the whole point of this place, I somehow know that dance is not what this is about. Nik lifts his head, but I’m gone before he can speak, back out the door before I’m fully in. It’s probably the fastest turn I’ve ever made in the ballroom.
It’s not like I walked in on two people having sex, I try to remind myself as I scurry back across the dance floor. I didn’t even interrupt a kiss. But there’s no doubt that I’ve seen something I wasn’t meant to see. Pamela isn’t as old as I am but she’s certainly older than Nik and she gives off the vibe of a well-tended wife. Very dignified, very well dressed. She is, come to think of it, exactly the sort of woman who might own a Hermès scarf.
Quinn is just stepping out of the bathroom as I rush by, humming to herself and rubbing lotion into her hands. “I walked out with this scarf by accident,” I say, but Quinn’s hands are sticky and she pauses, still twisting them together while I slap the Hermès around in the air. “It’s somebody’s scarf and I think it’s expensive and I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry.”
Quinn looks at me quizzically. She must think I’m some sort of kleptomaniac, stealing apples and scarves and then immediately returning to the scene of the crime to confess. I suspect my face is very red.
“He used it to blindfold me,” I say. “Because we were waltzing and I was being stubborn but then when I realized I still had it around my neck . . .”
In unison, we both look toward the back room. The lounge, they grandly call it, although it’s no bigger than a closet. The instructor’s lounge, and just in this moment someone inside is quietly closing the door.
“I should have knocked,” I say.
She shrugs. “You were bound to find out eventually,” she says. “Everyone does.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I WANT YOU TO promise me something,” Carolina says.
“If I can,” I say. She’s having a bad day. Her quesadilla lies untouched at her side and she’s dozed off twice since I got here.
Cancer’s ironic. Carolina had looked so good for so long that the supervising doctors had decided they might have been wrong about her. Not wrong about the diagnosis, but about the amount of time she had left. One of them ordered another course of chemo—extraordinary measures are usually verboten in hospice—and told us in the staff meeting that it might buy her a “bonus round.” So Carolina has traveled by ambulance to the hospital for treatment and then back and the experience clearly exhausted her. You can’t blame the doctor for trying. With someone this young, you always want to hold out hope, but hope is painful and chemo’s a double-edged sword. Now, just two days after it was declared she might get better, she looks much worse.
“It’s about the pain,” she says.
“Are you in pain now?”
She shakes her head. “When Virginia brings the boys . . . don’t let them make me too groggy.”
“Okay.”
“Keep me right on that place where you’re not really hurting but you’re not drunk-on-your-ass-out-of-it either. You know what I mean?”
I nod. “The sweet spot.”
One of the major responsibilities of hospice is pain management. By the time someone gets to us, they’re generally in the last stages of their illness, at the point where doctors stop using verbs like “cure,” “remove,” and “eradicate” and begin using vague terms like “quality of life,” “palliative care,” and “keeping her comfortable.” These patients are daily reminders of the limitations of medicine, so most doctors would prefer not to see them at all. It’s the nurses who make this closing stage of life tolerable. But exactly how to do that is open to debate.
The true mission of hospice—at least in my opinion, although I’ve never stated this to anyone—is to give people a calm arena in which to think their final thoughts. Not everyone wants this opportunity. Some of our clients come in demanding the highest possible
It’s not like I walked in on two people having sex, I try to remind myself as I scurry back across the dance floor. I didn’t even interrupt a kiss. But there’s no doubt that I’ve seen something I wasn’t meant to see. Pamela isn’t as old as I am but she’s certainly older than Nik and she gives off the vibe of a well-tended wife. Very dignified, very well dressed. She is, come to think of it, exactly the sort of woman who might own a Hermès scarf.
Quinn is just stepping out of the bathroom as I rush by, humming to herself and rubbing lotion into her hands. “I walked out with this scarf by accident,” I say, but Quinn’s hands are sticky and she pauses, still twisting them together while I slap the Hermès around in the air. “It’s somebody’s scarf and I think it’s expensive and I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry.”
Quinn looks at me quizzically. She must think I’m some sort of kleptomaniac, stealing apples and scarves and then immediately returning to the scene of the crime to confess. I suspect my face is very red.
“He used it to blindfold me,” I say. “Because we were waltzing and I was being stubborn but then when I realized I still had it around my neck . . .”
In unison, we both look toward the back room. The lounge, they grandly call it, although it’s no bigger than a closet. The instructor’s lounge, and just in this moment someone inside is quietly closing the door.
“I should have knocked,” I say.
She shrugs. “You were bound to find out eventually,” she says. “Everyone does.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I WANT YOU TO promise me something,” Carolina says.
“If I can,” I say. She’s having a bad day. Her quesadilla lies untouched at her side and she’s dozed off twice since I got here.
Cancer’s ironic. Carolina had looked so good for so long that the supervising doctors had decided they might have been wrong about her. Not wrong about the diagnosis, but about the amount of time she had left. One of them ordered another course of chemo—extraordinary measures are usually verboten in hospice—and told us in the staff meeting that it might buy her a “bonus round.” So Carolina has traveled by ambulance to the hospital for treatment and then back and the experience clearly exhausted her. You can’t blame the doctor for trying. With someone this young, you always want to hold out hope, but hope is painful and chemo’s a double-edged sword. Now, just two days after it was declared she might get better, she looks much worse.
“It’s about the pain,” she says.
“Are you in pain now?”
She shakes her head. “When Virginia brings the boys . . . don’t let them make me too groggy.”
“Okay.”
“Keep me right on that place where you’re not really hurting but you’re not drunk-on-your-ass-out-of-it either. You know what I mean?”
I nod. “The sweet spot.”
One of the major responsibilities of hospice is pain management. By the time someone gets to us, they’re generally in the last stages of their illness, at the point where doctors stop using verbs like “cure,” “remove,” and “eradicate” and begin using vague terms like “quality of life,” “palliative care,” and “keeping her comfortable.” These patients are daily reminders of the limitations of medicine, so most doctors would prefer not to see them at all. It’s the nurses who make this closing stage of life tolerable. But exactly how to do that is open to debate.
The true mission of hospice—at least in my opinion, although I’ve never stated this to anyone—is to give people a calm arena in which to think their final thoughts. Not everyone wants this opportunity. Some of our clients come in demanding the highest possible
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