Chapter 6: Resurrection
Jon awoke six hours later in a hospital bed early Friday morning. At once he started and tried to leap up from the bed, but a sharp pain flashed across his abdomen. He gave a short gasp and fell back into his bed. Jon put a hand to his stomach and he could feel a largish strip of gauze bound tight around his slightly plump middle. That was where….
"You're up, I see!" declared a jaunty nurse in pink scrubs. She was latina and in her mid-thirties. Jon couldn't help noticing that she was rather pretty, although he had much graver things on his mind.
"Uh…" said Jon.
"No talking." she ordered. "Just lie still, now."
Jon lay. He was good at that.
The nurse busied herself with an IV that Jon noticed was attached to his left arm. Jon lay, as he was instructed. He began to slowly take in his surroundings. He was in the city's public hospital, Saint Mary's, judging from the insignia on the nurse's scrubs. He was also, as far as he knew, the only patient. The beds to the right and left of his were both empty, and the only sound he could hear was the steady beep of his heart monitor.
"How long have I been in here?"
"No talking!" the nurse reminded him.
Jon blushed.
"Just a day," the nurse added apologetically, "I called your work for you."
She smiled at him, and Jon smiled back.
He rested in the hospital for the rest of the day. The sprightly nurse, who Jon later learned was named Eliza (Liz, thought Jon, his heart sinking like a stone) promised to check on Odie for him. Jon liked her. He liked the way she laughed, he liked the way her eyes lit up when she smiled, and he liked the way she got all serious whenever he winced in pain. Sometimes he would fake it just to see her whip her beautiful dark hair around and turn towards him, eyes wide and concerned.
Recovery also gave Jon time to think about his encounter with Garfield. First, as Jon assured himself, this established once and for all that the cat was real. Second, he was also sure that he definitely didn't want it to be his pet, and moreover, that he never wanted to see it again. But he couldn't tell anyone; his first 9-1-1 call had convinced him of that. Nobody would believe him.
When the time came for Jon to be discharged, he almost didn't want to go. The hospital felt safe and light, and Eliza was there to care for him. Jon shuddered to think of the horrors that might await him at home. But, home he must go, at least long enough to sell the house and and leave with Odie. Jon walked up to his front door, remembering the previous scenes of terror that awaited him as he entered the house. But today there was nothing. Just an empty house.
Jon flicked the switch. Unexpectedly, the light came on. Eliza must have fixed the lights, he thought, smiling. Or maybe you just imagined that they were broken in the first place, nagged a voice from the back of his mind.
Odie ran to greet him, blithe and barking, tongue lolling out of his mouth, spraying Jon with spots of drool. Jon laughed and picked up his best friend, cradling him in his arms, not even wincing when the excitable dog launched a kick at his injury. Relief, heavenly relief, flowed through every vein in his body.
As Jon lay in bed later that night, he thought about life. The stars outside the window bathed his room in a dim light, and he stared through it at the white plaster ceiling. The cat was gone, he reassured himself. Maybe it was real, but it's gone now, and it won't bother me any more.
How very wrong he was.