Cynthia Anderson looked down at the body of her best friend and lover, Anne Banner. Anne lay in a plain, white hospital bed with her eyes closed. Her right arm held an intravenous feed of glucose and an automatic blood pressure machine. An oximeter was on her middle finger, and the wire ran to a large machine that automatically displayed the oxygen content in Anne's brain as well as her pulse. Her face was swathed in bandages, as was most of her upper torso, her left arm, amputated at the forearm. Anne's pulse was a slow forty beats per minute, with her oxygen content at ninety-five percent. She could stay in this vegetative state for hours, days, weeks, months, years or even decades. There was no brain activity. The drunk driver that had taken their happiness away had also died in the crash.
Cynthia, who never wore a seat belt, had been thrown clear. She landed against the side of the roadway, and until she sat up, the paramedics had thought she was dead. She watched as they took Anne to the hospital, and refused to go, evading both them and the police easily.
The next night, she returned to Anne's side and the doctor pulled spoke with her.
"Her chances for a full and complete recovery are very slim. According to her living will, you are next of kin. In all honesty, I would consider pulling the plug. It might be kinder, both to her, and to you."
Cynthia nodded, and signed the necessary paperwork.
"For insurance purposes, I can't let you do it. When you're ready, let me know."
"Thank you, Doctor," Cynthia said in her calm, cool voice. "I appreciate all that you've done."
The Doctor looked into her emotionless eyes and nodded.
When the Doctor left, Cynthia sat down on the visitor's seat.
"Anne, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she said. It took a great deal but eventually she began to weep softly.
"You know, I have a choice. I have never loved anyone in all the years I've been alive in the way that I loved you. You are more precious to me than any one person, or thing. I cannot bear to loose you. I hope you can forgive me for what I have to do now."
Out of the corner of her eyes through an internal window, Cynthia caught sight of a Nurse's Aide wandering through the corridor. It took her back to when she and Anne first met, five years ago in the Vista Rose Nursing Home.
***
Around the first of December, Cynthia had secured a job as a Night shift nurse. Because of her extreme Porphyria, or light sensitivity, she could only work at the dead of night, and had to be mindful to any exposure to the sun, for fear of quick acting melanoma. Anne had been hired part time, from eleven o'clock to five in the morning, covering lunches and breaks for the other nurses and the aides.
Anne was an aide. She often wore soft lavender and purple scrubs, with bright colorful tops that made the few residents that were awake smile. Sometimes they kidded her about how she would wear her pajamas to work. Anne was kind and considerate to all those that she met, and worked overtime shifts, even double shifts when necessary.
Cynthia took her in as just another one of the staff until one early morning when she went to leave and found her custom van, vandalized. She closed her eyes and went back inside the nursing home, clearly irritated.
Anne greeted her with her irreverent smile, "forget something, Cynthia?" She inquired.
"No." Cynthia replied, coldly, "Some jerk wrecked my van. Smashed the windows and knifed the tires."
"That's terrible!" Anne replied with honest disdain.
"I need to get a cab, I need to get home. I can have someone pick up the van." Cynthia said.
"Well I can give you a ride. Where do you live?" Anne said.
"No, that's not necessary," she replied. "I can get a cab."
"She's right, the cabs don't run that late out here," Carolyn, the charge nurse said. She had been inside a room working with a patient, and had heard the entire exchange. "I'd take you home myself, but you know I can't leave the building. I can tell the day shift that there was a problem and that Anne had to leave early. Really, Cynthia, it won't be any problem at all."
Cynthia looked exasperated. She was a private person, and felt embarrassed about her disability, and all that went into it. She realized she wouldn't get home before dawn any other way and then relented. "I'd appreciate it, thank you."
Anne smiled brightly, grabbed her coat and purse.
Cynthia followed. "I really appreciate this, Anne. It's very frustrating for me to have to go through this."
"Oh no problem. I love to drive. Where do you live, anyway?"
"Out in Brush Prairie. It's a bit of a drive, I can give you some money for gas."
"Brush Prairie? Cool, I live out there too. We could carpool!" Anne said happily, ignoring the offer of gas money.
Cynthia's eyes contracted to slits, she had hoped that no one lived near her that worked in the facility. She was a private person at the best of times and didn't like to mix her work life and her home life. Her nostrils flared in irritance still, this woman was going out of her way to help. It would do her no good to be rude.
"When did you move out to Brush Prairie?" Anne asked.
"A couple of years ago, I bought a small piece of property with some inheritance I had and decided to settle down in the country." Cynthia replied.
"That's cool," Anne replied, "I've lived out here all my life."
Anne's driving was fast and careful, she took the winding country roads at seventy miles per hour without thinking, and Cynthia smiled. She, too, loved driving at night at excessive speeds on the long winding passes that led from the city of Vancouver, Washington to Brush Prairie.
Cynthia's large home was set back on some acreage. There was an ornate gate toward the front of the acreage, surrounded by a stone yard.
"T-This is your house?" Anne asked.
"Yes. My quiet little country retreat. Took me a while to have the stonework brought in, but I think it gives a nice touch to it, don't you?" Cynthia inquired.
"Um, yeah. It's beautiful." Anne said.
