have cheered me up, but I also remembered the hard and fast rule of gambling: at some point, the house always wins.

I stood up in bare feet, wobbled some, and then started making my way to the open door. On the second floor of my home, there’s a bedroom, a large office, and a bathroom. When I got home two weeks ago, I had been tempted to sack out downstairs, with the comforts of the kitchen, living room, and fireplace, but my bathroom needs banished me upstairs.

One step, two steps … I was doing fine.

I finally reached the bedroom door. Beyond and to the left was my office, with boxes of books and pieces of unbuilt bookshelves. To the right was the bathroom; I wobbled my way in. I tried not to stare too hard at my face. I turned and glanced at my back.

Damn.

Two brown splotches about the size of a baby’s hand had soaked through my extra-large white T-shirt. My drains were leaking somewhere.

Double damn.

I pulled up my T-shirt, grunted at the pain, and examined the yellow bandage wrapped around my upper back and chest. Two plastic tubes were running out of my upper back—kept in place with tiny black stitches—and went into plastic bladders tucked into little cloth pockets. Both bladders were full, with blood oozing out of their plastic tops.

On my new bathroom counter were a plastic measuring cup and a notebook, where I kept track of the output. If the daily output fell below a certain number of milliliters, then the drains could get removed. Based on what I was seeing back there, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

I bent some, then reached back with my left hand and grabbed ahold of the near bladder. I pulled it out and was able to lower it to my side. I slid the tube out, emptied the bladder into the measuring cup, and then wrote down “12 oz.” in my little notebook. Replacing the empty bladder was a chore. Since it was now flaccid, it took some twisting and pushing to get it back into the cloth pocket.

All right.

One more to go.

I reached over again and—

Missed.

All right.

Tried again.

I grimaced and reached back further, and it was like a hot fire poker was being driven into my back and shoulder. I had tried a real heavy-duty painkiller the first day I got back home and the hallucinations and gastric distress made me give them up. I was regretting that decision now.

“All right,” I whispered to the scary-looking man in the mirror. “Third time will be the charm.”

I gritted my teeth and heaved my left arm across. My fingers grasped the top of the bladder, and I tugged and tugged and—

The damn thing popped out like some freak alien egg, and the top of the hose pulled free from the bladder. Within seconds, blood was spraying around the bathroom as if it were a scene in some deranged slasher flick. When I moved and tried to get ahold of the spurting bladder, my bare feet slipped on the bloody tile floor and I fell, striking my head against the wooden vanity.

I must have passed out because when I woke up, the blood had already started to cake on my hand. It was everywhere. I sat up against the vanity, looking at the mess I had made.

I tried to get up, but I was too tired and I hurt too much.

But I was also cold.

I reached up with my left hand and snagged a dark blue bath towel. I pulled it down and covered myself. And then I waited.

Eventually I made out the sound of a key rattling around in the downstairs door, followed by the sound of the door opening and closing. There was the thump of someone dropping her purse and coat on the floor.

I waited.

The sound of someone coming up the stairs was now audible, and when her fine blonde hair became visible, I saw that it was my Paula Quinn, who stopped with a hand on the railing and said, “For the love of—”

“How was your day, dear?” I asked.

“Shit,” she said, as she came into the bathroom and got to work. Even in the midst of this, I took a moment to take her in. Paula’s younger than I am, and over the past few years we’ve been friends, then lovers, then friends, and now lovers again. She was wearing tight blue jeans that hugged her bottom and a pink low-cut buttoned blouse with the sleeves rolled up. I admired her pert nose and the cute ears that poke through her hair, which she hates, and which I find adorable.

“What happened?” she asked, picking up a face cloth, running water over it, then scrubbing my hands and face.

“My drains were leaking,” I said. “I got to the bathroom and tried to get them drained. I did fine with drain number one. Number two proved to be a hell of a challenge.”

“I guess so,” she said. “Your T-shirt and pajama bottoms are a mess. Let me get a clean set.”

Paula went out to my bedroom, where there was the sound of a closet door opening and closing before she came back in. “Sorry I’m late. Some news broke and—”

“Please, no apologies,” I said. “I’m grateful for everything you’re doing and have done.”

She put the new clothes—another oversize white T-shirt and a gray pair of pajama bottoms—on a clean part of the vanity and said, “Time to get you up on your feet.”

“Got it.”

She pulled on my left arm while I pushed myself off the floor with my right, and then I was standing, resting both hands on the bathroom vanity. Off came the soiled T-shirt and bottoms, and she helped wash my back, returned the second bladder to its proper place, and dressed me.

“Here, this is for you.” She gave me a sweet kiss, which I received with thanks, and then she said, “Time for you to go to bed.”

“Ma’am, I love the way you

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