The entry to the ICU was locked and Trent needed to sweet-talk, and name-drop, in order to gain access to Monica’s room.
When he rounded the corner into her room, she was sitting high in her bed and eating.
She noticed him in the doorway and the most beautiful smile spread over her lips. “Barefoot!”
He picked up a slippered foot and wiggled it. “You can take the man off the island, but not the island out of the man.”
He pushed a chair next to her bed and sat. “You look good.”
“I feel better. It’s amazing what the right antibiotics can do for you. What about you?”
Trent waved away the IV pole at his side. “This is overkill if you ask me. Damn yellow bag makes it look like they’re injecting urine into me.”
She giggled. “It’s vitamin packed,” she told him as she gestured to a like bag hanging over her head. “They’re giving them away today.”
“I heard you’re having surgery tomorrow.”
Monica wiggled her foot. “They need to put me back together.”
“How’s the pain?”
She blinked a couple of times and he noticed the slight glaze in her eyes. “Good drugs.”
“There’s something to be said for that.”
After nibbling on a cracker, she said, “They finally let me eat. I know I won’t want to tomorrow.”
“This is your first meal?”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want much earlier.”
He liked this. The easy conversation and comfortable buzz he felt just by being with her.
She sighed and placed her hands in her lap. “We made it out.”
“We did. They tracked your cell phone.”
“Really? No one told me. I don’t remember anything other than you telling me we were going to be OK and then waking here.”
Trent recapped what she’d missed. “When they were lifting you up I kept thinking it was a damn good thing you were out of it. I know how much you love heights.”
“Glad I don’t remember.”
“There were a few guys from your neck of the woods that jumped in on the search.”
“Pomona Fire?”
“Apparently.”
“Wow. I’m surprised I’ve not seen them.”
“They didn’t follow us here. You’ll see them when you get home.” It dawned on him at that point that she’d be headed in one direction when she was well enough to travel, and he’d go in a different one.
Before the wall crashed down and they’d brushed with death, she’d made it clear that they were a fling, a temporary diversion from life.
Yet brushing with death changed that. Didn’t it?
He sat back in the chair and glanced at the newscast that was playing on the flat screen. When he returned his gaze to hers, she smiled. “When are they releasing you?”
“Walt said I could go tomorrow if the blood work continued to clear up.”
“It’s scary, isn’t it? I thought the water was fine.”
“Tasted like city tap water to me,” he said.
“I’ll suggest that rescue workers leave with water purifying tablets in the future. We were lucky.”
“Very.”
The nurse took that moment to come in the room to retrieve the food tray. “Not much longer,” she said to him.
Monica tsked. “He’s fine.”
The nurse stared down her nose at Monica and lifted her hand to the monitor. “Your blood pressure is going up as is your heart rate since he arrived.” Then to emphasize her point, Nurse Hard-Ass took a tympanic thermometer, placed it in Monica’s ear, and turned the device around so Monica could see the number. “And you’re spiking a fever again.” Nurse Hard-Ass had a point. She swiveled toward Trent and placed her palm up and spread her fingers. “Five minutes. And no arguments from you, Nurse Mann.”
The woman left the room in a huff, mumbling something about nurses and doctors being crappy patients.
“Boy, I thought my nurse was rough.”
A sad smile spread over Monica’s lips. “She’s right. I’d kick your ass out too if I was her.”
Trent took the hint and stood to leave. For an awkward moment, he wasn’t sure how to say good-bye. He placed a hand over hers, smiled.
“You’ll come by tomorrow?” she asked.
“I will.” Since Trent wasn’t good at white lies, he knew he’d found a reason to see her again. Maybe that was how this would work. One day at a time.
One day at a time.
Walt entered Trent’s room early the next morning; the admitting physician led the way. “Good news, Mr. Fairchild,” Dr. Simons said. “Kidney function, liver function… all your labs are back within normal limits.”
“That mean I can leave today?”
Walt smiled. “Means you’re one lucky bastard. And yeah, you’re going to be discharged.”
Trent stood from the chair he’d been sitting in and with as much dignity as one could have wearing a drop cloth, shook both the doctors’ hands. “I already know I’m lucky,” he managed to say with a smile.
Dr. Simons went on to tell him how he wanted Trent to see his personal physician in two weeks for follow-up blood work. Also Dr. Simons wanted him to have his doctor request the files from the hospital so they could jump on any long-term effects of the large exposure to lead and mercury, both of which saturated the water Trent and Monica were forced to drink to survive inside the cave.
Trent would never again look at a pool of water and think it anything but poison. Tasteless and odorless poison.
“I’ll write the order for discharge. It will still take a couple of hours to get you out of here.”
Trent thought of Monica. “S’OK. I’m not in a hurry. Need to get ahold of my brothers.”
Dr. Simons left the room, leaving Walt behind.
“I’ll be headed back to California after Monica’s out of surgery.” Walt took a chair across from Trent.
“How’s she doing this morning?”
“She didn’t have an ideal night, but she’s tough. They’re going forward with surgery. The surgeon thinks there’s something left inside her leg that’s keeping her from progressing.”
“Surgery is going to fix it?”
Walt nodded. “We think so.”
“You’re a good friend,” Trent told him.
“Monica’s good people.”
When Walt took to his feet, Trent followed him. “I can’t thank you enough.”