“So you’re saying the symptoms
will
progress. There’s nothing we can do to stop it?”
“Stop it completely? No. There’s already too much damage done, and we can’t reverse any of that.” The doctor met Elliot’s eyes and shifted his weight again. “But we can slow down the progression.”
Elliot stopped listening after that. He stared blankly at the doctor until he finished whatever else he had to say and left the room, promising to be back tomorrow. Sheri sat in the chair, still gripping Elliot’s hand tightly. He didn’t dare look at her. He was afraid she’d have tears in her eyes and if he saw that, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t start crying too.
As the machines beeped merrily away, Elliot could do nothing but berate himself. Why hadn’t he realized those annoying but seemingly mild symptoms over the last several months were more than just him being out of shape? Why hadn’t he done anything about them? Why hadn’t he gone to the doctor?
Elliot had no idea how long it might have been after the doctor left when he finally shook himself back to full awareness. He’d allowed himself to drift in shock and self-pity, but he couldn’t keep doing that. He also couldn’t deal with Sheri’s emotions right now—he was barely dealing with his own. “Cher, why don’t you go get some coffee or something to eat?”
She looked as if he had struck her and grasped even more tightly to his limp hand. “I’m not going to leave you.”
Elliot became very interested in the wrinkles on the sheets where they bunched across his hips. “I kind of need to be alone for a little bit, Cher.” When he finally forced himself to look at her, gaze into that stricken face, he added, “Just for a little while. A half hour or so? Just a little while.”
It didn’t seem to be lessening the impact of his asking her to leave. She looked confused and hurt as she slowly disentangled her hand from his and stood up. She’d been sitting too long and looked stiff, stretching her back this way and that to work out the kinks.
“Okay, Elle,” she agreed finally. “A half hour. But then I’m coming back.”
He nodded and tried to smile. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, Cher.” As she reluctantly turned toward the door, he called out, “Oh hey. Before you leave, could you get my phone for me?”
She tried to smile. “Calling Daniel? Or playing spider solitaire?” She fished his cell phone out of her pocketbook and slid it under his hand where it lay on the mattress.
“Yeah, something like that.” He wasn’t going to do either of those but didn’t think she’d agree with what he planned to do.
She nodded, probably knowing there was something he wasn’t telling her, but for once not calling him on it. She made her way to the door slowly, as if hoping he’d call her back.
He let her get completely out of the room before swiping the screen on his phone to bring up the Internet. He had no idea if it was okay to use a phone in the hospital. He had heard somewhere that he shouldn’t, but at that moment, he didn’t care. If they wanted him to stop, they could come in and tell him.
“Congestive heart failure. A fairly advanced case.”
The doctor’s words rang through Elliot’s head on a never-ending loop. In the next half hour, he looked up everything he could about congestive heart failure. He wasn’t sure why he was shocked by what he found. The diagnosis explained the fatigue and the swelling and the weight gain, which was mostly fluid retention. Even the shortness of breath and racing heartbeat. Most of the symptoms were caused by his heart trying to compensate for a lessened ability to pump enough blood to the lungs. The part that Elliot got stuck on, though, was that it was usually fatal. Maybe not right away, but there was a serious possibility that he could die from this eventually. He already had the enlarged heart that came with it.
He couldn’t help but wonder if he had come to the doctor when he first started noticing symptoms if it would have made any difference. But he couldn’t undo past decisions. He had to go on from here.
There was treatment.
As the doctor had said, he would probably be leaving the hospital with a fistful of medication and a list of heart-healthy foods and heart-safe exercises, as well as an admonition to stop drinking. Even with all that, though, nothing would reverse the damage, or even stop the progression of the disease. The best they could do was slow it down, just as the doctor had said.
HE HAD
tests scheduled for later that day, and they told him they would put the stent in tomorrow or the day after. They couldn’t give him a clear answer about how long he’d have to stay in the hospital after that. At least he was in a regular ward now, not the ICU. The advantage of that—or disadvantage, depending on Elliot’s mood, which seemed to change by the minute—was that he was allowed a wider range of visitors. Daniel was one of the first besides Sheri.
“Hey, old man.” He smiled as he pulled a hard plastic chair toward the bed, turned it around, and straddled it, looking at Elliot.
Elliot wasn’t in a good frame of mind for the joke. “I guess I have to own that label now. Congestive heart failure. That’s an old man’s disease if ever I’ve heard one.” His bed was elevated to a reclined sitting position; he picked at a piece of blanket fuzz on the sheet by his hand, not meeting Daniel’s gaze.
Daniel turned serious and tapped Elliot’s fingers until he looked up. “Not only old people get heart diseases. You know I’m only teasing you with the old-man shit, don’t you? I don’t think of you as old at all.”
“Yeah.” Elliot grinned, but he could tell it didn’t reach his eyes as he went back to fiddling with the fuzz.
Daniel tried to talk about other things, but they really only had one thing in common, and it would probably be a long while before Elliot felt up for that.
“So I hear you believe me now.” Daniel leaned on the back of his chair and plopped his head on his arms. “About the ghost.”
Okay, maybe they had two things in common.
Elliot nodded and actually did meet Daniel’s eyes this time. “No doubt in my mind.” Then it occurred to him that Daniel had had no doubt either, as early as that first night. “I think I owe you an apology.” He tried to grin.
“Well.” Daniel rolled his head up so that his chin now sat on his folded arms, still on the back of the chair. “Seeing is usually believing.”
Elliot shook his head, looking Daniel in the eye. “I think in any other situation I’d still be trying to explain it away. But I can’t do it for this. He saved my life, Daniel.”
Daniel’s smile was Cheshire cat–wide, and evil glinted in his blue eyes. “What happened to Darrell?”
Elliot smirked and swung behind his head the arm with only the pulse oximeter attached. “He’ll come back when I feel better.” He felt a little more lighthearted than he did just minutes before. It occurred to him that he actually liked spending time with Daniel. “But what I’m saying is I don’t think you have to be afraid of him. Ben won’t hurt you.”
“Ben?”
“Remember I mentioned that I’ve been getting weird dreams?”
Daniel nodded. “You never got around to telling me about them.”
Elliot put his arm back down, adjusting the slightly dislodged oximeter. “They’re more like memories really.” He got a sudden chill and reached for the cover. “Ben’s memories. Through Ben’s eyes.” Daniel must have noticed he was struggling because he reached out as far as the back of the chair would allow him, caught a corner of the cover, and pulled it toward Elliot’s hands. “I’ve been leaning toward your ghost theory for a while. Remember I told you I believed something was there? But I never saw evidence of him moving anything until I was lying there, trying dreadfully to reach that damned phone. He moved it to me so I could call for help.”
“Yeah, well, he obviously likes you.” Daniel nodded, back to his original position of head on arms and arms on the back of the chair. “I don’t think he likes me so much. He throws stuff at me.”
Elliot stopped fiddling with the cover and looked Daniel in the eye. “Does he actually
throw
stuff?” Elliot wanted to clarify. “Or does he just move stuff around?”
Daniel had to think about it. “Well, the lamp he moved around. The stuff in the bathroom, he threw. They came sailing off the sink and clear across the room at me. Granted, the bathroom is a little room, but that shit, he
definitely
threw.”
“But he never hurt you or even hit you with anything.”
“No, you’re right. He never hit me. I suppose he could have if he wanted to.” He paused. “But I still don’t think he wants me in the house. Maybe he doesn’t like watching gay sex. Geez, maybe you have a homophobic ghost.”
Elliot laughed and wiggled in the bed. Trying to find a comfortable position, he only ended up sliding down so that he lay down now more than sat. “I’ve been getting his memories, remember? He had a male lover. Patrick. I don’t think that’s the problem.”
“Well, then maybe he’s jealous. Maybe he has the hots for you.” Daniel scrunched up his face and lifted his head from his arms. “Can ghosts lust after someone? Or maybe it’s just been so long for him, he doesn’t want anyone to enjoy themselves.” Daniel’s face split into a grin and that evil twinkle was back in his eyes. “If you can’t see your balls, can they still be blue?”
Elliot rolled his eyes and slapped his hand in Daniel’s direction, even though he was too far away to connect with. “How would I know?”
“Anyway.” Daniel’s face had a more serious look now. “I’m glad you believe me, and I’m extremely pleased that the ghost helped you.”
“Ben,” Elliot corrected tiredly.
“I’m glad
Ben
saved you.” Daniel smiled and got up from his chair, swinging it back to its original position. “I’m going to let you rest for a little while. I just wanted to check in on you.” He grabbed the bed control that was dangling off the side, out of Elliot’s reach, and handed it to him.
Elliot lowered the bed, yawned, and snuggled into the covers while Daniel walked toward the door. “I’m glad you did.” Daniel was almost out of the room before Elliot added, “Come back later?”
Daniel nodded, with his hand on the door, looking back at Elliot. “Sure thing.”
SHERI WAS
visiting when the doctor came in the next day.
“We scheduled the angioplasty—stent insertion—for tomorrow morning,” Dr. Proust told Elliot almost as soon as he entered the room. “If everything goes well, we’ll keep you overnight and you can go home the following day.” He stood at the foot of Elliot’s bed, clutching his clipboard as he tended to do.
“If everything goes well?” Sheri, wide-eyed, glanced from the doctor to Elliot and back again. “There’s a chance things won’t go well?”
“There’s always a risk with any surgery. But the risks of this particular procedure are pretty small. I don’t look for there to be any complications.” The doctor glanced at Sheri as he answered her question, and then he turned back toward Elliot. “Someone will be in later to go over all the possible risks, as well as aftercare instructions.”
“Calm down, Cher.” Elliot reached out for her hand and she wiggled around to take it. “You’re more worried about it than I am.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ll be fine.”
She turned back to scrutinize the doctor before asking, “And this will help him breathe easier and everything?”
The doctor had gone through this before, but he held Sheri’s gaze and patiently explained again. “It won’t really do much for some of the symptoms of the congestive heart failure. His heart will still be enlarged. We have him on meds for that. Also, the blood tests showed that there is kidney involvement, as I suspected. The liver is also slightly bigger than it should be. This won’t do anything about those conditions either. We’ll add a diuretic to the medication regimen, as well as some other meds to help the kidneys and liver function with a little more ease. The stent will open his arteries a little, though, and increase blood flow. It should help prevent another heart attack, but there are no guarantees.” Sheri opened her mouth, seemingly to ask another question, but the doctor anticipated it. “If he doesn’t have the angioplasty done, he will almost certainly have another heart attack at some point.”
Sheri closed her mouth but looked just as concerned. She turned back to Elliot and simply gripped his hand tighter.
HE WAS
taken downstairs for the procedure the following morning, and another set of nurses took his vitals. Then one of them injected something into his IV. He soon became so groggy that he didn’t remember much of anything that followed. Not the surgery, or the recovery room, or the trip back to his room. Even then, he was still so sleepy from whatever they had given him that he fell back to sleep as soon as they transferred him back to his bed.
When he woke again, Daniel was once again beside his bed, sitting correctly in the ugly orange chair, not straddling it. He was leaning over a pad of paper, and Elliot wasn’t sure at first what he was doing until he heard the scrape of the pencil followed by the rub of an eraser. Daniel was drawing. Elliot hadn’t planned to speak yet, not wanting to break the spell Daniel seemed to be under, but then Daniel flicked eraser bits off his page and they landed on the sheet near Elliot.
Elliot chuckled and brushed them away. “I didn’t know you drew.”
Daniel looked up, startled, and closed his sketchbook. “Yeah. That’s actually what I do for a living. My pieces are in art shows, and I do portraits of people and animals. All sorts of cool stuff.” Daniel grinned, and Elliot didn’t find it difficult at all to imagine this flamboyant free spirit as a successful artist.
“Why have you never told me that?” Elliot found a particularly large eraser crumb and worried it between his fingers. He thought back to the portraits in the living room and the easel he’d seen in the spare bedroom.
Daniel leaned forward, elbows on his sketchbook. “You never asked.”
Elliot had to agree with that but now felt horribly selfish. It hadn’t even occurred to him to ask what Daniel did for a living. He vowed to rectify that.
Daniel collected some of the eraser pieces off Elliot’s bed and held out his hand for the one Elliot was still toying with, then threw them in the trash basket near the bedside table.