Growing Grounds

Chapter 20: The Escape

About three hours later, Tammy heard Matt snoring softly from his awkward position in the chair. She had remained turned from him and he hadn’t bothered her, perhaps thinking she was asleep.

She had been planning further, not sleeping. Her mind was running at about ninety miles per minute. The I.V. would have to be removed before she could leave and she would have to make sure to stop the bleeding. Wouldn’t be good to bleed all over everything while she was trying to get away.

The squeak of the rubber-tired food cart echoed down the mostly quiet hallway. Other than the beeps of the monitors and the sounds of nurses’ shoes on the tile, there wasn’t much noise compared to earlier.

She went over the plan again as the lunch trays were delivered. The short woman who brought her a tray looked exhausted and not in much of a conversational mood. Tammy could respect that. She thanked the woman and started to eat. The meat of the hamburger actually didn’t set her stomach roiling or make her nauseous as she’d feared. The water tasted poison but the juice was good. Even though she had to stop twice and force herself, Tammy cleaned her plate.

Matt slept through lunch and Tammy left him undisturbed.

The nurse came in after the tray was removed and wrote down Tammy’s vitals, checked her glucose, and then consulted her mobile computer system for a few minutes. When she returned to Tammy’s bedside, she held a hypodermic.

“What’s that?” Tammy asked.

“Oh, it’s just something to help you stay calm and get some rest. The doctors are going to wait until in the morning to start your tests and they want you to sleep as much as possible. Don’t worry, it’s safe for the babies.” She reached for the I.V.

Tammy wrapped her hand around the port. “I don’t want a sedative. I don’t need a sedative. Do I act like I need one?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Milner but it’s on your chart. The doctors ordered it. I have to administer it.” She stood there, bent at the waist, her smile not hiding her wariness of the patient.

“Well, I’m sorry, too, but I don’t want it. Call them if you have to, but you’re not putting that in my I.V.” Tammy gave her a look that she knew wasn’t the least bit friendly.

The nurse clucked her tongue, stood straight, and replaced the little cap over the needle. “All right, Mrs. Milner. I’ll call and see if we can skip the dose. I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”

“There is no if. I’m not taking a sedative.”

“I’ll just call the doctors and get back to you.” She backed out the door, pulling the computer cart with her.

Matt woke and stretched as the nurse left. “What’s going on, Tammy? Have they done any tests yet?”

“Everything’s fine and no, they haven’t. They’re trying to give me a sedative, but I don’t want it. She’s calling about it now.”

“Maybe you should take it, hon. It’ll make your stay seem shorter if you sleep.”

“Do I look like I need a sedative, Matt? No. If I was hysterical, I could see ordering a sedative. I’m anything but hysterical and I don’t want it.” Tammy turned to look out the window, successfully putting an end to any conversation Matt had planned.

“Right. Okay. Since you’re okay, I’m going to go grab a little lunch at the cafeteria. I’ll be back in just a few minutes. Want me to bring you anything?” He stood in the doorway.

“Another hamburger, chips, and some juice. And a salad without dressing.” She tried to smile.

Matt stood in the doorway, his mouth hanging open. “Really? Are you just pulling my leg? You haven’t eaten that well in a month.”

“Their hamburgers are really good; I had one for lunch. Water tastes like poison, but their juices are good, too. Guess I finally got my appetite back.” She shrugged and gave him a tiny smile, hoping he wouldn’t question much more.

His face broke into a wide grin. “That’s good, hon. Really, that’s just great. I’ll be back in about twenty or thirty minutes. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Matt disappeared and Tammy breathed out. She did love Matt but she wasn’t willing to lose the babies for him or anyone else. She would leave him, deliver the babies elsewhere, and maybe someday she would come back to him. Maybe. It was a very real possibility that she would never see him again after today. It was a risk she would take, though.

True to his word, Matt returned within twenty minutes carrying a Styrofoam tray of salad and crackers and another Styrofoam tray containing the hamburger, a big brownie, and chips. He had bought her three bottles of apple juice, which were in a bag swinging from his hand.

“Here’s your food. Hope your appetite is still intact. That’s a lot of food.” He laughed as he arranged the trays and juices on the rolling bed tray.

“Yes, I’m still hungry. Thank you.” Tammy wondered how her leaving would affect Matt.

He would be heartbroken at the beginning, but he would move on soon enough. All men were wired that way. Some women could never move on from a broken heart, but men always seemed to be able to move on with someone new—usually in record-breaking time. Matt wouldn’t do it fast, but he would do it. Eventually.

There were enough women who thought he was handsome and just the catch of the century to ensure that. Some of them were even her so called friends. Most of them were in Matt’s circle, though, formed from people he worked with at the school and the ones he’d left in the city—also co-workers.

A moment of jealous rage emerged so fierce that she wanted to attack him as he set her food in front of her. The thought of another woman in his arms, in his heart, in his bed set fire to her soul. That moment passed as quickly as it had reared its head.

In that instant, Tammy learned something about herself that she didn’t particularly like. In that one brief moment, she could have committed murder. That burst of rage had been brief but could have also been deadly. Committing murder in self-defense was one thing, but murdering in a fit of rage was quite another. Especially since she couldn’t blame the jealous anger on him; it would be her own doing when she left him.

“You’re most welcome.” Matt leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on the lips.

Tammy didn’t resist. She leaned into the kiss. It was her only goodbye to the man she had loved so deeply, so dearly, and for many years.

Matt sat in the chair to flip through channels again while Tammy ate slowly. She had to time her escape just right, or it wouldn’t happen at all. She had a feeling that if she was caught before she got out of the hospital, she would be put in the psych ward where they lock the doors and the windows are equipped with bars. Sedatives were a staple and as standard as the I.V. hookups everywhere else in the hospital.

The nurse with the sedative came back to the doorway and walked in, still eyeing Tammy warily. “Mrs. Milner, Dr. Hyder said if you thought you could rest, you don’t have to have the sedative, but that if you couldn’t rest, for any reason, to let someone know. The sedative is on your chart and marked as needed. So, if you have any trouble, just call for Brandie; she’ll be your evening nurse.” She smiled but her eyes were too intent, too wide, and she held her hands clasped too tightly—she was uncomfortable and possibly lying to Tammy. “All right?”

Tammy nodded, attempting a sweet smile that would look as if she were relieved. “Thank you so much. I had a miscarriage a while back and I just don’t want anything in my system that might even remotely be harmful to my babies.” She rubbed her tummy and smiled again. “You can understand that, right?”

The nurse nodded and the tension in her notched down. “Of course, Mrs. Milner. I’m sorry to hear about your loss. That’s terrible.” She brightened this time and it was genuine. “But you have two babies to look forward to now. You must be so excited.”

Tammy nodded. “We are excited. I can’t wait to hold them in my arms.” Any feelings that showed on her face, she knew were now genuine, also. She couldn’t wait to hold her babies, cuddle them to her breast, sing softly to them until they dozed, and then hold them longer.

The nurse turned to Matt and saw that he was zoned out, closing in on another nap, and turned back to Tammy putting a finger to her own lips. “I don’t think daddy needs a sedative, either. You rest now and I’ll see you again tomorrow morning, Mrs. Milner.” She tiptoed out of the room.

Matt sat dozing in the chair. After a few minutes of nibbling on the greenery in the salad, a sad substitute for the greens she really craved, Tammy closed up her trays and placed them in the plastic bag with the juices. She pushed the tray away from the bed.

The three o’clock shift change was the perfect time to walk out of the hospital practically unnoticed. It was now twenty minutes until that shift change.

Quietly, Tammy slid out of the bed, got her balance, and pulled the I.V. pole with her to the bathroom. Her street clothes sat in a thick plastic bag in the tiny closet by the bathroom door. She reached in and gently lifted the bag, taking it with her into the bathroom. She shut the door and pushed the lock button. She needed to be quick.

Tammy loosened the tape over the needle in the back of her hand and then folded two of the white paper towels together into a thick little square. This square she laid on the edge of the sink as she carefully removed the tape, which she also laid, sticky side up, on the edge of the sink.

Slowly, she pulled the needle free, let it fall, dangling at the end of the tube, dripping on the cold tile floor as she pushed the towel square onto the puncture wound. Pressing down hard, she gritted her teeth against the pain. Using the sink edge to hold the towels in place, she picked up the tape. After using the tape to hold the square in place, she took off the gown, tossed it in the tub and dressed in her street clothes without making any noise to rouse Matt.

With her shoes finally on her feet, Tammy stood at the bathroom door, peeking through the crack. Matt was still sleeping. The door to the hallway was open about a foot and she could see no movement past it. She stepped into the room and pulled her hair into a messy bun as she walked toward the bag of food and drinks.

There was one fleeting moment of regret as she stood by the exit door looking down at Matt asleep in that awful recliner. She would miss him. She wished that he had understood and that he could’ve come with her, but he didn’t and he couldn’t.

Whispering, “I love you forever.” Tammy eased out of the door and into the little nurses’ alcove outside the room.

There was much commotion at the nurses’ station at the other end of the hallway. The shift change was happening. Tammy had timed it perfectly. All the nurses who knew her by sight were heading out and the ones who didn’t know her were coming in.

The trick is to look and act as if you belong wherever you’re going. Especially if you’re trying to escape something or someone.

Tammy let the bag swing freely, depended from her hand. The bandaged hand, she slid into the pocket of her pants. Holding her head up, she met the gazes of the people she passed in the hall, smiled, nodded, and kept walking in the opposite direction of the nurses’ station and toward the main exit.

Getting out of the hospital had been far easier than Tammy had anticipated. In the parking lot, with adrenaline still pumping through her veins, she headed quickly for the little wooded area to the side of the lot.