The Race

        The new Shawn opens the door of the clinic and tells me I’m in room one. “Time for the baby birds to fly on their own, huh?” I ask. 

        “Something like that,” he says. “Shelley will be watching over me to tell me how badly I’m screwing up.” 

        He unwraps my right foot and cuts off the soft cast on my left. “These both look smaller,” he says. As he’s cleaning them up, Dr. Thompson surprises me by sticking her head in. She stares in my eyes like she’s looking for something. I say hello. She glances at my feet then says she’ll be back. Shelley comes in and sits at the computer while Shawn measures the wounds and takes pictures. One has indeed shrunk by a third, the other by half. I was not expecting such good news, and though I’m afraid of getting my hopes up, I find myself feeling a little perkier. 

        One of the other nurses asks Shelley to talk to a patient on the phone. “You know Mr. Stuart better than anyone,” the nurse says. 

        “Me? I’ve only seen him once,” she says, but she leaves to talk to the man. “I’ll be back, Jean.” Jean? All this time I thought they were calling him Shawn. I look at his tattoo sleeves, his crew cut. He doesn’t look like a Jean. While we wait, we make small talk. Noticing his thick twang, I ask where he’s from. He says Oklahoma, the oldest of eight kids. I don’t ask him if they all have French names. 

Shelley returns, followed by Dr. Thompson. The doctor asks how everything is going, and I tell her not great. She asks how work is, and I tell her how challenging it’s been working with so many law enforcement types. “I don’t exactly fit in,” I say. 

            “I feel very fortunate,” she says. “We really are like a family here. We all get along. There’s only one of us who…” She doesn’t finish her sentence. I wonder who the one problem nurse is. 

        She says she’s seen a big change with the hospital security as well. “They used to just be mall cops. Now they’re all decked out in Kevlar and riot gear.” As we talk, a voice over the loudspeaker announces a Code Gray. She shakes her head; Code Gray means a disruptive person. 

        She does a lot of work chopping away my callouses. I ask how her foot is doing. “I’m following doctor’s orders,” she says. “And apparently so are you. These look wonderful.” She puts down her scalpel and hobbles out.

        Shelley arranges the materials for the soft cast and stands by to watch Jean work. Karen, the other new nurse, comes in and observes silently from the corner. Jean wraps the bandaging around my foot and leg and Shelley tells him what he’s doing wrong every step of the way. Eventually she takes it away from him and does it herself. “You enjoy this, don’t you?” I ask. She giggles. 

Finally I’m all wrapped up again, and Jean brings me my scooter. On the other side of the curtain, Dr. Thompson is perched on her own scooter. It looks much more solid than mine, and has brightly colored streamers and a pink bell on the handlebars. I remember being told that she rides a motorcycle. She rings the bell. 

        I wheel out of the office and she follows me into the elevator. A floor down, a woman gets on, carrying bags full of blankets.

        “Lot of babies today,” the doctor says to her. 

         “Lots of babies,” the woman agrees. She points to our scooters. “You race?”

        “You bet,” I say. “Who do you think will win?”

        She looks at Dr. Thompson, then at me, then back at the doctor. 

        “She win,” she says. 

        The doors open on the ground floor, and Dr. Thompson speeds off down the hall, her lab coat flapping around her.