Good Riddance

The air smells crisp.

The stale and muggy odor of hospitals that people usually talk about has long lost its grip on my nose. It’s like how you’re the only one who can’t smell the scent on your clothes or the odor in your house. When you’re surrounded by it, engulfed by it, you can’t differentiate it anymore. Now, instead of the stench of cleaning products or the distinct smell of a used bedpan, all I can inhale is that obscene crispness.

I’ve grown accustomed to this hospital. For weeks, it has been my and Cara’s home. The more hours we spend here, the more we learn to live in it. And hell, we’ve seen plenty of hours pass by.

Unlike home, more hours don’t add up to more comfortability. There’s no accumulation of decor on the shelves. No potpourri in a bowl. No monogrammed sheets on the bed. There’s not even a microwave. There’s a single picture, the frame sitting on the side of the sink since it’s the only palace with enough room. In it, Cara’s smiling face beams in the center as her friends crowd around her.

Our relationship with this hospital home is one of routine.

I do my work remotely from the chair at Cara’s bedside or from one of the tables in the lobby, usually with a cup of weak coffee from the cafeteria cafe. It makes up for the lack of flavor in the way of heat, the liquid always boiling so hot it scalds the cream I add from the tiny disposable cup.

Her dad comes by after work when he can and we switch places so I can go home to take a shower and grab some new clothes. At this point, our actual home is more of a hotel than anything else— a place to spend the night before returning to where I’ve come to belong.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner come to Cara on steaming plates. I get mine from the cafeteria and try to match what she’s been served. I could easily drive to the Wendy’s down the street, but I hate the thought of chowing down on salty french fries when she’s eating bland potatoes and a concoction of what is allegedly meatloaf.

The nurses have become our neighbors. They stop by every two hours to check on Cara’s vitals or administer her another pain medication. By now I know all of their names, spouses, children, hobbies, and which color jello they prefer. We’ve been here so long that they know to keep a red one stored separately, in the nurses’ fridge, so that Cara can have that one in place of the commonly served green. I don’t blame her. The green one tastes like toxic sludge more than it does lemon-lime.

Now, Cara is sitting in the wheelchair they made her climb into, despite her many protests that she didn’t need it.

“I can walk just fine,” she’d insisted. She’d wiggled her toes. “See?”

“It’s hospital policy, doll,” the nurse had said. “Everyone’s got to sit in one for transport, even if it’s just from one wing to another.”

I had withheld my smile as Cara begrudgingly moved herself into the chair.

“Mom?”

I look up from where I’ve been signing papers.

Cara points. “Can you check under the bed? I think Monty made his way down there.”

I bend down and get onto my knees to look. Sure enough, a fat, pink rabbit is pinned beneath one of the wheels. I grab it and toss it to her. She wraps it into her arms tightly, placing a kiss on his head. I doubt he’s dirty, everything in our hospital home is pristinely clean.

Monty has been here since the beginning. When Cara was first admitted, I went down to the hospital gift shop and spent the better part of an hour perusing the options while I tried to get out all of my tears before returning to her room. Assorted boxes of chocolates. Clusters of brightly colored balloons. Cards, both of the ‘get well soon’ and ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ variety. And Monty, who’d been on a shelf with several stuffed bears holding red hearts in their palms.

Monty had spent every night with Cara. He’d acted as doctor and nurse to the emotional, since she had a massive team of physicians to do the rest.

When I was little, I had a Monty of my own. He wasn’t a bunny, but a raggedy chow-chow dog whose fur had faded to oatmeal grey instead of brown. He’d had only one beaded eye (the other lost to Poppy, the family dog, in a gristly wrestling match) and the tip of his tail had been matted to a nub, but I loved the thing. I wish I could remember its name.

My brain is now too full of medical terms I’ll never understand to remember much else.

That and images of pitying smiles etched behind my eyelids.

At first, I’d done all of the research that I could to understand what Cara would be facing. As her mother, it’s my job to know what she doesn’t. And while she’s no longer a child, she’s still my baby. It doesn’t matter how old they get or even if they’ve got wrinkles to match your own, your kids are still nothing more than the little swaddled thing you brought home from the hospital. When you take them out and put them in the carseat (the one you checked a thousand times, just to be sure it was buckled correctly), you hope you’ll never have to bring them back.

I can’t even say this is the first time we’ve returned. Sure, it’s a different hospital, but they’re all pretty much the same. The same linoleum floors. The same fluorescent lighting. Of course, the one we’re in now we’ve grown much closer to.

When she was nine, Cara had been dancing to Barney on the fireplace in a Jane Fonda inspired routine. Her dad had just removed the safety bumpers, since her sister was finally old enough to not ram into things on all fours. Cara had missed a step and hit her shin on the corner brick where it was sharp enough to tear into her skin. I remember how she’d called for me in a strangely calm voice, so afraid she was going to get in trouble for doing one of the things she'd explicitly been told not to do.

Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t play with the stove. Don’t jump around near the fireplace.

Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

I had grabbed her up and sped to the hospital. Nine stitches later she was as good as new.

When she was fourteen, Cara was in a golf cart accident. She’d been with her friends, going full speed on paved cement like they were in a Formula One championship race. When they rounded a corner and flipped, the cart had dragged down the road with Cara in between it and the ground. She’d been bleeding, busted, and bruised from her fingers to her toes. She’d called me from a neighbor’s landline, telling me I might want to hurry. This time we returned to the hospital by way of ambulance. She’d only been admitted for one night, long enough for them to clean out the road rash, and had been sent home the next morning with a detailed routine of adding and removing wrappings till the gashes healed.

It was like before. I’m sure I had told her countless times.

Don’t fool around. Don’t be reckless. Don’t do what I wouldn’t do.

Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

When she was twenty-one, Cara had gone to an urgent care with alcohol poisoning. College students are inspired to drink as much as possible when they become legally able to do so. The hospital had called me that time, telling me it wasn’t serious, and in a few banana bags she’d be feeling much better.

Don’t drink too much. Don’t hang out with the wrong crowd. Don't be careless.

Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

Now, I look at my twenty-six year old daughter, and wonder if she still believes herself to be invincible. What we’re here for this time is nothing I could have warned her against.

Invincibility is impractical, especially when it’s your own body denying that you have it.

“Cara,” I say, “have you called your sister?”

Audrey is my youngest. She turned twenty-two about the same time Cara had her first procedure. She works out of state, which means she isn’t around as much for the updates like their brother is.

Cara makes a face which tells me: no, she has not. “I forgot, sorry.”

I clear my throat. “You should call her and tell her the news.”

I know she doesn’t want to. Even in a normal situation, Cara hates making phone calls. She would rather order a pizza online through one of those confusing delivery sites than just call the location to place her order.

“Text her then,” I tell her.

Cara whips out her phone and types lightning fast with her thumbs. “Done.”

“And Dad?” I’ve already called him, but I know he likes to hear it from Cara himself.

She nods and types out another speedy message. “Got it.”

There’s a knock. The single-windowed wooden pane is my front door these days. Visitors stop by, though there’s no welcome mat for them to brush their shoes on.

“Come in,” Cara calls.

An orderly bustles in. It’s the same one we’ve had for the past week. Her name is Carmen and she’s barely older than Cara. Her thick, black, hair is pulled into a bun and stuck through with one of those little yellow pencils they hand out for tests. She’s got a badge around her neck and a blanket in her arms.

“You ready?” she asks Cara.

Cara moves Monty to the side. “Blanket me.”

Carmen laughs. She drapes the blanket across Cara’s lap. “You coming, Mrs?”

I nod and gather up my things. We walk to the elevator together and the wheels on Cara’s chair protest the whole way. Carmen pushes the button and we descend in silence.

The doors ping open and she rolls Cara out. “Are you excited to be going home?”

Cara purses her lips. Like me, home has become a foreign concept in her mind. For her even more so, since she’s been confined to the hospital room more so than I.

A grin grows on her face and for the first time in weeks, I see a pink flush of genuine happiness on her cheeks. “Hell yeah.”

“What’s the first thing you’re going to eat?” Carmen asks.

I know the answer before Cara says it.

“A chocolate frosty,” she states. “The biggest size Wendy’s will sell me.”

There’s a honk. My husband has pulled up the car and is already opening the passenger door. He’s smiling, too. “All packed up and ready to go?”

Cara nods enthusiastically. “More than ready.”

Carmen and I help her climb into the seat. I fumble with the buckle on the belt. I fasten it and tug a dozen times to make sure it’s secure.

Carmen moves the wheelchair out of the way. “Cara, I hope I never see you again.”

“You’re great, Carmen,” Cara says, “but I don’t ever want to see you again either.”

Cara laughs, as do I, though my husband makes a face like he isn’t sure what’s funny.

I stare at our hospital home. As I close the passenger door I take a deep breath. Most partings are teary-eyed, but this is a place where one’s arrival is the more gut wrenching affair. Cara’s discharge is a blessing because it means she’s healthy enough to return home. To our real home. I hope with all of my heart that this is the last hospital I will bring my baby to.

“Take care, Carmen,” I say. She leaves, pushing the wheelchair back into the building.

I turn to the hospital. I'm thankful for it, but like Cara, I hope to never see it again. So to the hospital, with a smile on my face, I say, “Good riddance.”