• • • • •
I can hear the beeps of the monitors down the otherwise empty, sterile hall. Whitehall’s hospital is small, just one long hallway with only a few people ever inside. I bring Tickles to see Geoffrey, which I think will cheer them both up. When we get to his room, Geoffrey turns to me, his massive body covered by a white sheet. He has tubes hooked up to various parts of his body, which surprises me, but I pretend like nothing’s wrong.
“Charlie,” he says. “Oh, and Tickles.” He smiles at us both.
Tickles can’t jump up onto the bed, so he sits down next to it. I am about to pick up Tickles, but Geoffrey tells me not to put him on the bed.
I am glad to see Geoffrey, and relieved to see him alive. It’s an odd thought that I think he could die. He’s not even that old, but I still worry about him.
“So, what’s wrong with you?” I ask.
Geoffrey chuckles a little and coughs. “Infection. They have me on some antibiotics.”
Geoffrey lies there.
Machines occasionally beep.
I sit in a chair. Tickles lies underneath me.
The light in the room goes from brighter to darker to brighter over the course of a few minutes. A flurry of clouds rush through the sky, hurrying to get somewhere.
Geoffrey stares up at the ceiling before turning to me. “Why don’t you and I talk? You have time for that?”
I make a show of looking at my nonexistent watch. “I think I can fit you in.”
Geoffrey doesn’t seem to hear that comment, or if he does, he ignores it. “I’ve been doing a bit of thinking. Reflecting.” He brings up his ex-wife. She left him for someone else. But she recently stopped by his house, even though she’s living in Helena. Geoffrey could see her as she walked up the stairs to the front door. He didn’t move off the green couch to answer the door. It had been many years since they’d last seen each other, and Geoffrey didn’t want his ex-wife to see him at his current size.
“When was all this?” I ask.
“The marriage?” he asks.
“No. Her knocking on your door.”
“About two weeks ago.”
A nurse with a clipboard walks into the room to check something, and she looks at me and the dog. “No dogs allowed in the hospital. Don’t you know he has an infection?”
I stand, almost as an automatic response. “Oh. Sorry.” I definitely don’t want to make Geoffrey worse.
“It’s okay,” Geoffrey says. “He’s my dog.”
The nurse shakes her head. “Still no dogs allowed in the hospital.” She leaves the room, and Geoffrey tells me to sit.
He says, “I’d rather die with company than survive alone.”