"She’s going to stay, isn’t she?" Marie found herself wanting it to be so.


Danni shrugged her shoulders. "I…I don’t know." Now it was the nurse’s turn to look for another subject. "Chris told me to tell you something for her." She paused trying to remember the exact words. "She said to tell you: ‘Tell her I love her...Then, now and forever.’ Yeah, that’s it." Danni grabbed the older woman’s hand and clutched it upward toward her mouth then kissed it. "Give her that from me, she said." The petite woman looked, trying to gauge the effect that it was having on the woman before her.


Marie’s face paled and her eyes searched the nurse’s face. "How? Those phrases are what Chris always says to me when we are apart from one another. How did you know?"


"She told me, right before she went up to surgery."


"That’s my Chris, always worried about me." Her voice trailed off as her mind wondered down a timeless path of their souls’ journey together.


"How long…I mean if you don’t mind…How long have you been together?"


"Not long enough." The patient smiled thinking about their time together. "It’s been over 35 years since we first met."


Danni pulled a chair over closer to the bed and sat down on it. Her full attention now focused on the woman in the bed. "I’m curious, how did you know that you were…I mean…that she was…gay?"


"Hmmm…You know back then being gay wasn’t as accepted as it is today for you young folks. You really put yourself out on a limb if you just came out and said anything."


"Oh, I see. It’s not any easier today, either." Danni sighed. "I’ve always known that I didn’t fit in with the way my mother had my life planned out. I just didn’t know what it was that I wanted until now."


"I guess that would be the tall, dark-haired surgeon?" The older woman watched Danni cautiously as a blush tinged her cheeks.


"I’m friends with her but I’m not sure that she’s…"


"Gay?"

The nurse nodded her head. "I don’t even have a clue."


Marie reached out her hand and let it rest down on top of Danni’s cloth-covered knee. "How about I tell you the story of me and Chris? Maybe it will help you decide about the surgeon."


Danni’s green eyes lifted and stared directly into Marie’s hazel eyes. "You’d do that? Tell me your story?"


Marie nodded. "I’m not going to sleep and if you’re willing to listen…"


The nurse smiled. "You’d do that for me?"


"Chris trusted you with her words, why not me with our story?"


Danni leaned onto the bed. "I’m ready when you are."


Now it was Marie’s turn to blush. She paused to collect her thoughts then started telling the story of her love.


"Back in the Sixties free love was all the rage, that was if you were a heterosexual couple. I met Chris when I was out one day for a long walk down by the Point. I used to love standing there and watching the rivers come together." Marie let her mind imagine herself there. "I used to see this skinny girl always fishing off the wharf. She hardly ever caught anything, at least while I was there. But everyday she would be sitting with that pole in her hands. Each day I'd walk a little closer until one day I was right next to her. Scared the daylight out of her when I asked her what she used for bait."


Danni smiled. "Do you fish, Marie?"


"No, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. I figured that it was the only thing to talk about." She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, to make a long story short, finally one day after a month or so, she invited me to sit down and offered me one of her poles to use."


"I take it that you did?"


"You better believe it. How else could I sit by her and talk for hours on end. She wasn’t too gabby when we first met but over the years, Lordy, she can talk your arm off now." They both giggled at same time.


"So how did you finally get together?"


"I got some bad news one-day, about a friend of mine in the army. He was stationed in Vietnam. He’d been shot and I wasn’t taking it too well. Chris offered to walk me home but instead we ended up at her place ‘cause it was closer. I was a basket case by then. Charlie and me, well, we grew up together. We kind of knew early on that we were different from everybody else and kept to ourselves. Our parents thought that it was cute and that we’d grow up and marry."


"Your parents didn’t know?"


"We did what all the other kids were doing at the time. I guess you could say that we started covering for each other even back then." Marie lost herself in the reminiscing.


"Marie, how did you know about Chris…that she was gay?"


"Some you can tell by looking at, some by the way they talk or act. With Chris it was by her touch. The first time we held hands," the woman closed her eyes, "it was like electricity running through me. Don’t know why, but I just knew."


"How did your parents take it when you told them?"



* * *

"Tell them?" Marie laughed. "I haven’t told them yet and we’ve been together for almost 35 years."


"They don’t live around you then, I take it."


"On the contrary, they live about a two mile drive away." Marie motioned for Danni to come closer. "They think that I’m living with Charlie and Chris and Bobbie live in the apartment upstairs."


"You four live together? Didn’t they ever ask about a wedding for you and Charlie?"


"Well, let’s just say that we all go in the same front door but Chris and I live on the first floor and Charlie and Bobbie live above us. Wedding, oh my, no child, we are children of the Sixties. Free love and no commitments, remember?"


"Is that the Charlie that you were so upset about being shot?"


"Yeah, you might say that it was his doing that brought Chris and me together at last. When we got to her place she just held me in her arms and I knew that I never wanted to be without them in my life, without her in my life. The safety and love that I felt in them was incredible."


Danni’s mouth turned into a broad smile. "That’s really great. You have your best friend and life partner all under that same roof."


"Yeah, I’ve been blessed in that manner."


"If you don’t mind me asking, where did Charlie meet Bobbie?"


"Bobbie was the nurse that took care of him in the hospital when he was shot." The older woman shook her head. "You might say that bullet had both our names on it."



* * *

Garrett Trivoli was at the helm of the operating theater as she fought desperately to save the woman on her table. Once she had opened up the abdominal cavity to inspect it, the surgeon could see the severity of the injuries from the blunt trauma the older woman had endured. Her abdominal contents seemed to be swimming in a pool of blood. The surgical team would have their work laid out for quite a number of hours to come.


With a feverish pace, the nimble fingered surgeon worked to find the major antagonist to the woman’s well being. Once the excess blood was suctioned out, the nasty remnants of spleen were evident. The force of the trauma to Chris’s abdomen had sent the spleen bursting at the seams. There would be no way to save this organ. Not even the skilled hands of Garrett Trivoli would be able to put this together again.


The tied-off splenic artery did nothing to stop the plummeting nosedive that the patient’s blood pressure was taking. The woman had to have another source for her lost blood, one that was possibly worse than the spleen.


"Damn it!" Trivoli’s eyes searched the smooth glistening surface of the liver. "She’s got to have an injury where we’re not able to see it."


Without delay, the sinewy fingers gently lifted the lobes of the liver and examined every side that she could possibly see. ‘I’m not going to be the one that has to tell your lover that she’s now a member of my group.’ Garrett could just see Danni’s face when she would hear the news. ‘I won’t allow it.’ Now she worked even harder so as not to have it happen.



* * *

Danni had listened to Marie’s story of her life together with Chris until the woman finally drifted off to sleep, exhausted by the events of the evening. The nurse thought about her own shared experiences with one tall surgeon and found that there were some very close ties to that of Marie and Chris’s life. Danni was thankful that she had been the carrier of Chris’s message to Marie instead of someone else.


The dim light from the hall was barely enough to illuminate the watch on her wrist. Looking down at it, she could see that it was now past midnight. ‘Gar, please don’t let anything happen to keep them apart.’ Danni voiced her silent prayer as she watched the woman lying in the bed.



* * *

With several small lacerations repaired in the right lobe of the liver, Garrett had turned her attention to the hepatic artery that came directly from the aorta. It was the main source of blood for the liver. The surgeon’s meticulous inspection revealed a small tear in the vessel where it attached to the liver itself. The spurting stream of blood pumping with every beat of the patient’s heart was soon stopped with the delicate suturing by the skilled hands.