After Care

It was mid-afternoon when she walked in. I had recovered from the drugging. Now would come the weeks of healing. I would be confined to bed for most of the time. And so I was lying in the adjustable hospital bed playing with the controls that would put me in one or another more comfortable position when she stopped in the door frame and smiled.

"Hello," she beamed. "How are you?"

She was wearing a mini-dress that showed her legs. She had good legs and and a lot of dresses.

"Hello. I am as you see," I said, spreading my arms to the room. "Come in."

And we chatted about nothing, really, but it was nice to have the friendly distraction like the chirping of birds in the room. And when she sat, there were those legs that seemed to lengthened when she sat as the little dressed inched up a bit.

She came every afternoon for the rest of the week. When I first came to the hospital, there were many visitors, but by the time I was to be released, people had done their duties and had tired of coming, but not my new friend Sherri. Each day she would come, sometimes bringing me candy or a magazine, always smiling that big smile. I didn't really know what to make of it. I didn't know what to do.

One day, the doctor came into my room to examine me.

"You look like you are ready to go home," he said to me while turning to my mother. She had come to consult with the doctor. "You will have to change the bandage three times a day. Now here is what you do," and he told me to roll over on my stomach. Then he pulled the bandage off and they were helping my mother to a chair. The nurse told her to put her head between her legs. I think she might have blacked out while she was sitting.

When she finally was upright again, she looked at the doctor and said, "I can't do that."

"Well, somebody has to," he told her.

Later, when everyone was gone, I asked my mother what we were going to do.

"I will have to do it, honey," she said. "But it is deep. I've never seen anything like it before. But I will come over on my way to work, then at lunch, and then again on my way home. That's the only thing to do."

And the next day, I was released from the hospital. Banished, really, for when I got to my new apartment, it was bare but for a bed and a small, 13" black and white television. And after I was situated, my mother left. There was food in the refrigerator and the little television without remote control. There were no nurses, no drugs to help me sleep, no buttons to push to make the bed conform to my wishes. My mother would be by in the morning. I lay in the bed, eyes open, miserable. I was alone.