The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

had what I’d always called a lemming ass—that is, an ass that you would follow right over the edge of a cliff. She was a naughty, naughty girl and it crossed my mind that she might’ve become a nurse simply so she would have that whole bad-girl-in-nurse’s-outfit look working for her. She caught me staring at her once and said, “You were a real bastard before the accident, weren’t you?” It was more a statement than a question and she didn’t seem angry, just amused.
     

     
    Thérèse’s mother came by later in the week to pick up her daughter’s effects. She told me about the funeral; apparently the mayor had sent a “magnificent bouquet of lilies” and everyone sang prayers “with their voices raised to Heaven.” Then she lost her train of thought and looked longingly out the window at the park down the block, from which the voices of children playing baseball drifted up. She suddenly looked a dozen years older than the moment before, and when her trance broke she became terribly self-conscious that I’d seen it.
    “Did Thé—” she started. “I understand that my daughter died in your bed. Did she…?”
    “No,” I answered, “she didn’t suffer.”
    “Why did she go…to you?”
    “I don’t know. She told me God thinks I’m beautiful.”
    The mother nodded, then burst into a sob that she tried to shove back into her mouth. “She was such a good girl. She deserved so much—”
    The mother couldn’t finish her sentence. She turned her back to me and the more she tried to remain still, the more her shoulders lurched. When she was finally able to look at me again, she said, “The Good Lord never gives us anything that we can’t handle. You’ll be all right.”
    She walked towards the door, then stopped. “‘Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?’” She straightened her back. “That’s Zechariah 3:2. The world is good.”
    Then she tucked the plastic flowers under her arm and left.
     

     
    Anyone who’s spent a long period in the hospital knows that one’s nose loses its discernment in the atmosphere of ammonia. During one débridement session with Nan I asked, “What do I smell like?”
    She wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her white sleeve and I could tell that she was making the decision between telling me the truth or attempting something more pleasant. I knew her by this point: she’d choose the truth. She always did.
    “Not as bad as you might think. It—I mean, you—your smell is musty and old. Like a house that everyone has left and no windows have been opened in a long time.”
    Then she went back to work, scraping and refurbishing this house that the owner had deserted. I wanted to tell her not to bother, but I knew that Nan would just turn down the corners of her mouth and continue her work.
     

     
    Unable to tend yourself in a hospital, strangers plague you: strangers who skin you alive; strangers who cannot possibly slather you in enough Eucerin to keep your itching in check; strangers who insist on calling you honey or darlin’ when the last thing in the world that you are is a honey or a darlin’ strangers who presume that plastering a smile like drywall across their obnoxious faces will bring you cheer; strangers who talk at you as if your brain were more fried than your body; strangers who are trying to feel good about themselves by “doing something for the less fortunate” strangers who weep simply because they have eyes that see; and strangers who want to weep but can’t, and thus become more afraid of themselves than of burnt you.
    When I could stand no more television, I counted the holes of the perforated ceiling. I counted again to verify my findings. I memorized the stealth movement of the setting sun’s shadows crawling down the walls. I learned to tell whether each nurse was having a good or bad day by the click of her steps. Boredom was my bedmate and it was hogging the sheets. The snake kept kissing the base of my