My Better Life

8

Jamie

Memorial Hospitalin Brunswick is a small community hospital serving the area’s rural population. It was built in the early nineteen seventies and is just as ugly as all the other institutional buildings constructed in that decade. The building sticks up like a beige band-aid, jutting off the scabby terrain of the brown hillside.

Brunswick was once a coal mining town, now it’s mostly a half-dead ghost town with a supermarket and a three-bed hospital. It’s on the northern side of the mountain and only fifteen miles away, but it takes an hour to get there, traveling narrow, winding, hilly roads, that cling to ravine edges and have construction yellow rockslide warnings posted every hundred feet.

The kids, Scooter, and Gran are in the station wagon in the gravel parking lot waiting for me to bring out Gavin.

Or Billy as we’re going to call him.

That was Gran’s suggestion. She said we couldn’t call him his real name, and she wouldn’t remember it anyway, so we might as well name him after the other ornery cock in our lives. Billy.

Gran also suggested I lay on my accent nice and thick, thicker than I’ve ever done. Just to give Gavin a nice treat. She wants to make sure he gets as much mountain living as he can take. He thought accents, banjos, and chickens were hillbilly? Well, he’s gonna get a nice heaping pile of it, and Gran thinks it’s exactly what he deserves. I can’t say I disagree.

I walk across the parking lot to the front door of the hospital. There’s a cigarette ashtray station at the door, and an old bench with green peeling paint. The glass door has the names Dr. G. Lewis, Internal Medicine, and Dr. M. Tinker, Family Medicine, the hours, and the phone number.

The rumbly sound of a lawn mower cuts through the air, and I smell fresh cut grass and cigarette butts. My feet scuff on the gravel and I turn around. Okay. Never mind. I can’t do this. I’m not going to do this. What were we thinking?

In the car, Gran sees my expression. She waves her hands, and then pointing at the hospital, she gives me two big thumbs up.

No.

Nope.

No.

Then I see Tanner. His nose is pressed against the window, and he’s watching me, an intent expression on his face. And it’s as if my heart slides sideways, like an automatic door, and all I can do is walk on. I raise my hand and wave.

I’m doing this.

From here on out it’s thick accents, banjos, and barefoot chicken rustling. That’s just desserts. Lord help us all.

I push the door open, an arctic blast of bleach-tinted air conditioning hits, and my shoes squeak on the polished linoleum floor as I walk to the front desk. The 1970s institutional facade matches the interior perfectly—puke-green walls, tan floor, drop ceiling. I almost feel sorry for Gavin Williams having to stay here so long, considering how much he hates drab and ugly. I imagine, even without his memory, he’s upset about his uninspired surroundings.

There’s a nurse in fuchsia scrubs with bedazzled glasses behind the desk. She smiles as I walk in. “Morning, hon. Can I help you?”

This is the test. Hollow Creek is a very isolated town. Nobody in Brunswick knows me. And they don’t know Gavin either.

If I can pull this off, I can pull off anything. I bite my tongue and send up a prayer for forgiveness. “You sure can. I’m here for my husband.”

She leans forward in her chair. Keen interest lights her expression. “Your husband?”

“Mhmm. Billy Sutton. I’m told he has…amnesia?”

She pushes away from the desk, her cheeks flush with excitement. “My word. You’ve come for him! Praise be.”

I get the distinct feeling she’s sending up praise, not because she’s happy for me, but because she’s happy to get rid of Gavin.

“I’ll be right back. Right back. Don’t you leave.” She waves her arms, pushes back her chair, stumbles over it, then hurries into the back.

“Where would I go?” I try to peek through the door she left ajar but can’t see anything.

My heart’s pounding from the lie I told. It tastes wrong on my tongue, like bitter tea left to seep too long.

In less than thirty seconds, the nurse shoves through the door, and a white-haired, harried doctor rushes out behind her. Dr. Lewis, his white coat says. They stop and stare at me like I’m the answer to all their prayers. Another doctor, a round, gray-haired man, Dr. Tinker, stumbles out after them.

The nurse waves her hands at me, like she’s pulled a rabbit from a hat, and says proudly. “She’s here for her husband.”