Chapter 33

2016

And it was goodbye and that for a goodly period of time? Did I think about how she’d broken her promise to me? Did I think about how Selena was seeing things now, especially me? Of course I did. And, was I angry? The truth was that I wasn’t sure. I was very worried having my kid know about her mother, yes me, I was worried. I was worried how it would affect their relationship. I was soon going to be dead and forgotten. But, the bunch of them would have to go on. Shit what a mess.

I’d just undergone some tests. Why I really didn’t know, well, I didn’t know the scientific details. I was being wheeled back into my room. The orderly parked me near the nurses’ station while he dumped some paperwork on the nurse sitting at her desk.

Across from us was a woman on a gurney, maybe mid-thirties; she was with her kids. I guess they were her kids, they were surrounding her and comforting her. I could tell that she was doing her best to reassure them. Well, at least her kids actually cared about her. I was fucking envious for sure.

A different orderly—not my guy—interrupted them and wheeled her into the room that was next to the one I was in, 206B. My guy returned and did the same to me. I was able to get myself off of my gurney and onto my bed without too much trouble. I relaxed; well, what else was there for me to do.

It was a full hour later when I saw an older woman come and collect the woman’s kids: probably the mother of the woman. I hoped the lady, my in-hospital neighbor, would be all right, but it didn’t look good from all I’d so far seen. Did I mention that life sucked?

“Been busy taking care of us tragedies,” I said to nurse Diane. I recognized her from the day before. She was the nurse who had been taking care of the woman in 206B. I knew everybody in this wing were AIDS sufferers. I decided to ask.

“How is my girlfriend next door?” I said, nodding in the direction of the woman’s room. I got a look from nurse Diane.

“Girlfriend?” she said.

“We share the same disaster I guess,” I said. Nurse Diane nodded.

“She’s in the early stages, like you. It’s a matter of money,” she said. I was surprised that she’d share as much with me as she already had. I pushed it.

“She seems to have a nice family. I wish I did,” I said.

“Yes, the kids are sad. She’s a single mom, but her mother is still around. So many of the folks here aren’t that lucky.”

“Yeah, I can relate,” I said.

“You’ll be leaving tomorrow, I hear,” she said. I looked up.

“I thought it would be a few more days,” I said, she just smiled.

“Hmm,” she said, and then she was gone.

She’d been waiting for her husband for forever. Well, it seemed like forever. Ever since her mother had outed herself, she’d been beside herself with feelings of guilt and confusion and desperation.

Her dad was dying, and worse, trying to die. And why? Mostly because of her own behavior. Her mom too, but mostly because of her behavior. He was her dad, her real and wonderful daddy and he’d been treated like shit, by everybody. But it was her own self that her daddy needed to be there for him, and she hadn’t been, not in anything like a real sense. Fuck-fuck-fuck!

The bad news. She absolutely knew, oh yes, that her daddy would not want her to blame her mom. That because that was the kind of man he was. She realized it now, oh yes, she did. There was no fucking doubt about it. He loved her still. He was mad at her, but not love her? That was never going to happen. For sure that was never going to happen.

Where was her husband when she needed him! Work, work, work that was all the man did. No that wasn’t fair. What Jack Sizemore did he mainly did for her. She had to smile. In that he was like her daddy: everything for his woman. Yes, everything, even his life!

“You keep pacing back and forth like that you’re going to wear out those shoes,” said Jack Sizemore, coming in the room and joining her.

“Jack!” she screamed.

“Whoa there kemo sabe, what’s going on?” he said. Then his wife started to cry and there was no stopping her for some time. He just held her and waited.

She finally calmed down and in a staccato breath told him what had occurred earlier that day. The man, her man, just shook his head.

“Jack, what can I do, we do, anybody do?” she whined.

“First off you need to calm down,” he said. “Next you need to tell me what he said, exactly what he said. How did he react?” She gave him a funny look.

“Huh?” she said.

“He must have said something,” he said.

“Nothing, not really. He was mad at her. But she made him be quiet while she said what she said,” she said.

“Okay, so he was quiet. Did he shoo you out? Did you, I mean you not your mom, say anything else to him?”

“No, I ran out. I couldn’t even think,” she said. “I just ran out! Mom and I came in separate cars. I just drove here.” Her husband was nodding.

“Okay, that was probably a good thing. You weren’t ready to say anything meaningful, not after a revelation like that,” he said. “That said, you are going to have to go to him, and hear him out. You’ll get your say, but what he says will be what’s actually important. The man deserves to be heard, and you need to actually listen, and, to remember. He deserves that much consideration, no fucking doubt about it. And, I do mean deserves. If he dies, okay, but a man like that must, I say must, be remembered.