The Sick Wife
Loretta Lost
Copyright © 2021 Loretta Lost
Cover design by Damonza
***
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No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Contents
I. Camilla
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
II. Gabriel
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
III. Milla and Evie
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
For Sam.
Part I
Camilla
Chapter 1 Camilla
“Is there anything I can do for you?” I ask my patient softly. She is strangely beautiful, even with her eyes bloodshot and red from the sickness. Her face is drained of all color, but her dark, wavy hair still frames her cheeks in a flattering way. My heart aches for her. Each time she coughs, that guttural, echo-y pneumonia cough, I can feel the pain in my own chest, like it’s happening to me. I don’t even know her, and I have no idea why I’m feeling such an intense connection to her.
I am not sure when she was admitted—thanks to these long nursing shifts, all the days are blurring together. Her condition deteriorated quickly since arrival, and her oxygen levels are dangerously low. Smoker. A few extra pounds. Only in her mid-thirties, but somehow the virus is hitting her harder than I’ve seen it hit some patients in their seventies. This could be a new variant, but I’m not sure.
“Am I going to get better?” she asks hoarsely.
I hesitate. “The doctor will be in to discuss that shortly.”
She stares at me. I swallow.
I think she can see the fear in my eyes through the plastic face shield. Even the tight fitting N95 respirator, with a blue surgical mask layered on top of it for extra protection, cannot filter out the quaver in my voice. “Can I help you in any way?”
She is looking at me with the awful realization that I might be asking for her final wishes. I look down at her chart, and try to pretend to be reading data to conceal my emotions. I try to avoid looking at her name. I know that it will only make it harder to sleep at night if I know her name. Shit. I barely just glimpsed that it begins with the letter Y. Closing my eyes, I exhale slowly. It doesn’t matter—I won’t forget her face. I already spend way too many hours just staring at the ceiling and trying not to think of their faces.
And a face like hers isn’t easily forgotten. There is something so mysterious and compelling about her—I am certain she looks more attractive while almost dead than I ever have looked while alive in my 31 years on this planet. Her eyes just seem to pierce right through me, and I swear she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
I wish that all this protective gear could hide my feelings a little better, because I’ve never been very good at hiding them myself. My mother always used to tell me that I wear my heart on my sleeve. Lately, it’s been worse… I’ve just been so emotionally worn out from this whole Covid experience—but seriously, who hasn’t? With each passing day, I just find myself feeling weaker and weaker, like I’m heading for some sort of breakdown.
I’ve never seen so many human beings dying horribly on a regular basis.
It’s been a year of this now, and you’d think I would be used to it. But I’ll never get used to it. The dark-haired woman, with a name beginning with the letter Y, has a chilling, ghastly glaze over her eyes that I’ve seen in patients who are only hours away from their last breath. She’s already got one foot in the grave. When you do this every day you begin to develop a sixth sense about who is going to make it, and who won’t.
The look of terror on her face suggests that she also knows.
Her hand moves in a weak effort to grasp the phone on the table beside her hospital bed. The device is nestled within a stylish silver case, jeweled and glamorous—it looks bold and fun, like it belongs to a woman who smiles a lot and lives her life unapologetically. It feels so out of place here. Her fingers, with well-manicured nails, barely crawl to the edge of the mattress before they stop and lay there limply in defeat.
“Can you help,” she mumbles, biting her lip, “call my husband?”
I nod. It’s the most important part of my job these days. I’ve probably facilitated thousands of phone calls between patients and the loved ones who can’t be beside them in their darkest moments.
And every time it happens, when I see the family members exchanging love and tears of joy or pain—I can’t help thinking about the fact that I wouldn’t have anyone to call in a moment like that. I only have my father who suffers from dementia and can’t even answer a phone on his own.
Yes, that’s the kind of horrible person I am. I am jealous of these poor, innocent people dying alone, because they aren’t really alone. At least they still had someone to love in their final moments. At least they really lived, at least they had some kind of life and legacy to leave behind. I have
