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On their way to the hospital, Kent made small talk and asked Palmer about the list he’d seen. “It’s a list of things I’ve always wanted to do. I’m going to try and plan, if I can get the medications under control. It doesn’t look like I’m off to a good start.”
“Are you doing chemo or anything?”
“No, I decided not to.”
“How come?” He knew chemo destroyed the body and sometimes the spirit.
“Because being sick and dying at the same time doesn’t sound like the best way to go out.”
Palmer left Kent speechless. He swallowed, trying to find something to reply with, but came up empty. Everything within him told him to play it off, to act like her words didn’t affect him, but he wasn’t sure he could. It wasn’t like he’d never dealt with death before. He had. Too many times he cared to count. This time it was different, though, and he couldn’t put his finger on why.
“How’d your family take the news?”
“I don’t know my family,” she said. “I was a ward of the state until I aged out at twenty-one.”
He found himself speechless again. A rare occurrence for him. He focused on her vitals, checking them two and three times over because he didn’t have the words to respond. He thought back to her list and remembered one place she wanted to visit, and then he remembered her words from moments before about dying, and he wanted to share his experience with her. He hoped that by telling her, maybe she could imagine herself there in case she never made it. “When I was stationed in Texas for training and went to the Alamo. I don’t know . . .” He paused. “I thought it was going to be this immense place, kind of like how they make it look in the movies, and it wasn’t.”
“Are you happy you went?”
“I am. I think it’s important that we visit our landmarks, but do you know what’s better?”
“What?” she asked.
“That random hole-in-the-wall restaurant that only locals know about or driving all day to get to the best food truck on the West Coast. I enjoy obscure trips. The ones that don’t make the tourist websites. Ya know?”
Palmer shook her head. “I’ve never left San Francisco.”
“You should,” he said.
She shrugged. “Dying seems to be getting in the way.”
Her words left him speechless for a third time. He was about to ask her why she had never left the Bay Area until Damian pulled into the EMS spot and radioed their arrival. Kent had work to do, and he told himself he’d ask her if he saw her later.
They brought Palmer inside and put her in a critical care room per the triage nurse’s instructions. She was close to where Maeve had been earlier.
“Hope you feel better, Palmer,” he said as he left her room. Kent strode to the nurses’ station and waited for Damian.
“She’s in room 230,” the nurse said.
“Who?”
“Your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend, and that’s a HIPAA violation. Why are you telling me this crap?”
“First off,” the nurse fired back, “she wanted you to know if you came back. Second, she called you her boyfriend. Third, don’t tell me what is or isn’t a violation. I know how to do my job.”
Kent was taken aback by her response and immediately recognized that he was at fault. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I was out of line. Thanks for the information.” Kent told Damian he’d be right back and headed toward the stairs, taking them two at a time until he reached the second floor. He walked right to her room and paused. Kent was raising his fist to knock when a man approached him.
“She needs time and space,” the man said.
“I’m sorry?” Kent asked.
A woman stepped beside the man, and Kent thought they could be Maeve’s parents. “We know who you are, and about the situation,” the woman said. “Maeve needs time to heal. When the paternity results come back, someone will call you. We ask that you give our daughter the space she needs to figure things out.”
Kent studied Maeve’s parents and finally nodded. They were right to ask him to leave. His intention had been to go in there and fight with her, and neither of them needed that right now. One thing was certain: he was happy she had decided to take the paternity test now, rather than later. They both needed to heal, and having something as important as a baby looming over them wouldn’t do either of them any good.
TEN
Palmer spent the night in the hospital. The on-call doctor, who unfortunately wasn’t Dr. Molina, who Palmer enjoyed speaking with, wanted Dr. Hughes to see Palmer in the morning. As Palmer lay on the uncomfortable bed, her thoughts went to the list she’d begun writing with all the things she thought she’d have a lifetime to accomplish.
