With that, Christopher pushed the itch deep into the woman’s mind. His nose began to gush blood. The children stopped fighting when they saw the old woman lying on Christopher. The silence spread through the room. Christopher’s mother rushed toward them.
“Mrs. Keizer! Let go of my son!”
“Of course,” she said. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Reese.”
With that, the old woman let go of Christopher. The entire staff stared at her. The woman had been ravaged for eight years by Alzheimer’s. And now, she was lucid, bright, and happy.
It was a miracle.
Christopher looked up at his mother. His face was covered in blood. From his nose to his neck. He locked eyes with her.
“Mommy,” he said. “I think I’m dying.”
Chapter 57
Christopher’s mother was so panicked when she entered the emergency room that at first, she didn’t notice. All she saw was the step right in front of her.
She had blown through every red light and stop sign on the way to the ER. She saw the deer on either side of the road, but she didn’t slow. Her son was gushing blood from his nose. His skin was so feverish that it gave her hands little blisters.
And he was talking to himself.
They weren’t sentences. Just little phrases. Words strung together like ants at a picnic. Christopher’s mother prayed it was a fever dream and nothing worse. She had one when she was younger. She was on a hike with her one good uncle and she reached under a rock. She was bitten by a snake and spent two days not knowing what was real and what was make-believe.
“Hang in there, honey,” she said.
But her son kept muttering. Delirious. The only phrase that made any sense was…
“No dreams.”
Christopher’s mother pulled into the loading zone of the hospital and ran into the ER, holding her son like a laundry bundle. She went straight to the admissions desk. Nurse Tammy listened dutifully, asked for her insurance card, and told her to take a seat in the waiting room.
“Fine. Fine. How long until he can see a doctor?”
“About ten hours.”
“What the hell do you mean, ten hours?”
Nurse Tammy pointed into the waiting room. Christopher’s mother quickly turned. And that’s when she finally saw it.
There was not a single chair left in the ER.
She was used to waiting rooms being desperate places. The times when she didn’t have health insurance, the ER was where she was forced to go. She had seen strung-out couples moaning. Poor people crying and screaming to be seen immediately. But now she had health insurance. She wasn’t in a city. She was in a small town.
And she had never seen anything like this.
The entire room was packed. Fathers stood against the walls so their wives and children could sit. Old people sat on the floor.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Reese,” Nurse Tammy said. “So many of our doctors and nurses called in sick today. I’m even working the desk. We’ll see him as soon as we can.”
“Where’s the next nearest hospital?” she asked.
“It’s the same everywhere, ma’am. Christmas is flu season. Please have a seat.”
Christopher’s mother wanted to scream at her, but all she saw was a tired woman who looked sick herself. She wasn’t about to yell at one of the few nurses who actually came in that day. So, she swallowed her rage and nodded.
“Thank you, Nurse,” she said.
“You’re welcome, ma’am,” Nurse Tammy replied, then went back to the phone. “Sorry, Dad. I can’t leave. We’re short-staffed. I’ll buy the merLOT for the party tomorrow.”
Christopher’s mother walked up and down the rows. She expected at least one person to give up their seat for a sick child. The fact that no one did was very unsettling to her. The people were too busy loosening their clothes to cool down their own fevers. Too busy scratching their arms. Christopher’s mother saw one man holding a bandage to his face.
“God damn deer ran right in front of my truck,” he said to the guy next to him.
She passed a stabbing victim. A housewife who inexplicably fell asleep in her backyard and woke up with frostbite. A couple of guys who got into a bar fight over “some Indian woman,” who said she could drink anyone under the table. She got them both drunk. As a joke, she thought it would be funny if they fought to the death for the right to sleep with her. And for some reason neither