"What sea fiend
Rose in your path?
Did we not launch you well
For home, or for whatever land you chose?"

"The Odyssey," Fitzgerald Translation. Book 10, Lines 71-74. Used without permission.
 

MARTHA:

I'm so tired. I should probably go home and sleep.

Who am I kidding? I can't sleep in that house.

I should sell it. And if the housing market wasn't so terrible, and I could find the time, and if I had the willpower, I would.

If, if, if.

Generally, I shower at work at the end of my shift, and change into my street clothes.

I remembered the bath items, but not my clothes.

Shit. I'll have to go in scrubs...and getting into scrubs after my shift is over is to me an unwelcome prospect. It's not that they're uncomfortable; the motivation is strictly in the psychological realm. It means that the lines between my life at work and away from it become blurred. And I so desperately need to escape this job when I'm not on.

Gizzie just about lives in her scrubs, but Gizzie doesn't need the psychic prompters to leave work that I do. When she's out of here, she's really out. It's how she's managed in this job as long as she has without wreckage to her psyche.

We're in the bathroom-we shared a shift-and we're both showering and talking. Nurses are not modest about body parts. We see them all the time. Thus, seeing each other unclothed is not a big deal.

"Why don't you take some time off?" Gizzie says to me as she shampoos her hair. It's a gang shower. Used to be a surgeon's shower, back in the days when surgeons were all men.

"What do you mean, take some time off? I feel as if I'm barely doing my job."

"You are. That's why I think you should take some time off."

I'm a bit stunned by this...I feel I've tried my best to keep my clinical standards of practice up, in spite of my emotional exhaustion.

I should be used to this. Gizzie never pulls punches.

"I've only got five days of personal time left."

"Use it."

"Giz, I need more money, not less!"

She finishes her hair and shuts off her shower. I can still smell her strawberry shampoo and peach shower gel.

"Martha. You need some time off. You don't take it on your own, I'm gonna make you take it."

"Giz, I can't afford it!"

She shuts off MY shower. Fortunately, I'm well-rinsed-I was mostly doing the hot water for the comfort factor. The showers here have great water pressure, which differentiates them from the one in my house. It's the closest thing I get to a massage these days.

"Which word didn't you understand, Martha?"

"I understood all of them. No can do, Giz."

"No, you will do, if I have to go in and alter your personnel records myself so that you can get paid for time off!"

There's no way she could do that...is there?

She wouldn't.

Then again, there was the drugs...

She could find a way. Gizzie is nothing if not resourceful.

"Two weeks, girl. Starting now. I don't wanna see your face around here before the 15th of September. You hear me?" Her words are harsh, but her eyes...well, Gizzie's eyes betray her, if you bother to look.

She looks as if she's about to cry.

"Hey, I don't do this lightly, girl. I got no extra hands, and things were quiet last couple nights, but it can all go to hell in a second. But you keep this up, you're gonna be a danger to your patients-and yourself."

I'm not clear as to what she's getting at.

"You need to start sleeping. I mean it. And don't tell me you sleep in your off time, because I know damn well you don't. You spend all your time with him."

I can feel a blush forming from between my breasts and creeping north. I grab a towel and wrap it around myself. Hospital towels are rough, but they are sufficiently large to provide generous coverage. Much better than you get from the average smock we give to patients here.

I have the naughtiest thought in the middle of all this...I could turn Mel over, check out his ass...

Martha, I scold myself, you are awful!

"And I know what you're gonna do, you're gonna go be with him. But at least if you don't have to come here for a couple weeks, you'll get some downtime."

Downtime. What's that?

"And right now, girl, let's face it. You are so damn worried about him that you can't focus on anything else. So you might as well bail out. I'll see what I can do about maybe getting you an advance, but for the next two weeks, you're not to be on this floor, and I'm not kidding. You hear me?"

Well, she is my charge nurse...I guess I'd better listen to her.

And the prospect of more time with Mel...

Now I've got a full-body blush.

But at least I've got a towel.
 

MICHAEL:

God, I hate cars!

Actually, I think cars are fine...provided they WORK!

Which neither of these puppies wants to do right now.

Fuck it. I should just go back to the bus system...

Oh, no fucking way!

I could borrow the T-bird for a few days...it's butt-ugly, and too big for my liking, but hey, it runs. And it's not like Dad's gonna be using it soon.

I decide we'll resuscitate Kelly's car, then go see my dad. Maybe tomorrow we'll work on mine.

While I'm dicking around with her car-and I discover unhappily that she needs a new water pump-fuck!-she quizzes me in biology.

I think this might be my first, and last, college biology course. It's a bitch.

"How do you remember all this shit, Kel?"

"Michael, it's not that bad, once you get past the early stuff. This is the hard part, all the memorizing. Really. It's not. By the time you get to molecular, which I'm taking right now, it's interesting."

"Yeah, well, I'm only on one, and I think I'm gonna keep it that way!"

"Oh, Michael, really. Don't be such a baby about it. You can do this. You got nearly everything right I asked you!"

"Yeah, well, I had to have you help me on it!"

"So? I went to tutoring for bio last year."

That's true. She did.

"Maybe you should, too."

"Kelly, I AM a tutor!"

"Math and writing. It won't hurt you to say you need a little help in something else! I mean, you asked me to help you!"

"Yeah, but you're my girlfriend. Not the same thing. Like I would be so publicly humiliated if I fucked up and had to admit-"

"Michael, get over it! Do you want the A or not?"

I groan. I want the A. Superiority is always the best revenge.

And doing this class, I feel like I'm Hercules taking on one of the twelve labors.

He did beat them all, didn't he?

It's like, it's become a pride thing. I could still drop the class, if I do it by next week...but no way am I gonna wimp out.

Not only am I not gonna wimp out, I'm gonna get the fucking A.

One of Miranda's Cosmos was talking about the sensitive, enlightened man of the new millenium.

Guess what? He ain't me.

"Fuck!" I tear my finger across a section of the engine, and it draws blood-not a lot, but it sure as hell hurts, and I yell.

Which I do loud enough to bring Blonde Boy out of the house.

"What the fuck's your problem, Junior?" He sounds tired and stuffy and grumpy.

Great! Like I don't have enough crabby people to keep me going!

"What the fuck is yours?" I yell back.

"Well, if you gotta know...I really came out to tell you that Ally's making blintzes-"

Did I hear this right?

Blintzes?

"As in cheese blintzes?" I'm hopeful I heard this right.

"With real berries."

"Strawberries?" I can feel my mouth watering already...

Cheese blintzes. Oh God. I have not had cheese blintzes in AGES. With strawberries...

Kelly squints up at Langly. "What's a blintze?"

He gives her back the same expression. "You don't know what a blintze is?"

"No, I don't." She sounds kind of defensive.

I'm about to explain it to her, but then he says, "So come inside and find out." He then turns back to me. "Course, if you're gonna be a fuckrag about it-"

No, no. For cheese blintzes, I'll play nice.

It's amazing at times how much such little things matter.
 

Ally's got like this mountain of crepes, a huge bowl of this sweet white cheesy mixture-I think it's cream cheese, cottage cheese and sour cream-and piles of berries. Strawberries, definitely, but also blueberries AND raspberries.

I'm drooling.

And it reminds me how much I miss my dad's cooking. I don't get to be home for dinner much, but when I am, he makes such great stuff.

Kelly looks at it a little suspiciously-she's from grits country-but I assure her, they're awesome.

She agrees in one biteful.

Miranda and Shelby usually bug my ass when I'm eating at the same table as them, but they've got their mouths stuffed right now. As do we all.

Maybe it won't be such a bad day after all.
 

BYERS:

We arrive at the VA Hospital, which admittedly is not the height of modern architecture or a paean to order. The place, as per usual, is packed to the gills, and chaos reigns here.

My father gives a typical subtle look of disgust. It probably isn't obvious to anyone else, but I know him well enough-at least in that way-to know what the small changes in his expressions comprise.

In the elevator, which we don't have to share, my father turns to me. "And you consider this adequate for your friend."

Truthfully, I don't-but it's what he can afford, what's available to him.

Perhaps I should have offered to have him transferred to a different institution-God knows I can certainly afford it-but it would have enraged Frohike. He does not accept charity willingly, particularly when dollar signs are attached.

And as for this being a charitable institution-hardly. He's earned his right to be here-in spades. And yes, he deserves better.

We find out he's been moved, but not from anyone on staff. As is the norm in hospitals, and even more soon in institutions such as this, no one seems to know anything.

The good news is, he's been moved to a regular room. The bad news is, we get three different room numbers before we locate him, strictly by accident.

Martha is with him when we arrive. He's awake as well.

He's still far too attached to external peripherals to put me totally at ease, but I confess that he looks a little better than he did.

Unfortunately, he has the attitude to match.

"How many times do I have to tell you, I'm tired of feeling like the main attraction at a freak show?" He snarls this at me by way of greeting. But he softens a bit when he sees Juliet. "Hello, dear. How's the leg?"

"Getting better, slowly." She still has a limp, and she may always have one. "But I will dance with John at our wedding, and I'm not going to look like a gimp."

"That's a good girl," he nods at her. He seems as though he might become somewhat agreeable towards me-until he sees the man standing behind me.

Frohike has met my father. Apparently during my illness a year and a half ago, they came very close to getting into it.

"All of you. Out." He hisses at us. This was a bad idea, coming here with my father. I just hope we've done nothing to exacerbate his condition.

"You. Stay here." He's pointing at me. Martha, my father, and Juliet have since vanished into the hallway. I turn back towards the bed, and a very furious-looking Frohike is staring me down.

He needs better drugs, I decide. Whatever they're giving him, it's not improving his disposition.

Then again, about the only thing that will improve Frohike's disposition at this point would be unconsciousness.

"What do you mean by bringing your father here?" He is livid with me, and I once again have the opportunity to feel like an errant five-year-old, caught doing something I shouldn't have been doing in the first place. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"He asked to come."

"And I'm sure his motives were charitable." The tired voice still oozes sarcasm.

Truthfully, I'm not certain what his motives were.

"It was his idea."

"Oh, I'm sure." The sarcastic tone has not decelerated. "Bad enough I feel like shit, but then I have to come and be gawked at!"

"We're not gawking. We're concerned." And we are. And he can deal with it.

I know how private a man he is. He makes me look positively extroverted by comparison. But does he understand that when my father says we will do something, I'm conditioned to respond in only one way? You would think he'd get that. He has a son of his own.

A son he's been treating rather nastily as of late, I might add. And while Michael is hardly the epitome of a perfect child, he has been a loving and attentive one. Say what you will about Michael, but he very deeply cares for his father, and it's obvious to the entire planet how deep that affection runs. You'd think Frohike would have a clue.

"I'd like you to all leave now," Frohike announces, turning his face to the wall.

"I'll leave when I'm ready." Now my stubborn streak has been activated. And yes, I have one.

"For a bright boy, you don't comprehend too well, do you?" His voice still has the sharp edge, but it continues to decline in energy.

"If you must know, he came to talk to Martha." Why, I have no idea, but that was his stated mission.

"What the hell for?"

"I don't know."

He turns and glares at me. "Well, I don't appreciate it, and you can all go home now."

"I don't think so."

"What's he doing in Virginia?"

"I...asked him to come."

Frohike turns back to me. He stares at me in disbelief. "You asked him to come."

"Yes." I feel my face turn hot.

Two fathers, one son...and both of them with the capacity to reduce me to the level of a grammar-school child.

He mulls that one over. "He is my father, Frohike."

Frohike snorts. "Some father. What kind of father treats their child in that way?"

I could really start in on him here. I do recall that Frohike was not present in the lives of his own children for years on end...I do also realize that he was not totally to blame for that.

On the other hand, he has no business getting self-righteous about his parenting skills. He's done well with Michael, but there's been a lot of detritus left in the boy's wake over the years. Possibly that he could have prevented...

This is useless, I tell myself. You cannot change the past. The future is the only option left to you.

"I'm...trying to..."

"Trying to establish a relationship with an iceberg? Good luck." He snorts.

I'm puzzled. Frohike, the consummate parent, attacking my efforts to come to some sort of terms with my father.

Why?

"He is my father." I shrug helplessly.

Why is it that under normal circumstances, I can argue eloquently with Frohike-and frequently, I come out the winner, but in this situation, I'm utterly helpless and my mouth is blocked as though by a thousand bricks?

"Then maybe you should go talk to him." The voice is short, terse, and once again, the face turns to the wall. He's made it clear that he does not wish to discuss this further.

I don't speak. But I don't leave, either.
 

MARTHA:

Who is this man?

He introduces himself as James Arthur Byers, the Fourth. He must be Byers's father-the last name isn't that common.

I'm looking for resemblance to the son, and I'm having a difficult time finding it. With the gray hair, it's difficult to say for certain, but where the son has deep auburn hair, this man appears as though he was blonder in his younger years. The kind blue eyes of his son bear no relation to the pale, icy blue that lurks in this man's.

There is something of the grace and reserve I can tie to the both of them, although not well.

And quite honestly, he's scaring the shit out of me. Which is a very unusual experience. You take care of patients for a few years, nobody much intimidates you anymore, except maybe Gizzie, and only when she's on a rampage, such as she was this morning.

He asks if we might talk privately. I nod mutely-there is something that this man exudes that forces me into compliance.

We sit in the solarium (if you could call it that-hardly any sun makes its way through the windows which by my estimation were last washed when the building was constructed in 1958), facing one another. I have no idea why I'm here, or why he is here. At least the place we are in is reasonably public; if I need to scream and run, I can.

And I nearly fall out of my chair when he begins his series of questions for me.

The first ones are innocent enough. He asks me about my nursing experience, where I was educated, what my training is.

I remind him that I was one of the staff that cared for his son in quarantine. For perhaps a fraction of a second, I think I see a glimmer of warmth cross his features-was I imagining it? He soon reverts to his cool analysis of me.

The following questions, I am totally unprepared for. They regard my financial situation. And I use the term financial situation loosely-mostly, it's what I consider a monumental disaster.

I want to tell him that it's none of his business. That this is between my creditors and myself, and he has no right to even ask of me.

I'm wondering if my creditors sent him. It's my understanding that debtors' prison went away in the 1800s...but you never know in this day and age.

He makes me uncomfortable. I try to pinpoint what it is that I find so upsetting about him.

I think it is that he is cold. Really cold. Glaciers are warmer.

Hell, surgeons are warmer.

I want to scream out, why have you come here? Instead, I am taken by this man's control, and I oblige him with answers to all his questions. Questions he has no right to ask me-questions about my husband, about my finances, about Mel...

The questions regarding Mel in particular make me bristle. Yet I answer them, hating myself all the while for doing so.

But I give nothing away in terms of my...personal feelings for him. I manage to keep the conversation at a professional level. I silently thank the gods of medical training that I can do this.

Otherwise, I'm going to appear as the giddy 15-year-old I feel like when I even hear Mel's name.

And for several minutes, I feel as though my lack of sleep has finally caught up with me. There is no way I could have heard him correctly.

I stare at him, disbelieving.

If he is to be believed, my financial troubles have just ended. Like that. Well, almost like that. I need to provide him with a list of my creditors and the amounts owed...but it's his claim that my obligations will end with that.

And my salary for full-time care for a one Melvin Frohike will be paid for as long as he requires my services.

I am aghast. I cannot believe what is happening.

What do I say to him?

I try to open my mouth-but thank you seems so small in this case-and nothing emerges.

He looks at me, cold eyes fixed on me.

"Don't you have a patient to care for, ma'am?"

I stumble back to Mel's room, a sense of utter unreality engulfing me.
 

They've left. Mel is asleep, which he needs, desperately, if he's to get well.

I adjust the sheets, and as I do, I notice a small bump near his IV'd arm. I gently pull back the covers...and find that the teddy bear is tucked in the crook of his arm, near to his heart.

I find myself blushing, and smiling...

And I lean over...

And kiss him gently on the cheek.

It's probably my imagination, but I think I just saw a tiny smile on his lips.

What a day.

END OF PART 35