Page 9 of Fever: Love In Scrubs
I nodded as I began preparing for the assessment. This was going to be a long day.
SILVER RUN, COLORADO.
Nestled in the foothills between Colorado Springs and the San Juan Mountains. Founded in 1886. Population of 52,000. The Winters were cold and snowy. The spring was brief and windy. You could get hit with the occasional blizzard or a rainstorm. Summers were warm and dry while fall was crispy. You got a little bit of everything all year round.
I couldn’t believe I was back here.
I sat outside of Saint Ambrose Memorial Hospital, attempting to get my life together. This wasn’t my intended destination when I was forced to return home after all these years. It had been a whole lifetime since I’d lived here, and it was the last place I wanted to be.
It took everything in me to make this trip.
Guilt was eating me alive. I hadn’t slept since I got the news two days ago. My aunt had to force me to eat. All I wanted to do was lay in bed and cry my eyes out. My father was gone, and I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye. Coming here knowing that he wasn’t where he should be didn’t sit right with my spirit.
Home held nothing but painful, pitiful memories for me. The most painful reminder was right inside this hospital, only he wasn’t a doctor or nurse. He wasn’t a staff member or even a patient. He was now simply a body in the morgue.
My father was dead.
I hadn’t seen him in fifteen years and every bone in my body regretted not coming home to see him. I was so angry with him for letting me go and I held on to that anger. Every time we argued, it boiled over a little more. Every time he refused to let me help him, the crack in my heart got a little bigger. I reverted back to that child begging him to choose me.
Sadly, it never happened. I lived with my Aunt Kira, my mother’s sister, until I left for college. My father’s hoarding put a terrible strain on our relationship. I loved him, but I held so much resentment toward him for the way I had to live and the fact that he couldn’t get it together to get me back.
Our home was cluttered with everything one could imagine: newspapers, magazines, clothes, artwork…. you name it, it was in there. He couldn’t let her go. Anything that reminded him of her, he had to save it or buy it.
There were rooms with floor to ceiling boxes of pure junk. There were stacks of artwork he thought she would love that he never got around to putting up. According to him, she loved figurines, so he bought a bunch of them to display. They were everywhere. If he happened to break one, he refused to throw it away. He’d simply put the broken pieces in a box, claiming he would put it together later, but he never did.
There were furniture pieces. Books. Movies. Electronics. There were clothes in his closet that belonged to her. Her side of the bed was just as she left it when she passed away. Her makeup and hair products remained in the bathroom. Combs and brushes with her hair went untouched. It was like time stopped when she took her last breath.
Now he’d taken his.
The saddest part in all of this was my father dying alone in that house surrounded by all his things. If his boss hadn’t called for a wellness check, there was no telling how long it would have been before someone found him. It hurt me that he hadn’t been able to retire. He’d put himself in debt trying to keep the memory of my mother alive, so not working wasn’t an option for him.
I helped him where I could, but I couldn’t take care of two households. That was the whole reason I asked him to live with me. I still didn’t know his cause of death, which was another reason I was here. My aunt offered to come with me to claim his body, but I told her this was something I needed to do alone.
I needed this time to make peace with this man because it killed me that I hadn’t done that when he was alive. We spoke to him once a week. He always told me he loved me and begged me to come see him. I just couldn’t go back to that house and see him living like that. So many times I offered for him to come live with me, but he refused to leave his things behind.
A few weeks ago, I thought I was finally putting my foot down.
I told him he could either choose to have a relationship with me or choose his possessions. He gave me his answer when he hung up in my face and never answered another call. Part of me felt like I should have done more, but you can’t make a grown man do anything.
Still, as I sat in this parking lot, I was consumed with guilt.
I sniffled as I wiped away the tears stinging my eyes. “Get it together, Wynter.”
After a few deep breaths, I finally got out of the car and headed into the hospital. I stopped at the front desk to get directions to the morgue before making my way down. The entire walk, I tried my hardest to stop my heart from racing. My thoughts were filled with wonder.
What did he look like?
Did he suffer?
Is he at peace?
I stopped in front of the morgue door, nervously wringing my hands together. With a trembling finger, I pressed the call button. A few seconds later, the door opened and there stood a tall, handsome, muscular man in scrubs. He smiled softly.
“Hi. How can I help you?”
“My name is Wynter Driscoll. I’m here to claim my father, Frost Driscoll.”
He nodded. “Yes ma’am. My condolences for your loss. You can come in.”
