It has been Three Weeks.

It Has Been Three Weeks.

Lily thought to herself, almost like speaking it was so loud inside her head.

“It has now been three weeks since my dear Roger died. I am walking down a familiar sidewalk alone. There’s going to be a lot of that from now on. It will certainly be a long time, maybe never that I will find his like again. Our relationship wasn’t very long, but it was so powerful, so very powerful.”

That was enough for her to hear in her head at that point. She quieted her talking mind for a while as she continued her lonely walk. But eventually it spoke up once more, impossible for her to ignore.

“The hospital was huge for what it was, the biggest of its kind in the area. But its size didn’t produce any extra care for its patients. The people working there seemed to me to be busy looking busy, trying hard to look professional in their crisply ironed uniforms and stuck-on-the-face smiles.

Roger was put in a unit with others that were quite like him in age, size and gender.  There were what I felt were too many of them in that one room, but I had no choice in the matter as to where he would be.”

With that last loud thought, Lily sniffed and silenced again the words in her brain. It was getting to be too much for her to take. But that did not last. There was more to come. Her inner voice returned to its monologue of woe.

“And that last night they kicked me out at seven o’clock sharp, no lingering allowed. They had been strict on that point, very, very strict.

The next day, at nine o’clock in the morning I received the phone call from the hospital. They told me that Roger had died. I had no idea, they gave me not a clue that what he had was that serious. I was not prepared at all for the tragic news I was hearing.

The woman on the phone was very precise about the time, telling me that he died sometimes between 12 o’clock midnight and one o’clock a.m. ‘He just stopped breathing” were the words that they used.

I had no words to say back to them. I was in shock.

The woman on the phone then carefully measured out her next few words like sprinkles of some exotic and costly spice – small measure by small measure.

‘What do you want done with the body?’

I had an answer for that. ‘Could you arrange to have him cremated? Please.

“Yes, I will give you the number of the people that do that sort of thing.”

Meanwhile Another Patient Is Released

Meanwhile, three weeks later, another patient, named Sam, was released from the hospital with a clean bill of health. He had been in the place right beside the patient now in ashes. His roommate back at home was away on a business trip that his company had declared urgently necessary. So Sam’s roommate’s two daughters, Sal and Flo, were the ones to pick the patient up at the hospital and take him home. Their father called and gave them the right name and the correct unit where he was. They had never met Sam before because their father visited them in their highly exclusive apartment, not the other way around. So the meeting and trip back home were a little quiet and formal, not much was communicated between Sam, Sal, and Flo. 

This pick up was not their choice, but they respected their father, who paid the inflated rent on their apartment, and his wishes, so they did not refuse him.

Sal and Flo decided that the one that they were taking care of would like or at least need to take the two mile walk to the park, stretch his legs long laying cramped in his small space in the hospital. So the great expedition was on. They even left a note for father, just in case he arrived during the time when they were taking his roommate for a walk. He had said that he might return home sooner than initially planned. Their father would know the route they were taking. They had been compelled to take it with him several times. ‘Good for what ails you’ he would always say.

Father Arrives

It was good that Sal and Flo had left the note, as their father arrived back from the urgent meeting earlier than expected. He had been successful, so he was happy, and hoped the company would reward him richly for his work. When he arrived, he wondered why there was no one home, but was greatly relieved when he read the note. He had worried about his old friend, and had been led to expect the worst. He did not want to live alone.

He did not have the patience to wait for their return. Knowing his girls liked to dawdle along when they walked, he knew he had to get into his  car and catch up with them. He was off in a shot – out the door, into his BMW, backing out of the driveway, and then speeding down the road.

Meanwhile Lily

Meanwhile Lily stopped walking. The loneliness clung to her like a t-shirt soaked in the pouring rain. She decided when she reached the park that she should turn around and head back home. She should do something constructive when she arrived back, paint a wall some pale colour or read a good book that might capture her mind, steal it from the dour thoughts that had crept up on her during the walk.

She turned around and started walking a little faster. Concentrating on the quick movement might keep her mind quiet. But she saw something that made it almost shout.

“Those two young women look like they are walking with Roger. Is this some kind of cruel illusion?”

Then a man in an expensive car zoomed up right beside them. All four stopped moving forward. The man looked at the one the young women were walking with and said. “Wait a minute. That’s not my dog. He isn’t even wagging his tail.”

Then the dog broke away from the young woman who held his leash, and went running towards Lily. She could not doubt it now that he nearly collided with her and jumped up as if to dance with her on his hind legs. It was Roger for sure. There was no doubt.

Lily’s face glowed with a smile. Then she darkened its light a bit as she went over to console the obvious owner of the dogs whose ashes were in a ceramic vase on her bed table.