The woman’s big city tension slacked as soon as she heard my answer. It was as if someone had pulled the rubber bands off the back of her head which had been pulling her features into an uncomfortable grimace.
“Oh,” her face blushed like a shy girl’s who had just been asked to slow dance in a middle school cafeteria.
“This is going to sound really strange,” she pressed on through the awkwardness. “Is there anyone who can cover for you for the rest of the night?”
I returned her shy blush. Looked back up at the TV.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but I can’t leave work. Plus, I have a girlfriend,” I lied, instantly regretted it.
She machine gunned out a forced laugh.
“Oh don’t worry about that hot stuff. You might not believe this, but we are related. So, no, I’m not looking for anything like that and you might want to hand over the reigns of this place to your co-worker for the rest of the night, because I don’t think he is going to make it through the night.”
“Who is he?” I asked.
The woman answered questions like a college football coach in a post-game press conference – dodging spilling any kind of information or opinions throughout my line of questions which I shot out rapid fire. Though, keeping my mouth and brain in fine-tuned unison was probably actually my own strategy to force myself to not thinking about how I was riding in a car with a complete stranger, going down the dark highway which led north, to Canada.
I had to say, the woman did hold a striking resemblance to my family. Dark haired and mousy with small features, ears that stuck out just a little bit too much and a pronounced overbite, she could have passed for my deceased mother, risen from the grave and clad in one of her hand-picked, pastel outfits from the ladies section of Kohl’s.
My fears started to tingle when I saw the lights of the county hospital crest the horizon of the highway, shining in the warm darkness of the summer night. I hadn’t been to the place since my mother passed away. I had hoped to never return, but it was assuredly our destination since the only information the woman had given me was that some mystery man of a relative was counting down the final minutes of his live, much in the way the teams in that NBA Finals game I wished I was still watching were.
The woman revealed no information other than that her name was Gabby when we walked briskly into the hospital where she seemed to know everyone who was working there already. She gave one last “hi” to a nurse before she led me to the open door of a darkened room at the end of a stale, clean hall.
