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Luckily, Palmer’s room had a view of the city and all its glory. She could stare out the window and watch the night sky turn into speckled dots from the lights. The downside was that she had to share the room with someone. Palmer had little experience in hospitals—none, in fact—but from what she’d seen on television, room sharing went one of three ways: they talked too much, had too many visitors, or were quiet. Palmer hoped for the third option.
When dinner came, the orderly gave her a tutorial on how to change the functions on her bed and how to use the TV. Palmer didn’t have the heart to tell the young woman she had already mastered the bed part, but she appreciated the lesson on how to make the television function. She wanted mindless entertainment to take her mind off things. Ever since the ER doctor had told her about the mass they’d found during the CT scan, Palmer had imagined the worst-case scenario. She didn’t even know what that could be. Nothing was ever simple in her mind.
The orderly removed the lid from her tray of food, and the aroma of chicken, vegetables, and potatoes filled the room. While the smell was pleasant, the presentation was lacking. Still, her stomach growled, which she took as a good sign. Palmer cut her chicken and took a small bite. She waited to see if her stomach would protest before continuing. She glanced at her hand and then followed the tube until her gaze reached the pole and finally the bags hanging from it. Earlier, Dr. Molina had given her fentanyl, and currently Palmer was pain-free, something she hadn’t experienced in a long time. She knew it masked the real issue, but that was for another day. Right now, the drug kept her mind clear, and once it wore off, all she’d have to do was press a button for more.
Palmer listened as the orderly helped the person next to her. The partition curtain kept them closed off from seeing each other, but that was where the privacy stopped. She was curious why they were there and suspected they were wondering the same about her. They were already in the room when Palmer had arrived on a bed.
She turned on her television and pulled the handle until it was in front of her. She pushed the channel button until she found a rerun of The Brady Bunch. When Palmer was little, she used to fantasize about being a part of a family with so many siblings. That was until they started fighting, and then she wondered what it would be like to be an only child. She supposed the “only child” part wasn’t much different from what she had, except that she would have her own room and not have to share with five other girls. The holidays were the hardest. The group home would put up a tree, and they’d each get a present, but nothing like what she’d ever seen on TV or heard about in school. She stopped believing in Santa when she was six or seven. No one with the magic he had, according to the books and her classmates, would allow children not to have a family.
Palmer lost her appetite when she thought about Christmas. She pushed the tray away, lowered the headrest, and turned onto her side. She left the television on to drown out the noise her neighbor was making and stared outside. Off in the distance, she saw what she thought were the red lights of an emergency vehicle. She watched until the vehicle turned a corner. She was humiliated about everything that had happened at work, from collapsing to the paramedics arriving. Since she’d left the foster system, she hadn’t depended on anyone but herself. To be reliant on someone for help bothered her. Yet, here she was, in the hospital, waiting on people to help her.
She could tell when visiting hours had ended and when the nurses wanted everyone to go to sleep. The lights in the hall dimmed, and voices quieted. A nurse came in to check on Palmer, offered her a snack and something to drink, and turned the volume down at Palmer’s request. She declined the offer of food and kept staring out the window, unwilling to accept where she was. Deep down, she knew the news was bad. Otherwise, why not just ask her to return in the morning?
In the middle of the night, Palmer got up to use the restroom. Afterward, she walked the halls. It wasn’t against the rules or anything, and she wanted the exercise. She saw her shadow as she approached the end of the hall, where there was a window. She had blue slipper socks on, with a matching robe and a gown. Her right hand clenched the pole of her IV cart, and she tugged it alongside her. Aside from the mass in her head, she wasn’t sure why they were keeping her hooked to the machine.
