Nursing The Doctor by Bobby Hutchinson

really like that, but apparently they’re counting the days until he gets transferred to rehab.”
    “He’s making it awfully hard on himself.” Lily knew that the nursing staff would give Greg good care whatever his attitude, but it was simply human nature to do extra for the patients who appreciated your efforts.
    The nurses could, if Greg made their lives too difficult, decide to teach him a lesson. He was, after all, totally dependent on their assistance.
    Lily was out the doors of the ER and heading for her car when she impulsively turned and reentered the hospital, quickly making her way along the twisting corridors that led to the elevators that would take her up to orthopedics.
    It wouldn’t hurt to drop in say hi, she rationalized. After all, they’d worked closely together for months in the ER. It wasn’t fair to abandon him when he most needed support.
    He was lying with his head turned the other way, and he didn’t immediately sense that she was there. There was a bouquet of flowers in a vase on his bedside table, and dozens of cards were stacked in a neat pile beside them.
    The other patient, an elderly man, had visitors grouped around his bed, talking and laughing, but Greg was alone.
    His leg was still in traction, but Lily noted that the cast on his arm was no longer the heavy plaster he’d had the other day. A lighter, Lucite cast had taken its place.
    “Hi, Greg. How’s it going?”
    He turned his head. Some of the swelling had gone down, although his face still looked as if he’d been in a barroom brawl. She noted that his beard was heavier than it had been the other day. It made him look brooding, and the scowl he aimed her way didn’t lighten the atmosphere at all. He didn’t respond to her greeting.
    She was immediately sorry she’d come, although she made a real effort to sound cheerful.
    “I’ve just finished downstairs. I thought I’d come by for a moment and see how you’re doing.”
    “How the hell do you think I’m doing,” he growled. “I can’t reach that bloody glass to get myself a drink of water, and the nursing staff are either all deaf and blind or my call light is disconnected, because I’ve been trying it now for one deuce of a long time.”
    “I’ll get you a drink.” Lily dumped the contents of the water glass and refilled it from the green pitcher on the night stand. She inserted a fresh straw and handed it to him. He drank deeply.
    “Thanks.” The single, abrupt word was all he seemed inclined to say.
    “We had a pretty quiet day downstairs,” Lily blurted out when the silence became intolerable. “A fourteen-year-old with an ectopic pregnancy, a baby with a button up his nose, an acute asthma attack, a kid who fell fourteen feet out of a tree and only broke his thumb...”
    “Spare me the details, okay, Lil?” His tone was sarcastic. “I don’t give a damn whether you had an alien with four arms and six legs. Tough as it is to believe, at the moment I have other things on my mind besides the ER.”
    Lily swallowed hard. He was about as rude and obnoxious as it was possible to get, and all of a sudden her temper flared. She kept her voice low so that the other people in the room wouldn’t hear, but she knew her anger was evident in her tone.
    “Look, Greg, I know you’re hurting, and I’m sorry, but there’s no need to take it out on everyone who’s trying to help you.”
    He gave her a long, measuring look and then sighed.
    “Lily, I appreciate your kindness, coming up here to see me, but the fact is, I...don’t...want...company.” His voice was hard as flint “I want to be left alone. Doesn’t anybody get it? So it would be best all round if you left. And don’t bother coming again. I’m not much good at idle conversation right now.”
    “You just want to lie here and feel sorry for yourself, is that it?” Lily felt her control slipping and her voice rising.
    “You’re antagonizing all the nursing staff, making enemies of everyone