The Night Nurse

Garrett Fisk swam back to consciousness into waves of discomfort. His throat was so dry it burned as he swallowed. He tried to lick moisture into his mouth, but his tongue felt like a brick between his teeth. An unfamiliar soreness in his bladder made him instinctively reach beneath the beige, waffle-textured blanket covering him. His hand found tubing taped to the inside of his thigh. A catheter.

He pulled his arm back slowly, snagging something that sent a jolt of pain through his hand. An IV port was secured there with transparent tape, the skin around it irritated and discolored. Every muscle felt heavy, as if he were made of wet sand instead of flesh and bone. His abdomen protested the slightest attempt to sit forward, forcing him back against the mattress.

Surgery, he thought, though he couldn’t imagine for what ailment. He had always taken great strides to maintain a healthy lifestyle. He worked out regularly, watched what he ate, and saw his primary care physician quarterly. In fact, he had just been to the doctor.

When was that?

His hand drifted up to rub his face and his fingers sank into a full beard. When it came to shaving, Garrett was meticulous. His beard never grew beyond a five-o’clock shadow before meeting the razor. He combed his fingers through several inches of growth. Weeks, he thought. Months?

He scanned the room. Moonlight seeped through a paper-thin gap in the curtains, painting a silver stripe across the foot of the bed. Beyond that, the room dissolved into shadows, though he could discern cabinets above a hand sink and an empty visitor’s chair beneath a small, wall-mounted TV.

The silence settled strangely around him. Hospitals were never quiet. Even in the middle of the night, there were conversations in hallways and muffled televisions playing in other rooms. Here…nothing.

Then he heard something he hadn’t heard since childhood: the deliberate, measured clacking of a typewriter. Keys pressed one at a time, followed eventually by a tiny bell and the metallic return of the carriage. For a moment, he caught the scent of lilacs. His grandmother had lilac bushes along the walkway to her house, where he would find her typing, waiting for him to arrive and eat the brownies she baked him.

Except on the day he was late. The day he found her at the bottom of the basement stairs…

He shook his head violently to clear his thoughts and winced. The sound that escaped his lips was so weak he could barely believe he made it. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again.

“Hello?”

The typing stopped. Silence reclaimed everything before he heard a chair rolling backward, then the soft cadence of sensible shoes crossing a polished floor.

Seconds later, the door opened, allowing a wedge of pale light to push back the gloom. A woman’s silhouette lingered there before stepping inside.

She wore a crisp white dress beneath an immaculate apron. A nursing cap perched on her head, the kind Garrett had only seen in old photographs. White stockings disappeared into polished, white leather shoes with thick heels that added unnecessary inches to her already tall frame.

Moonlight washed over her porcelain skin and revealed soft brown curls spiraling from beneath the cap, and a smile so immediately reassuring that Garrett felt his shoulders relax despite the strangeness of his circumstances.

“Good morning, Mr. Fisk.” Her voice carried the warmth of someone greeting a familiar neighbor. “How are we feeling today?”

Garrett couldn’t help smiling back. “Morning?” he croaked. “Seems a little late for that.”

She tilted her head, considering the observation. “Oh. Yes, I suppose that makes sense.”

She retrieved a plastic cup and guided the straw toward him.

“I’m the night nurse,” she said as he sucked moisture back into his withered frame. “So it’s always morning to me.”

He drained half the cup before she gently pulled it away.

“Easy now,” she nearly cooed.

“I could use more of that.”

“And you can have more. In a moment.”

She placed two fingers against his wrist while pulling a small wristwatch from her apron. Her touch was gentle and warm, but from where her fingers met his skin, he felt a faint vibration so much faster than his pulse that it made him think of hummingbird wings.

And the red hummingbird feeders in his grandmother’s backyard.

He would sit with her there sometimes, sipping freshly squeezed lemonade as they watched the birds dip their beaks to collect nectar. Of course, that was before he stopped on the way to her house that day to peek through a certain window.

If he hadn’t done that…

He slammed his eyes shut, not willing to risk another shake of his head. When he opened them again, she was looking right into them.

“Where am I?”

“In recovery.”

“I gathered that.”

“Yes.” She released his wrist. “You seem very perceptive.”

There was no sarcasm in her tone. If anything, she sounded pleased.

Garrett looked past her toward the open door. The hallway light wasn’t fluorescent. It was too soft, too sallow, illuminating only enough of the corridor to reveal a closed door in the opposite wall.

“What hospital?”

“Terrace Heights Infirmary. Seventh floor.”

“Where is that?”

“The southern hemisphere.”

“Wha—”

He shifted beneath the blanket and something deep inside his abdomen pulled tight. He let out a breath through clenched teeth.

Her smile disappeared. “Please don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Try to sit up.”

"I barely moved.”

“And it hurt.”

“Yes.”

“Then your body has given us a rather compelling argument against doing it again.”

Despite himself, he almost laughed.

“What happened to me?”

“You had surgery.”

“For what?”

She busied herself with the tubing attached to his hand.

“What surgery did I have?”

“The necessary one.”

He stared at her, waiting for some indication that she was joking. None came.

“What was wrong with me?”

“Several things, I imagine.”

“No. What was wrong with me that required surgery?”

“Ah.”

Her fingers paused on the back of his hand. That same fluttering vibration worked its way through his skin and into his mind. The smell of his grandmother’s perfume washed over him, threatening to pull him back to that day, but disappeared when she lifted her hand.

“It was causing you some difficulty.”

“What was?”

“The problem.”

Garrett frowned. “You’re doing that on purpose.”

“Doing what?”

“Not answering me.”

“I’ve answered every question you’ve asked.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“I assure you I have.”

Garrett opened his mouth, then closed it. He wasn’t sure how to argue with that.

She offered him more water. He drank, then glanced at the rectangular badge above her left breast.

MUNDARE.

“Mundare?”

“Pardon?”

“Your name.”

For the first time, her smile became almost playful.

“Oh, no.” She moved a finger across the syllables. “Moon, like the one whose light fills this room. Da, rhymes with ‘Ah!’ And ray, like a ray of sunshine.”

“Moon-da-ray,” he intoned, testing it on his tongue.

“Now you’ve got it!”

“Interesting name.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“First or last?”

“Yes.”

Garrett looked at her. She looked back.

“How long have I been here?”

Her eyes shifted away briefly.

“That can be difficult to answer.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I have a beard.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I don’t have a beard. I shave every morning. That means I’ve been here a long time.”

“Does it?”

A spark of anger tightened his chest, then disappeared almost as quickly.

“Hair takes time to grow.”

“Usually.”

The word hung between them. The room was so quiet Garrett could hear the seconds ticking on the watch in Nurse Mundare’s apron.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you should rest.”

“I have been resting.”

“No, you’ve been unconscious.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A considerable one.”

“How long was I unconscious?”

“Long enough, apparently.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“No,” she agreed pleasantly. “That one wasn’t.”

Something about the admission unsettled him more than the evasions had.

“Where’s the doctor?”

“He is unavailable at present.”

“When will he be available?”

“When he is needed.”

Garrett let out a humorless laugh. “Of course.”

“I’ll check on you shortly. Please try to get some rest.”

She almost made it to the door before he called out. “Wait.”

She stopped.

Garrett had a dozen questions ready, but none seemed worth asking. He sensed she would answer them with the same obfuscations.

“Nothing.”

She nodded. “Very well.”

Her heel taps receded down the hallway. A few seconds later, the typewriter began again.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

Ding.

Garrett shifted onto one elbow. Pain tightened in his abdomen, but he waited for it to pass, then pushed himself into a seated position. The bed groaned beneath him. He sat there breathing, waiting. No footsteps. The typewriter continued.

He lifted his gown. A clean bandage covered most of his lower stomach. His fingers hovered over the dressing, then touched it. Pain blossomed deep inside him.

“Jesus.”

The typewriter stopped.

Garrett froze.

For several seconds, there was nothing. Then the typing resumed.

He looked over his shoulder at the door. She could hear him. The thought should have been reassuring. It wasn’t.

The catheter tugged as he moved to stand. For the first time since waking, he seriously considered doing what Nurse Mundare had told him.

Rest.

The thought brought that tiny spark of anger back.

He lifted the hem of his gown, peeled the tape from his thigh, wrapped his hand around the tubing, gritted his teeth, and pulled. White-hot fire erupted between his legs as the catheter came free. It hurt so badly that when he ripped the IV from his hand, he didn’t even feel it.

For several minutes, he simply sat there, hunched forward, both hands gripping the edge of the mattress as the room tilted around him. Once the agony-induced dizziness passed, he rose to his feet, keeping his torso as still as possible. His bare soles shuffled silently toward the window, each step driving a dagger into his belly, but the pain was manageable.

He reached the curtain, grabbed one panel, and pulled.

Nothing happened.

He frowned and pulled harder. The fabric didn’t move. Not a single inch. He tried the other side and got the same result. He pushed his index finger into the gap, but he may as well have been trying to push it through welded steel. There wasn’t so much as a tremor in the thick cotton.

He moved to peer through the curtain, but as he placed his eye to the slit, his mind flashed to the memory of Mrs. Devereaux, of what he saw in her window. He pulled his face back and closed his eyes, his hands resting on the curtains as they inexplicably bore his weight.

“What the hell?”

Garrett looked toward the door. The typing continued as he moved toward it and gently eased it open.

The only light came from the nurse’s station down the hall to his right, maybe thirty feet away, a small island of yellow beneath a hanging fixture. There was nobody seated in the chair.

The typewriter moved anyway.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

Ding.

The carriage slid back into place.

His skin prickled with goosebumps as a shiver ran through him.

“Nurse Mundare?”

The typing stopped. No answer.

Garrett stepped into the hall and let the door ease shut behind him. It was colder than his room, the air holding the hollow chill of a place left empty too long, like a church after everyone had gone home.

Identical closed doors lined both sides at even intervals. No room numbers or dry-erase boards listing patient names or attending physicians. Just pale doors set into pale walls.

He tried the nearest.

Locked.

By the fourth, he stopped trying and moved on.

At the nurse’s station, he noticed a black-and-white photograph in a modest wooden frame with a small gold nameplate.

DR. CATO

Garrett picked it up.

A tall, lean man wore a white physician’s coat, “robes,” Garrett thought absentmindedly, buttoned over a dark shirt and trousers.

The man was barefoot.

He stared at the confident face and stoic’s smile before returning the photograph with a feeling of reverence he didn’t understand.

The typewriter sat centered beneath the hanging light, an old black machine with round keys and a blank sheet rolled into its carriage. Behind it, shelves held hundreds of identical files.

Garrett touched one.

Clack.

He jerked his hand back.

Clack.

The keys began moving.

GARRETT FISK

His stomach clenched for reasons that had nothing to do with the surgery.

Ding.

The carriage rolled back.

“No.”

Garrett squeezed his eyes shut as the keys continued. When the machine stopped, he looked.

GARRETT FISK

CLIMB TO SEVENTH TERRACE COMPLETE

SURGERY SUCCESSFUL

RECOVERY PENDING

As he reached for the paper, a hand gently closed around his wrist.

Garrett nearly screamed.

“Mr. Fisk.”

Mundare stood beside him. He had not heard her approach. Her smile was warm and patient, perhaps a little apologetic.

“You really shouldn’t be out of bed.”

“What is this place?” he barked, yanking his wrist away.

“You already asked me that.”

“No. I asked what hospital this was. Now I’m asking what this place is.”

The anger that had sparked and vanished finally found enough kindling to burn.

“You don’t answer anything. You tell me I had surgery but won’t tell me what for. You won’t tell me how long I’ve been here. Where in the ever-loving hell are we?”

“Not there.”

He laughed bitterly, causing his abdomen to clench hard enough to fold him forward. She caught him before he hit the floor.

“Come.”

“I’m not going back to that room.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No.”

“You’ve removed your catheter, pulled out your IV, and walked farther than your body is ready for. You have plenty of walking yet to do, but not right now.”

Mundare slipped his arm over her shoulders and guided him toward his room.

“There’s no going back now,” he muttered.

She looked up at him. “No,” she said softly. “There isn’t.”

Something in the way she said it stopped him cold.

“Forward will do nicely, though.”

When they reached the door, Garrett stopped.

“I killed her.”

Mundare did not ask who.

“My grandmother.”

The words came easily now.

“I was supposed to help her that day. Carry some boxes to the basement. Christmas decorations, I think. Maybe clothes. I don’t remember anymore. I was late. I stopped at the Devereaux house.”

The memory came clearly now. Not carried in on a scent or flash. He was there.

He was fourteen. Mrs. Devereaux left her bedroom curtains open. He had noticed before. But that afternoon, he had gone looking. He stood beside the hedges and watched as she entered her bedroom wearing only a towel. He watched her pull it off. Felt the heat in his face, the exhilaration of the moment, followed by shame as he stumbled away wishing he could take it back.

“I ran the rest of the way to my grandmother’s house.”

He called for her, then found her at the bottom of the basement stairs, her neck bent at an angle he had spent his life trying not to remember.

“If I’d been there, she wouldn’t have fallen. I could’ve carried the boxes. I could’ve stopped her.”

Tears collected in his eyes.

“I was supposed to be there.”

Mundare finally spoke. “How old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

“And your grandmother?”

“Seventy-two.”

“When you found her, were there any boxes next to her?”

Garrett paused. The memory was clearer now than it had been in decades.

“No.”

He squinted, trying to hold onto the old version, the one where boxes lay scattered around her lifeless body.

“Then why did I remember it like that?”

“Because you were fourteen.”

“That doesn’t explain anything.”

“It explains quite a lot.”

“I was doing something wrong.”

“Yes, you were.”

The words cut as clean as a scalpel.

“You were fourteen years old and doing something you knew you should not have been doing. That is true. Your grandmother falling down the stairs is also true. But they are not the same truth.”

For the first time in decades, Garrett allowed the memories to exist beside one another instead of on top of each other. Mrs. Devereaux at the window. His grandmother on the floor.

Separate.

His legs nearly gave out again. Mundare steadied him.

“What did you take out of me?”

She looked at him for a long moment.

“Something that wasn’t healthy.”

Garrett almost argued, then stopped. He nodded instead.

Mundare helped him back into bed.

“What happens now?”

“Recovery.”

“And then?”

“You’ll know.”

Garrett nodded toward the windows. “Why couldn’t I open those?”

“Because you weren’t supposed to look out.”

“Why not?”

“Do you know why hospitals paint the walls such soft colors, Mr. Fisk?”

“No.”

“So people stop looking at the walls and start looking inward.”

Garrett stared at the ceiling, then began to laugh.

“I spent my whole life avoiding just that.”

“I know.”

The laughter broke apart into something else. He covered his face with both hands and allowed himself to cry. Mundare sat beside him and waited as his shoulders heaved with racking sobs. Eventually, his breathing slowed. When he lowered his hands, something felt different.

He took in the room again. The same sliver of moonlight slipped through the same narrow opening. The room was still dark. The hallway was still silent. Nothing had changed.

Except him.

“Will you still be here when I wake up?” he asked, closing his eyes.

“I’m the night nurse.”

“So it’ll still be morning?” A smile played on his lips.

“Now you’ve got it.” Her expression was brighter than the moon.

Garrett let the darkness take him. Somewhere beyond the door, the typewriter began again.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

Ding.