Her accent reminded me of one of those
awful Russian accents from
a 1980’s made-for-TV movie –
which meant she was probably
Czech or maybe from Poland.
She was nice enough, I guess. She asked us
where we were from while my wife
got settled in the hospital bed (An orderly
had to steal it from another floor.
I couldn’t help but wonder if somebody
had died in it recently.)
She said
she’d just moved from Chicago
and that her husband had a job
in Seattle. I felt bad for her –
big blue Non-Russian eyes
lost in the desert and
relying on frequent flyer miles
to hold her marriage together.
Lots of flying, she said. My wife
groaned; the anesthetic was
wearing off and the pain
was kicking in.
Our nurse
apologized and told us
she couldn’t administer pain meds.
Some computer glitch … they were
waiting for some other nurse to
input the order. Or something.
My wife groaned. The nurse
apologized again. My wife
didn’t care. I didn’t either.
The nurse left,
then returned with ice chips.
She gave obvious bullshit
advice: don’t talk. Don’t move. Suck
on ice chips. I thought we could do this at home.
I had her script in my pocket, but that meant
running out to fill it and I didn’t want to leave her
alone. The nurse was developing that
wide-eyed lost in the forest look
you see in over-wrought soap opera actresses
right before the serial rapist strikes.
Natasha
would return often with no new information.
My wife groaned. She kicked at her sheets
and started to cry.
Eventually, I went
to the desk to Do Something. When I
got there, Natasha was gone. Her
replacement had a doughy face
and no discernable accent. She told me
she was waiting for the computer
to tell her it was okay. My wife
is crying, I said. She shook her head,
smiled instead of a real apology
and said she’d look in soon. I stood
there for a second, watched the
dough-faced nurse and her flock
of zombies in purple scrubs
staring at me. Then I turned
and
trudged back to the room in defeat.
My wife was cursing the nurses, me, and
the last person who cut her off in traffic.
I fed her ice chips. I kept my eye out
for the dough-faced nurse, wondering about
how Natasha would talk about her day
long distance. Then I suddenly
had a strong desire for vodka.
