“I know. I’ve been in countless hospitals, and I’ve seen all the hospital shows,” she said. “You can’t say anything. It’s protocol.”
“What’s your name?” Bethany asked.
The woman sniffed. “I’m Helena.”
“That’s a wonderful name. You don’t hear it often,” Bethany said.
Helena shrugged. “Kids made fun of it in school.”
“Kids make fun of everything,” Bethany said. “My kids make fun of my name, too. I guess people aren’t named Bethany anymore.”
Helena smiled. Bethany hoped that she had guessed that Matteo was fine, given the tone of their conversation. “What happened tonight?” She asked. “I heard you brought that man in?”
Helena shook her tiny head.There was a greenish tint to her skin, Bethany thought. But maybe, like Bethany, she was pregnant, or nauseous for some other reason. It was so difficult to tell what was going on in someone’s body.
“I just got to Nantucket,” Helena said. “Just moved into my new place this afternoon, actually. I was watching the storm, and I saw this sailboat out on the waves. I thought it was going tocapsize. Instead, that guy back there managed to sail his way to my dock, where he tied up. He came up to my house. But there was broken glass everywhere. He stepped on it before I could warn him.”
Bethany shook her head. “What a day.”
Helena tried to laugh. “I don’t know what to do with myself.” She gestured at the streaks of Matteo’s blood on her sweats.
“You should go home! Get some rest,” Bethany said. “You probably traveled all day. Moving takes a lot out of a person.” Maybe that was why the woman looked the way she did just now?
But Helena didn’t seem keen on going anywhere. “I think I’d rather wait till he’s out.”
Bethany raised her eyebrows. “Why don’t you go home? I’ll tell him to give you a call as soon as he wakes up, if you want that.”
“No. I mean, I don’t want him to be frightened when he wakes up.” Helena looked stricken. Slowly, she got to her feet, then gripped the armrests of the chair she’d just vacated, as though she was about to fall.
“Helena? Do you want something? Maybe some water?” Bethany stood to help Helena steady herself.
But before Helena could answer, her eyes widened, showing their whites, and Helena fell to the ground, sprawling out beneath Bethany. Bethany called over to Gina, telling her to call the nurses and the other medics. As they gathered, preparing to put Bethany on a gurney of her own, Bethany tried to guess what was wrong. Malnutrition? Maybe? But there was something else about it she couldn’t put her finger on. She went through the encyclopedia of her medical mind and found no conclusion.
But as the wheels of the gurney clattered beneath her, Helena woke up and shot upright. “No!” she called. “No! Don’t do this. Let me off.”
The nurses stopped wheeling the gurney. Helena flailed around, looking for Bethany. When she found her, she said, “Please, Bethany. I can’t go back there. Don’t put me in a bed. Don’t hook me up to anything.”
Bethany couldn’t fathom this. She stepped closer to the strange woman, bowing her head as she said, “We want to monitor you. You fainted. That isn’t normal.”
“It is for me,” Helena said. “Trust me when I say, nothing about this is different for me. I know what I’m doing. And I can’t be brought back there. I can’t be given a bed.” Helena turned to slide off the gurney and walk toward the wall. “I won’t pay for that,” she mumbled under her breath. “I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t need it.”
Although it felt against her better judgment, Bethany waved the gurney away. When the nurses and medics were gone, she walked over to where Helena was seated again, squeezing her knees as though that would keep her upright. As though she wouldn’t let herself faint again. But it seemed clear to Bethany that this woman had very little control over anything.
Why was she by herself?
Was she sick?
Bethany hesitated before she approached her again, then went over and sat beside her, facing the same direction. For a few seconds, they sat like that, without speaking. And then Bethany said, “I would really like to hook you up to an IV or something. Help you get your energy up.”
Helena shook her head.
Bethany sighed. “Why are you refusing treatment?”
“Because,” Helena said. “I can’t afford it. I don’t have insurance. And it doesn’t matter. I already know what’s going to happen to me down the line.”
Bethany rubbed her forehead. She hated health insurance plans. She hated how they boxed people in and forced them tomake horrible decisions when it came to their health. But with Gina on duty and with hospital rules in place, Bethany’s hands were tied. Besides, it was clear that Helena didn’t want help. She wanted to be left alone.
“Please, Bethany,” Helena said. “I just want to sit here and wait till he wakes up.”
