Part 10: Testing 1, 2, 3

Touching someone seemed necessary to trigger a vision, but the more attempts Molly made on one person, the more likely that person would wonder what she was up to. She wanted to leave her job eventually, but not because someone filed sexual harassment charges against her. Treating a variety of patients gave her the ability to figure out how to trigger the visions without making anyone suspicious. And once she figured it out, she could go back to Irene.

But so far, her attempts had led nowhere. During her third attempt of the night, she tried taking her patient’s pulse. After two minutes, it had produced nothing except an annoyed patient.

“Are you even doing your job?” the woman snapped.

“Sorry,” Molly replied, giving the patient back her arm. “I was having trouble locating it. But everything’s normal.”

Something had to be missing. What had gone differently the other night? She hadn’t been chanting, Come on! Vision! over and over again inside her head like she kept doing tonight. But that could be said about the hundreds of times she’d held patient’s hands, performed CPR, inserted an IV, and all her other duties. And there hadn’t been visions those times either. No, something else had to be wrong.

As she walked down the hallway toward trauma, the ambulance bay doors crashed open. The paramedics rushed in a bleeding patient. Molly felt the ice block form in her chest and she hesitated out of habit. And then a thought came to her. The other thing that had connected the two visions had been death. A shudder ran down her spine.

It’s not just for the vision. I’ll be helping too. Giving the patient his best shot.

That didn’t make her feel any less like a vulture, but she went.

Nurses were applying pressure to wounds and pushing drugs through an IV. There were too many people in the room. What happened if she froze during her vision, or worse, passed out like she had at the club? She’d go from helping to being a liability. Her breath caught in her chest and she started to back out of the room, hoping she hadn’t been noticed.

Then the patient started moving. Fighting.

“Someone hold this guy down!” one of the nurses called.

She bit her lip and took her chance.

Rushing forward, she held one of the man’s arms while the other nurses tried to find the right medication to give him.

Come on. Now that she was here, she couldn’t waste the opportunity.

She could feel him pushing into her and heard the frantic beep of the heart monitor. For a moment she looked into his wide eyes, desperate and fear-filled. Goosebumps prickled on her arm and she turned to face the wall. Then his strength faded and the arm in Molly’s hands went limp.

“Thanks,” the nurse next to her said, shoving Molly toward the door to get more space. There was nothing left that Molly could do. And she’d failed to get a vision.

Molly sat down at the nurse’s station, replaying the scene in her mind. Despite the ice block, she’d gone in. Something she hadn’t done for months, because she knew she couldn’t really give a patient his best chance knowing he was going to die. And now the man’s eyes would haunt her dreams, making her feel guilty knowing she hadn’t comforted him because she’d been so focused on getting a damn vision.

Maybe she should stop. But then Irene would die. Molly shut her eyes and took a deep breath.

Touching the person. Seeing visions of their death. There had to be something else.

“Hey! Molly!” Sofia came running up, snapping Molly out of her daze. “I have a patient who needs to go up to ICU right away and another patient who just vomited all over the place. Could you—?”

“I’ll take the patient up to ICU,” Molly said with a raised eyebrow.

A hint of a groan lingered at the edges of Sofia’s laugh. “Of course. That’s what I was going to say.”

She showed Molly the room and headed off to her mess.

“Ms. Schwartz,” Molly said as she took a look at the chart. “I’ll be taking you up to the ICU this evening.”

“I want to speak to another doctor. It’s just a fever. Can’t Tylenol fix it or something?”

Glancing down the chart, Molly noted that the fever didn’t seem outrageous, but they suspected an infection because… Molly’s heart froze in her chest.

“You have colon cancer, Ms. Schwartz?”

The woman shook her head with a sigh. “Cancer. Yeah. I’ve got that. But like I told the doctor and the other nurse and my daughter, it’s not related. I just need to talk to the right doctor.”

Glancing back down the hall, Molly was tempted to go back to Sofia and trade spots. It had been awhile since she’d interacted with someone who had the same disease her mom died from. But she took a deep breath and got the wheelchair ready.

“Fortunately for you,” Molly said, forcing a chipper tone into her voice, “we happen to have some excellent doctors up in the ICU.”

Despite her reservations, Ms. Schwartz allowed Molly to help her into the wheelchair. She gave a loud sigh as Molly started to roll her toward the elevators.

“My daughter made me come,” the woman said. “I didn’t want to, but she wouldn’t stop calling me.”

“Smart girl. Fevers like this seem small, but when you have cancer they can develop into something serious pretty quickly.” Molly tapped her finger against the handle of the wheelchair. The elevator seemed to be stuck three floors above.

“She threatened to drive the four hours to drag me to the hospital if I didn’t call an ambulance.” Ms. Schwartz continued as if she hadn’t heard Molly. “I couldn’t let her do that. She’s got a newborn, you know? Only a month old. She can’t be worrying about stuff like this.”

Molly’s stomach churned. “That’s what good daughters do. They worry when their moms are sick.”

“You sound like you know from experience.” The woman turned to glance at Molly out of the corner of her eye. A lump stuck in Molly’s throat.

“My mom had cancer,” she croaked.

“Had?”

Molly didn’t say anything and the woman nodded.

“Had. I see.”

They rode the elevator up in silence, and Molly just had to drop her off and run away. But as the doors opened, the woman let out a shuddering breath.

“That’s what they say is going to happen to me.”

“What?” Molly asked, startled.

“They gave me a year to get to know my baby granddaughter. It’s too short. Especially when she lives four hours away. And now this happened. Do you— do you think it’s more than a fever?”

“I—” Memories of the surgery flooded Molly. It was supposed to give mom more time. Back then, Molly had believed it would be enough to put mom in remission. And then it killed her. “The doctor’s going to have to tell you that.” She hated herself for giving such an indefinite answer.

Desperate to get away, Molly rolled Ms. Schwartz to an empty bed and helped her out of the wheelchair. The frail hand gripped her tightly and Molly’s breath caught in her chest as she saw tears falling down a young woman’s face. A mousy-haired girl of about six took hold of Molly’s other hand, tears streaming down her cheeks as well. Molly lay in a hospital bed, with hissing tubes wrapped around her face to bring her oxygen. It was so loud next to her ear, it took her a moment to hear the beep of the heart rate monitor. The young woman turned her head, continuing to cry silently.

“Maybe I should take Sally—” a man said from the other side of the private room.

“No!” the little girl screamed and held on tighter. “Don’t go, Bubbie. Please?”

She brushed the girl’s hair behind her ear.

“It’s going to be okay,” Ms. Schwartz’s voice said. Every breath was harder to take, but she was smiling. “It’s all going to be okay.”

Molly pulled away from Ms. Schwartz with a gasp.

“Are you all right dear?” Ms. Schwartz’s eyebrows were raised in worry.

Looking back in the woman’s eyes, Molly said, “You’re going to get years to spend with Sally.”

Then she took off for the bathroom before her shaking legs collapsed underneath her, leaving the chart and the wheelchair for whichever nurse came by to take care of the wide-eyed Ms. Schwartz.

Once alone, Molly leaned back against the wall and fell to the floor in a sobbing heap. Ms. Schwartz would get so many years with her granddaughter. So many happy, life-filled years. A storm of joy and sadness and jealousy swirled inside her.

And then her eyes flew open. The tears. She’d had them with Irene as well. Those, and the emotions that came with them, must have something to do with the visions. But all the emotion built up inside her in that moment hurt so much she thought she might shatter.

When she finally went back downstairs, she heard from down the hall, “Molly!”

Sofia caught up with her. “You took even longer than I did. What, did you get lost?” Her grin faded quickly when she saw Molly’s face. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Something’s wrong?” Irene appeared from out of nowhere, gazing at Molly’s face with her penetrating stare. “Did something happen?”

Irene’s hand landed on Molly’s shoulder and Molly’s heart began to pound. Not now. Not in the middle of the hallway, with Sofia watching. And had she really formed the correct hypothesis? After all, she hadn’t been crying when she had her first vision. She needed more time to be sure.

“A patient got out of hand upstairs,” she said, swallowing. “I went to help and he kicked me in the chest. But I’m fine,” she added when their eyes widened. “It just hurt like hell.”

“Okay, well let me know if you need anything,” Irene said. “Speaking of which, I was able to approve those vacation days you asked for, starting tomorrow night. I sent you an email.”

“Oh!” Molly said. She’d completely forgotten about Irene’s promise. “That… sounds great. Thank you.”

Irene nodded, and just like that, she disappeared once more down the hall. Molly’s heart dropped into her stomach in regret, but her feet wouldn’t move to follow Irene.

“Come on,” Sofia said, threading her arm through Molly’s and pulling her in the opposite direction. “It’s pretty quiet out there right now. Let’s go get you some ice before you bruise too much.”

Molly kept her eyes looking back to where Irene had vanished until they turned the corner, wondering if she had just squandered her last opportunity for a second vision.

_____________

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