearing too many people raising a fuss when prayer was removed from school, or the pled of allegiance was stopped because ‘One nation under God’ might offend someone. Well you know, I’m offended that my kids can’t say it anymore. And I’m offended that the Ten Commandments have been removed from court houses and government building. No wonder our government has become so distorted.”
“So what can we do?” Bill asked hoping to hear some radical new idea.
“We need to keep doing what you’ve been doing. You were a friend to me when I needed it, even though I didn’t deserve it.” Nathan stuck his hand out to Bill. “And by the way, thank you.”
Bill smiled knowing that the old Nate would never have said that. This was someone new in front of him. “Your welcome. Listen, I spoke to Dr. Shultz and she says that you should be out of here by the end of the week. I’d like to keep this going even after your released if you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Not at all, that’d be great.” Nathan took the worn and well-used Bible in his lap and reached back to set it on the night stand beside the bed when his hand bumped something. There was a loud “flap” sound. “What was that?”
Bill got up, “It was your picture.” He walked over to it, “Here, I’ll get it.”
“What picture?” Nathan asked looking around to see. Bill picked it up and handed it to him. The picture from his office, his wife and three kids and he standing beside a white rail fence with autumn leaves all around. “Did you bring this?” He asked Bill.
“No it was here when I got here.”
Nathan looked around the room. Bill looked for a minute too, then, “What are we looking for?” He whispered like he was a spy.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll know it when I see it. Look around for something that doesn’t belong.” They searched what they could see then Nathan said, “Check the closet.” Then “Check the table over there.”
Bill searched the closet and the table and the window sill. He looked under the bed and by the nurse’s station then stopped and looked around again. He realized that he hadn’t checked the drawer in the night stand. He walked over and opened it and there in the drawer lay a log like thing rolled in aluminum foil. He picked it up, it was still warm.
Nathan saw it and laughed. “You like meatball subs?” he asked.
“Sure, who doesn’t?” They opened the steaming wrapper and the smell of fresh Italian basil and garlic engulfed the sterilized, whitewashed room life an herbal bomb went off. The two men were enjoying the sandwich without a sound, when the door opened and in walked none other than, Dr. Lilly Schultz.
She spotted the fare in the men’s hands and on their faces. She only shook her head easily and closed the door behind her. “You do realize that this is not really proper breakfast food, don’t you?” she asked with a crooked smile.
Bill wiped his mouth with his hand and snickered, “You kidding me? This is delicious at any time.”
“Just because I said that Mr. Foster would be going home soon doesn’t mean you can stuff him full of cholesterol and red meats.”
“Hey, don’t look at me. I didn’t bring it.”
The doctor snapped her head towards Nathan with a curious look. Nathan was still chewing as he shrugged shoulders and took another bite sending a stream of marinara down his chin. Bill laughed and looked at the doctor, “Can’t blame him can ya?” Bill took another bite and mumbled, “These things are delicious.” Nathan smiled and nodded in agreement.
“Be that as it may, I think you have been recovering quite well so the option is yours. If you feel up to going home, then I do have any objections to that.” Nathan nodded still chewing. “Ok, then I’ll get your discharge paperwork together.” She shook her head casually at the two men. “I’ll have a nurse come in and get you ready to go.”
Chapter 14