By Lacy

Our meal comes and we find eating it difficult, because we cannot eat and talk at the same time.

"Josh?" she asks.

"Hmm?" I am studying her again.

"You're not eating, Josh," she says.

"Do you believe in true love?" I ask. The question comes out of nowhere, but I am suddenly desperate to know her answer.

"What?" she asks.

I think she is afraid. To admit that she believes in true love would be like admitting that is what we share. She is afraid that I do not feel the same way about her. She has not been listening.

"True love," I say, again. "Do you believe in it?"

"I...I'm not sure," she says. This worries me only a tiny bit.

"Do you believe that we were made for each other, Donna?"

Take a chance, Donna. I beg her. Step out on the limb, and I swear to you that I will keep you from falling.

"Yes," she answers softly, sweetly. Her cheeks blush.

And suddenly, I can fly. The future exists clearly for me now. It only becomes a matter of realizing it.

For the remainder of dinner we find that words are not necessary, other than the occasional 'yes' or 'no'. When we finish our meal we order coffee. I pay the check when she is ready to leave and we begin our long trek back to the car.

We are in no rush to return home. She clings to my side as though attached to me and I smile at her and kiss her on the temple. We are only peripherally aware of the passersby who move by us without bothering to take notice of what must appear to be an ordinary pair of lovers.

We are not ordinary, I think. We are anything but ordinary.

Donna's gait becomes sluggish until she comes to a stop. I turn to her and discover that her face has lost all of its color. I can see that she is inhaling and exhaling through her mouth at a slowly measured pace.

"Donna?" I inquire. She looks away from me and her hand covers her stomach. "Donna? What is it?"

She looks about frantically, her eyes widening in her search, before she makes a mad dash for a garbage can positioned beside a residential stoop. My concern for her becomes intense when she places her hands on the rim of the garbage bin.

"Donna?"

"Oh, no--" are the only words she can utter before the dinner we shared spills forth with violent intensity. Her slender form shakes and quivers as it expels the cuisine which must have offended her in some manner.

I am beside her in an instant, stroking her spine and holding back her hair. My own gut constricts in empathy for hers as I feel her tightened muscles beneath my fingers.

There is an all-too-brief respite as her body calms and she is able to breathe again, but it is not long before her stomach decides it has not finished its ejection process. It is only during her second bout with vomiting that I realize her body is releasing more than simply the contents of her stomach. In the light of the streetlamp I see that her stomach has begun to hemorrhage and blood has begun to spill forth from her mouth.

"Donna?" My voice has become hysterical now, but she is unable to deal with me and my fears at the present. I try everything I can think of, but despite my best efforts, the blood continues to eject violently from her body.

The vomiting stops again and Donna stands erect, at last. She sways and to my horror her knees give out. She collapses into my arms, passing out from what must be a combination of exertion and blood loss.

Someone screamed for help several times before it occurred to me that the voice I was listening to was my own. I dig into the pockets of my coat desperately until I am able to locate my cell phone.

The 911 operator implores me to calm down before she can ask for our location. I think I am crying when I give her the address of the house in front me.

Eternity passes before an ambulance arrives and the paramedics are able to load Donna into the vehicle. She has not regained consciousness and the alabaster skin of her face has become translucent and ashen.

I ride with her in the ambulance. The paramedics question me, but I am unable to concentrate on their inquiries. My eyes will not leave her face as I silently implore her to wake up. The medics administer fluids intravenously, and then give her oxygen for good measure.

I ask them what is wrong but they tell me to wait until she has seen a doctor. I must look as pathetic as I feel, because their eyes are filled with a measured form of sympathy.

When the ambulance arrives in the emergency bay, I am taken aback as the blue and red of the sirens fills my eyes and ears. I remember that I have been here before, but now I am here for someone else.

Donna's gurney is rushed through the entrance and a disembodied voice asks me if I am family. When I answer 'no' a pair of strong, yet gentle hands take me aside and show me the waiting room. I am not allowed to follow. Voices tell me that the doctors will do their best, but I am unable to connect them to the faces that swim around me.

They have taken Donna somewhere and I am unable to see what they are doing to her. I throw myself angrily into a waiting room chair and my face drops into my hands. The only sane voice left in my head tells me that I am supposed to be calling someone. It tells me that others should know that Donna's life is hanging in the balance.

But I am afraid. I am afraid that if they come here, they will see how affected I am by this. I know that I will not be capable of concealing the truth from them.

I wait forever in the uncomfortable chair, surrounded by milling people and my own memories. At the nurses station, I see a doctor that I recognize. I was here in this hospital only a few days ago. Was it days? My mind searches its databanks for the name of the doctor who treated me when I was here last. It eludes me -- at first.

"Dr. Walker?" I ask. At first, I can tell that she does not remember me. I touch my chest and I can see the moment when her eyes fill with comprehension.

"Mr. Lyman, is it?" She stumbles over the name.

"Yes," I say.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Lyman? Are you having chest pains again?"

"No," I tell her. "My...." for a second I don't know how to refer to Donna, "friend is ill."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she says.

"She's been in there for a long time," I say. "And the doctors haven't come out yet."

She looks at me, and suddenly realizes what I am seeking from her. She is a busy doctor, I know, but something about the way I look must cause her to take pity on me.

"Would you like me to see what I can find out?"

I sigh in relief. That is exactly what I want. I nod, not trusting the sound of my own voice.

"Have a seat, Mr. Lyman," she tells me.

I hastily locate my chair in the hope that my speedy compliance to her demand will make her return all the sooner. I wait in the chair with my hands clasped together and my left leg shaking beyond all control.

When Dr. Walker returns I am on my feet in a heartbeat.

"Mr. Lyman?" she begins. "Your friend was brought in after vomiting blood?"

I know this already. I nod again.

"The attending physician -- Dr. Attwater -- believes that she may be suffering from a perforated ulcer."

"An ulcer?" I respond as though I am unable to wrap my mind around the very concept. She implores me to sit, and I know that her news is about to get worse.

"At this time, the bleeding has spontaneously remitted, however, your friend hasn't regained consciousness, which causes a bit of concern. Dr. Attwater has called in a gastroenterologist to perform an endoscopy in an effort to visualize the stomach lining. Unfortunately, he can't perform the procedure until she wakes up."

"Will it hurt her?"

"It's a fairly non-invasive procedure, Mr. Lyman. It's not exactly comfortable, but there won't be any lasting aftereffects."

"Can I see her?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Mr. Lyman. Not at this time." Dr. Walker tells me that I will be unable to see Donna until after the procedure.

I feel as though I have failed her. She was there every step of the way when I was injured, and now they are telling me I cannot return the favor. She is in pain and I am helpless to comfort her. All I can do is wait.

The waiting is even more difficult because now it has a deeper meaning. Now, I am waiting for her to regain consciousness. I am trying to hang on to the shreds of my sanity until someone comes to tell me she is awake. God, how many hours have I been waiting?

The mind plays cruel tricks on you when you have nothing else to do but think. You begin to ask yourself questions which, in any other situation, you might not ask. What if she does not want to see me? My mind takes this question and runs with it.

It occurs to me (because I am sometimes slow on the uptake) that an ulcer does not spring up overnight. She had to know something was wrong. This is something she has been hiding from me. All this time, when I thought we were seeing deep into each other, we were only playing at devotion. All this time, when I thought we were discovering each other, she was keeping me at a polite distance.

Suddenly, there is a new aspect to this hell called waiting. I am angry...with her. How can she do this to me? I wonder. How can she put me through this kind of worry?

It is in this moment of meandering logic that a new thought is born. Is this how she felt? Is this what it feels like to wait endlessly for someone to inform you that your life is over? Isn't that what Donna said the waiting had been like?

I have caught the tiniest glimpse of what it must have felt like for Donna, as she waited for me to come through surgery. I flail in the baby-pool version of absolute helplessness that, I now know, threatened to engulf her.

"Are you Mr. Lyman?" My thoughts are interrupted by a man wearing green scrubs.

"Yes," I answer. This man has come to throw me a life line. He is older than I am, with dark hair the grays around the temples. He looks serious and experienced. He reminds me of Toby. "Is she awake?" I beg.

"Yes," he responds. "She regained consciousness and we were able to explain the situation and Dr. Kochmann performed the endoscopy on her stomach."

"And?"

'We located a small dime-sized perforation in the lining of Ms. Moss's stomach. We also found that the acidic content was abnormally high, which at this time can be attributed to Thai food she says she ate for dinner. She informs me that this was not the first time she vomited blood. Do you know anything about that?"

This is news me. Donna's been vomiting blood? "She's seemed fine to me," I answer. "A little tired, maybe. She looked like she'd lost a little weight a couple of weeks ago."

"That's not unusual."

"What caused this?"

"Please understand, Mr. Lyman, that ulcers are the subject of ongoing study. The medical community at large believes that ulcers are initiated by bacteria known as HP, which can lie dormant in the system indefinitely. What activates the bacteria could be a varying degree of different things, from change in eating habits to an unusual amount of stress. For this reason, I've called for a psych consult to see if we can ascertain if anything needs to be done for her beyond medication. In the meantime, she's been admitted and moved to her own room."

"What's being done for her?"

"We've placed her on nasal drip of sucralfate to decrease the levels of acid in her stomach. We may need to prescribe some proton pump inhibitors, but I'm going to wait until I see how she reacts to the sucralfate.

"When can I see her?"

"Well, we sedated her after the procedure, so she'll be sleeping through the night. They're moving her now, but if you talk to the nurse," he points to the nurses station at 'Emergency Admitting', "she'll tell you where to go."

"Thank you, Doctor."

TBC

****