Promise to Cherish

Promise to Cherish Read Free Page A

Book: Promise to Cherish Read Free
Author: Elizabeth Byler Younts
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occasion, but would never give a cigarette to a patient. “Now go back and play checkers before you get beat.”
    “No one ever beats me. You know that. Never.” He repeated never over and over as he walked away.
    The door to the day room swung open and hit the wall behind it. Adkins jogged in. His eyes were round and his face was as colorless as his starched attendant’s jacket.
    “Nurse Freeman,” he said, breathless and shaky.
    “What is it?” She’d never seen Adkins rattled before.
    “I went to take some breakfast to Wayne and Sonny.”
    “Just now?” She sighed heavily. “Adkins, this isn’t like—”
    “While you were in shock therapy I had to pull Rodney into solitary and this is the first chance I’ve—it doesn’t matter now.” Adkins breathed heavy and shook his head. He stopped long enough to look into Christine’s eyes. “Wayne and Sonny are dead.”
    “Dead? What do you mean they’re dead? From influenza?” They’d been sequestered to a private room for contagion for the last forty-eight hours.
    He shook his head and grabbed her arm, making the small cups of pills on her tray rattle. “Froze to death.”
    Numbness fixed her where she stood. Christine wasn’t sure she would be able to move from that spot. Had she heard him properly? It was her fault. She should’ve sent Adkins to check on them as soon as Millicent mentioned it. How long had it been since they’d been checked on? Her heart bemoaned that she had not insisted Adkins or even an attendant from Minton’s hall check on them immediately. She took a deep breath and the stench of guilt filled her lungs.
    “Nurse Freeman?” His grip tightened on her arm.
    “Yes.” She returned to the corner office behind her and calmly put the tray of meds on the counter. Then, with Adkins on her heels, she jogged to the last room in the hall.
    Christine pushed her way through the crowd of patients gawking at the unclothed bodies that lay frozen. She wrapped her arms around herself, partly for warmth and partly for a sense of security. Her breath puffed white as her breathing quickened. Snow piled in small mounds on the floor and the walls were frosted around the two sets of open windows.
    “Get everyone out,” she said rigidly to Adkins, who obeyed immediately.
    Once the room was empty she had Adkins call for the administrator, Jolene Phancock. Christine also wanted to make sure Minton had heard the news. Once the two veteran staff members arrived they could instruct her on what to do next. Perhaps all that needed to be done was to call the morgue on the grounds to come pick the bodies up. They would hand them over to the state and have them buried in some unmarked plot for no one to grieve over.
    “Good morning, Nurse Freeman,” Ms. Phancock said in an even and pleasant voice as she walked in. She was too friendly not to give a proper greeting, but her voice carried the bitterness of the morning’s events.
    “Not a very good morning, unfortunately.” Christine tiptoed around the snow to the open windows and closed them. “Wayne is—was—always opening windows. We should’ve found a way to bolt the windows shut in here. I never thought this could happen. I feel responsible.”
    Like a hollow cavern, Christine’s voice echoed in her own ears. Reality and dream crossed each other and she wasn’t sure what was true anymore. Wayne’s naked body, in the fetal position, was blue, and his bedsores were flaky. A shudder shook her body. Sonny, also blue, was long and skinny, and his toes werecurled. He lay flat otherwise and had not even curled around himself to conserve heat. Guilt filled her empty heart.
    She picked up Sonny’s chalk and slate on the floor next to his bed. As a young boy, deaf and dumb, he was sent to the Children’s Ward. There he’d been taught to write a few simple words in order to communicate. She blinked back hot tears when she saw what was scratched onto the slate.
    Cold.
    “Let me assure you that you are

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