Ward B, Room 116

by

Kim Mannix

The nurse at the foot of Dana’s bed saw me hovering.

“It’s ok. Come in.”

My shoes squeaked, syncopating with the beep of the heart monitor.

“You can talk,” the nurse said as she left. “She can’t respond, but she’s listening.”

Dana’s eyes were closed. Her salt and pepper hair looked greasy. I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped. Again. Like a goldfish dumbly gulping oxygen in a glass bowl.

My phone buzzed.

“You tell her?” Gary’s text read. Yesterday he said he’d come too, but this morning his resolve went down the drain with the last bit of cold coffee.

I grabbed her hand, warm and soft.

“It’s me. Elly.” In our almost 40 years of friendship, I’d so rarely said my own name to her. It sounded odd.

My eyes blurred and then cleared.

“I can’t let you go without saying it, Dane.”

Big breath.

“Gary and me… we’re. Together. Years. Since you guys lost the baby.” I couldn’t make full sentences. “So…sorry.”

I expected her eyes to flicker. For her to squeeze my hand. But she didn’t.

I’d unburdened and nothing had changed. Her beautiful, serene face.

It was somehow worse.

Bio:

Kim Mannix (she/her) lives on Treaty Six territory in Sherwood Park, Alberta. Her prose and poetry have appeared in Canadian and American journals and anthologies. She currently serves as Vice President on the board of the Edmonton Poetry Festival and is a member of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, The Edmonton Stroll of Poets and the League of Canadian Poets. She works as an entertainment and lifestyle writer for MSN.