THE LAST ORPHAN
Emily watched Robby breathe.
She became conscious of the easy, natural rise and fall of her own chest, so unlike that of the boy’s, whose rib cage fluttered and hitched beneath the sheets. He’d been sleeping so much since the pneumonia had taken hold, a blessing were it not for the nightmares playing out behind those eyes.
He twitched. Clenched.
Robby’s phlegmy snore filled the room, reminding Emily of the way the generator on her parents’ property sounded after a season of disuse, the rumbling groan as it kicked into gear. The sound used to frighten her as a kid, though she endured it because there was light at the other end. Only the abandoned machine of meat and ambition before her wasn’t starting up. It was winding down. And the only thing Robby would soon know? Darkness.
She hoped.
Nobody knew if there was consciousness after the climax. Just theories and speculation. She prayed the infected slid into nothingness, an entreaty that left her kneeling at the altar of anti-faith.
Emily tiptoed to his bed and placed the origami crane on the adjoining table. She’d tell him who it was from later. Or then again, maybe not. Separating work from her home life was difficult enough without bringing Lucette into all this sickness.
Though it wouldn’t be her first time, would it?
Yeah, and look how that turned out.
Emily brushed the hair from Robby’s forehead but stayed her hand, afraid of waking him. There were no screams today, so there was a possibility his twitches weren’t evoked by nightmares. She didn’t dare rob him of what might be a good dream, one in which he climbed mountains, brandishing sword sticks to battle dragons. Dinosaurs.
Like a normal boy.
Though from where she stood, there was little normality left to Robby anymore. The beginnings of his rictus grin. The whitening skin.
Let him sleep and beat the dragon, because his waking battle is one he isn’t going to win.
“Seems cruel, doesn’t it?”
Emily jumped as Mykel stepped up next to her.
“Jesus, you scared me,” she said, keeping her own voice low. “You’re a ghost the way you sneak up on people.”
Mykel gave her a wink. “I hover about an inch above the floor, that’s all. You know what they say about my kind, we’re light in the loafers.”
Her tightened jaw relaxed into a smile. Mykel could be about as sensitive as a sledgehammer, and he seemed to be in this line of work strictly for the paycheck and not out of any deep-rooted desire to help his fellow humans, but he could be funny. There was no denying that. Plus, like it or lump it, they were going to be working together. Hating him was far too distracting an effort.
“What seems cruel?” Emily asked.
“Letting them linger. On.” The way he broke up the sentence made her queasy.
“Yeah, because giving them the best possible care and managing their pain is such a bad thing, Mykel. In some cases we’re actually slowing the process.”
“But maybe what we should be doing is speeding it up.”
Emily frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on, who are we kidding? They’re all breathing corpses. We can’t change the inevitable. They’re all going to end up the same way. We only call them zombies after they turn, but the truth of the matter is that they already are. We should send for the Crowners.”
“Mykel,” Emily gasped. “We are not going to have this conversation here. Show some decorum.”
“Why not? You don’t think he can hear us do you? And, I mean, look how peaceful he looks. They could do it while he’s sleeping and he’d be that peaceful forever.”
Emily’s voice was little more than a whisper. “You shouldn’t be talking like that. They’re still people. And they deserve our respect and compassion.”
Mykel infuriated her further by laughing. “See, it’s that kind of bleeding-heart thinking that caused so many people to try to hide infected family members in the first place. That only made the epidemic worse. ‘Hiders’ are just domesticated terrorists.”
Emily shot at him and latched her hand to his forearm, the fingernails digging in. Mykel gawked, shocked. Her breathing was not so even and calm now. She held him for a moment longer, their eyes locked, and waited for the urge to slap him to fade. It did. Her grip slackened, leaving imprints in her co-worker’s flesh, which was so much less than he deserved. Though better that than a star-shaped bruise on his face and a visit to Woods’ office soon afterwards, a visit that would likely prove her last.
“Stop,” was all Emily could manage.
At first Mykel didn’t move or reply, his face an impassive mask. Then he smiled and said, “I knew you had some spunk in you, New Girl,” before turning and exiting the room.
Emily walked down the hall, carrying a plastic tub full of supplies. Even though Corridor 3 looked like every other corridor in the building, it felt different. The sense of finality was stronger here, as if each death had woven itself into the space, tainting the antiseptic air, coating the walls, slicking the floors, soiling the beds. Were she to put a record needle to the walls she would no doubt hear the tin-can music of innumerable death rattles, all of those final words and prayers.
It’s in your head, girl.
Only it wasn’t. This was Corridor 3, The Final Stages Unit. FSU. Emily had been lucky enough to not have stepped foot in this area since her induction. But another staff member had quit that morning and Woods herself had requested Emily pick up the rounds—a backhanded display of trust if there ever was one. The kindest compliments always came with the unkindest expectations.
Emily drew herself together, concentrated on the task at hand. She gripped the tub tighter than she had Mykel’s arm. Well, almost.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Let’s do this.
The door on her left was open and inside was the patient she’d encountered on her first day, the one whose wife had called him Speedy. Emily had since learned his name was Reginald Simms. To the best of her knowledge, his wife had not visited since.
Ahead in the next room, through another open door, giggles trailed into the hallway. Emily glanced in at Mama Metcalf, sitting on a bed with a female patient, engaged in a rousing game of Uno.
“Hey sweetie,” Mama Metcalf said, her voice muffled by the mask all personnel were required to wear over their noses and mouths while in the FSU. Emily was wearing a similar one herself. “Want to join us?”
“I’d love to, but I have a bed bath to give. Hi there, Ma’am. How are you doing?”
“Nurse Samuels, this is Tammy. Tammy, Nurse Samuels.”
“Hi, love,” their guest said. “Sure we can’t tempt you with a hand?”
“Ladies, there’s nothing I’d rather do. But I must soldier on.”
“Just as well,” Tammy said. “Mama here is beating the pants off of me. But I’m a glass-is-half-full kind of gal. I’ll die before I let her win again.”
Mama Metcalf and Tammy laughed again, setting off a volley of coughing in the patient. The gaunt woman hacked sputum into a kidney-shaped basin, which would later be disposed of in a hazardous waste container and incinerated.
Emily couldn’t help staring. Tammy’s smile was stretched so tight the yellowed teeth jutted out, lending her a mule-ish look. Emily wondered how old she was; she could be twenty or sixty. Her hairless head looked like a skull covered in the veneer of skin. Dim, hollow eyes—only a few shades lighter than those of the man who had bitten Jordan.
Yet still she joked. Still laughed.
“You need some help?” Mama Metcalf asked, starting to rise.
“Oh no, I can handle it. You two continue with your game.”
“More like a massacre,” Tammy said as Mama Metcalf laid down a Draw 4 card.
Emily left them laughing and continued down the hall. Tammy’s half-filled glass should have lightened the atmosphere but instead left her feeling ashamed. Guilty. If someone with as many problems as Tammy could find humor in this darkness, what right did she have to wallow in self-pity?
I’m not wallowing.
(Then why all those matted Kleenex tissues in the car?)
I’m trying to make a difference.
(Oh, is that what you call it?)
I’m . . . using my own fucked up bullshit as motivation to help others.
There was truth in that, but with a lie at its center.
Her destination was at the end of the hall on the left. The intake file, which Emily had read after being cornered by Woods, listed the guest’s name as Mr. Edwin Mabry, age 47. He contracted the infection five years ago. He’d held on longer than most, though his journey was almost at an end.
Last stop Corridor 3.
Emily stepped into the room and came to an abrupt halt, almost losing purchase on the tub. It wasn’t the sight of the wasted figure in the bed that startled her, but his companion. A healthy man sat in the chair next to the bed holding Mr. Mabry’s hand.
“I’m sorry,” Emily said. “I didn’t realize any visitors had come in this morning.”
The man also wore a mask, but the creases at the corners of his eyes told her he was smiling. “I’ve been here since last night.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize.”
“I know it’s technically against the rules, but Eddie here doesn’t have much longer so the rules tend to get a little bendy. Woods cleared it. She’s good like that.”
“I see. I’m Nurse Samuels.”
“Vick Weston.” Emily recognized the name from the intake file, where he was listed as their guest’s Next Of Kin.
“I’m supposed to give Mr. Mabry his bed bath.”
“Go right ahead.”
Emily walked over to the bed and placed the tub of supplies on the table. After washing her hands at the sink, she donned a pair of latex gloves and turned back to see Vick reclining into the chair.
“Vick, I might have to ask you to step outside to allow Mr. Mabry his privacy.”
“Eddie doesn’t have anything I haven’t already seen. We’ve known each other since Junior High and I’m not leaving his side longer than it takes to go to the bathroom. Not ‘til the fat lady sings.”
Emily considered going to find Woods and decided against it. She’d been in this situation before in a number of hospitals and aged care villages, only this scenario was better than most. Generally speaking, when a family member requested to be present for the bathing of a loved one, the staff member in question was being watched to ensure they were doing the correct thing. In other words, they were under suspicion of wrongdoing. Not that Emily had ever been anything less than professional in her years on the field, but she couldn’t be by someone’s side twenty-four hours a day. Good workers could be the unfortunate beneficiaries of the bad ones. The quality of care fluctuated from worker to worker with frightening elasticity.
And the bad workers could be very bad.
But Emily could tell from the man’s warmth that she wasn’t being scrutinized. That wasn’t what this was about. Vick’s desire to be present was about companionship, not accruing evidence for a Ministry complaint.
“Mr. Mabry,” Emily said. The man in the bed didn’t stir or open his eyes. An IV stuck into his left arm dripped morphine into his system that would ease the pain as much as possible. He was also hooked to a machine that monitored his vitals, what those on the floor called a ‘nurse on a stick’. It displayed his elevated heart rate and blood pressure. It was high. Too high. Perspiration dappled his face, his temperature hovering just over 100 degrees.
“Mr. Mabry, I’m going to remove your gown and wash you now, okay?”
“I’m not sure if he can hear you, Ms. Samuels.”
“Probably not,” Emily said, her voice calm and kind. “It’s just me paying my respects, keeping Mr. Mabry’s dignity.”
She didn’t disclose to him that she’d also been taught in nurses’ school to continue addressing a patient in the same way even after they died. That, Emily suspected, Vick didn’t need to hear. The fat lady still had a few songs left in her repertoire yet.
Emily lifted his upper torso and untied the gown’s string at the back of his neck.
Vick stood. “Need a hand?”
“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” she said. This wasn’t just bravado. While two people were required to bathe an unresponsive patient, Mr. Mabry weighed so little it was like lifting a scarecrow that had fallen off its post. Only this guest wasn’t made from hay clippings and sawdust, just good old-fashioned skin and bone. Nor would it scare those birds away, either. If anything, the smell of its rot would draw them in, their shadows pin-wheeling over the fields as they swooped to feed. Bellies full of carrion. Lunatic squawks.
Vick came over anyway and started undoing the snaps at the shoulders.
Emily nodded, accepting his help. Care givers needed to care, it was as simple as that, and she thought it wrong to stand in the way of that. Given time—and from the look of it not much—Death would be the one to sever that relationship, and when it did, Vick would adopt the empty glare of those forced to live without purpose. Emily had witnessed this too many times.
With the gown removed and tossed in the bin, the two lowered Mr. Mabry back onto the bed, drawing back the covers. She took a moist wipe from the pack, folded it, and began stroking it across his forehead, in the hollows of his eyes.
Vick held out a hand. “Pass me one of those. I’ll start on his arms.”
She handed him a pair of disposable gloves, which he declined. “I hate those things.” Emily noticed the delicate way he lifted the right arm, swabbing the pit.
“You’re good at that,” she said. “Keep that up and we might have to get you on the ward.”
“Ha-ha, thanks but no thanks. I’ve taken care of enough sick people in my time. This is my last vigil.”
Emily detected the sadness in his voice and decided not to pursue the subject further. Once she was done with Mr. Mabry’s face, she tossed the wipe, got a fresh one, and started on the left arm, being careful not to dislodge the IV.
“So there’s no other family in the picture, is that right?” Emily asked.
“No family that cares.”
“That’s sad to hear, Vick.”
“Trust me when I say you’re never too old to be orphaned. We learned that lesson the hard way. There was a group of us. When we were all together we were stronger than steel and that was enough.”
Emily smiled as they both wiped down Mr. Mabry’s chest and stomach area. “That sounds nice. Are the other people in the group going to come and visit?”
“They’re all dead.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. That was silly of me to say.”
“What can you do? It happens to us all. There’s no fighting it. They were all infected except me.”
Emily cleared her throat and plucked a fresh wipe from the packet. “Excuse me, Mr. Mabry. I’m just going to bathe your downstairs area, okay?” When she had first become a nurse, cleaning genitals embarrassed her. Now she did it with the detached precision the job required.
“There’s only Eddie and me left,” Vick said, starting on his friend’s right leg. “And soon, there’ll just be me. The last orphan.”
Emily had no words of comfort so she said nothing at all.
Vick started washing Mr. Mabry’s feet. It reminded Emily of something from the Bible, scenes she’d half-forgotten from her years in church with her parents, their knees flush against the pews, all of them overlooked by a statue of their tortured cross-maker. Why celebrate religion when you could grieve it, right?
“He died for our sins,” her mother would say. “Be grateful for what you’ve got.”
Guilt.
Guilt so strong and prideful not all the moist wipes in the world could wash it away.
Emily kept her silence, recognizing the man’s need to unburden. Part of being a nurse wasn’t just caring for the patient’s physical needs but his mental and emotional needs as well. Sure, Vick wasn’t her patient, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in need of some healing. Everyone, after all, longed to be listened to.
It reminds us that we’re alive.
“It was our own fault, really,” Vick said. “We were carnal.” He sighed. “And careless.”
“Though not you?” Emily asked, rolling Mr. Mabry onto his side. Vick held him in place as Emily cleaned the man’s back and buttocks.
“Believe me, I wasn’t spared because I employed restraint or good judgment. Some days I think I was spared so I could care for them all, which is the kind of thought that helps me sleep. On other days, the really bad ones, I just wonder if it wasn’t plain old bad luck I escaped infection.”
He didn’t say any more until after Emily had finished the bed bath. He spoke again as he held Mr. Mabry in a sitting position and Emily put a fresh robe on him. “You know, some people actually have the audacity to tell me that I’m the fortunate one.”
Most wouldn’t understand how cruel such a statement was; only Emily did. Or at least she thought she did. Were someone to ask her that day if there were any more lessons for her to learn about the pain of survival, Emily would have laughed them off.
And she would have been wrong. She just didn’t know it yet.
Emily gathered up her supplies and trash, and left the two men together. Mykel was waiting for her in Corridor 3. He walked with her, opening the door to the Sluice room, where she then deposited the waste into a hazardous material bin and placed the bedpan into the washing machine. She thumped its metallic jaws shut and turned to face him.
“What do you want, Mykel?”
“I just don’t understand that, New Girl.”
“Understand what?”
“That man in there. I couldn’t help overhearing. If I had to watch all my friends die because they couldn’t keep it in their pants, I’d be down on my knees thanking the big fella upstairs every night I was lucky enough to escape safe.”
Emily pushed by him and re-entered the corridor. They buzzed through the security door and stepped into the adjoining wing. “In my book, alive is always better than dead,” Mykel said, squeezing antiseptic wash over his hands. “No exceptions.”
“Is there anything else you’d like to say? We’ve got a job to do. Five more sponges, twelve assisted feeds, beds to make, and notes. Time is money, Mykel, and you’re wasting both standing there.”
“There is, actually. Woods wants to see you.”
Without acknowledging him, Emily wormed her way back to Woods’ office. As she did so, she fished through the pocket of her pants and slid out her phone to check the time. This Emily did on the sly, as it was against facility policy to have non-approved communication devices on the floor. Emily saw the six missed calls from Saint Mary’s.
Her phone had been on silent all morning.
Emily found Woods standing behind her desk. Officious. Waiting.
“What’s wrong?” Emily asked.
“There’s someone from your daughter’s school on line one. Seems there’s been some trouble.”
