Chapter 2

I needed a drink...

I had to wait until I got home, first. I looked up into John's eyes. "I passed out because of the intercranial pressure, didn't I?"

"We're not sure yet, but that's our working theory. Are you going to be ok?"

"That is perhaps the stupidest question that anyone ever asked me. Of course I'm not OK. I'm dying!" I laid back and took a deep breath. "Who knows?"

"You, me, and the radiologist. He's new around here, fresh from residency, so he doesn't know anyone yet. After he confirmed my fears, I took the films and destroyed them." He took my hand, something he hadn't done since his wife died - except now I was the comforted. "Want me to call Mary?"

A million things were running through my head at the moment, but I was lucid enough to know the answer to that. "No. I'll tell her later tonight. Can you get me my bag out of the break room? I need my cell phone. And, see if you can get Maurice from HR up here."

"Anything for you, my friend. I'll be right back." He stood there for a moment, looking at me. I could tell he was trying to memorize my face, while he still had the chance.

As he reached to open the door, Sheila opened it from the other side; she looked like an African-American angel, carrying my steaming hot cup of Starbucks. I REALLY needed something at that moment to ground me into reality, and if that cup of coffee wasn't it, then it had to have been her.

I took the steaming cup from her and lightly kissed her on the cheek. "Thanks, love. I need this right now."

She looked at me, and then the departing Dr. Roberts. "Doctor," she said to his back, "why did he faint?"

Good old John turns around and looks directly at her. "Fatigue. Lance just told me that he hasn't had a full nights sleep for a week." Sheila looked at me darkly after he said that, but he pulled my cookies out of the fire. "He's taking a few hours to rest here, then going home. Said something about taking his family on a vacation."

Sheila looked at me, with that penetrating gaze that stripped me bare and left me naked for the buzzards. "Mmmhmmm. Fatigue my ass. There's something going on with you baby, I means to find out what."

I looked into her deep brown eyes, and remembered our past.

It was two years ago, when I first put on my lab coat and walked through the doors of this ER. She thought I was another soft white doctor, going to crumple in her inner city ER. It took months, and many a hard long night, but I finally won her respect, and her trust.

It wasn't an easy battle, and it took both the combined efforts of dear Mary, and myself but the rewards were well worth it.

She was almost a stereotype, and anyone who's ever worked in a hospital knows exactly what I mean. There's always one nurse, usually African-American, with more attitude than all of the teenagers in the united states combined, who knows more than the doctors, but is more content to just be a nurse. Stronger than an entire squad of security, she's wrapped in a package with unnaturally large breasts, a big old booty, and a body ravaged from having her kids.

But they do their job so well that to try to replace them would mean the entire hospital falling apart. Sheila was one of them, but she was the best of them all. To be without her would be like trying to be without my right hand.

Right now, she was my rock; well, her and my cup of Starbucks.

I spent the rest of the morning in the ER, resting. Sheila made sure of that - she offered to hurt me if I tried to get up and leave. I never realized just how much I loved her until that moment. I met with Maurice alone, and except for Robert and myself, he was the only other person in the world who knew that was happening to me. Between the both of us, we were able to come up with something so that the entire hospital didn't have to know what was happening.

I was officially on vacation leave for the next month - and by the time that was up, I would be gone... and it wouldn't be a secret anymore. My health insurance would cover anything that might crop up before then, and my life and disability insurance would ensure my family wouldn't have to worry about burying me.

After her shift was over, Sheila drove me back to Rosemont so I could get in my car and drive home, but my day was far from over. AJ would be home from Forensics at five, and would probably be bringing his girlfriend Kathy with him. Julie would be done with cheerleading around then too, but she usually went out with her friends before she came home.

On the way home, I stopped and got a couple hundred out of the ATM - I decided to send them both out for the evening. They would find out soon enough, but tonight I wanted it to be just Mary and myself. Her dad died of cancer when she was very young, and she had never gotten over the trauma of slowly watching him wither away before his body finally turned on itself and died...

This was going to ruin her, and it was in that moment I had made the decision about what I was going to do, and also when I decided to start this journal.

When I got home, I made reservations at Maggiano's out in Schaumburg, her favorite restaurant, and tickets to that new movie she wanted to see. It was one of those romantic comedies that she loved so much, and I loved in secret.

The night's preparations made, I lay down on the couch, watching the room swirl around me. It's fortunate indeed that it hadn't happened on the way home, or I might have taken someone's life. As much as I enjoyed the stable of cars I had out in the garage, I conceded that my driving days were probably over now. It just wasn't safe anymore.

I'm not sure when, but I must have fallen asleep soon afterwards. I woke up, and found a blanket draped over me, and heard my son's music playing at high volume. "The phantom of the opera" - I had taken him to see that when he was a child, and he had been entranced by it, a love that had continued until this day. I tucked my hands behind my head and enjoyed the strains of the phantom crooning "The point of no return"... somehow oddly appropriate to my mood.

I got up, my head pounding, my joints and muscles crying out after being idle for so long. A good stretch, and I headed down the hallway to my son's room. I knew what he was doing - the smell of lavender and sweat told me that he was enjoying what his girlfriend had to offer... and the low moans I heard coming from the other side of the door confirmed it. I smiled, and decided not to disturb them for a few more minutes. I walked on, using the bathroom first. As I sat there, I could hear them growing louder and louder and missed the pure vigor of youth, something I had lost a few years ago.