Chapter 10 — The Flower Garden

The first thing on Samantha’s To-Do list today was to go outside. In fact, it was the only thing on her To-Do list. The sun was shining with only scattered clouds, the temperature was very comfortable, and there was just the slightest breeze. It was a beautiful day and there was no valid reason to stop her from going outside—unless Agent Kehm was right and she was a prisoner.

The nurses were resolute about denying her request. First, they kept deferring up the nurse’s chain of command, but Samantha persisted. The head nurse finally showed up and said that she couldn’t allow Samantha outside without approval from the doctor. Then, after an hour-long search, they reported that her doctor had just left the hospital due to a family emergency so she would have to wait for another day.

It was late afternoon before she was finally able to speak to the on-call doctor. He was short, had white hair and red-rimmed eyes, and reminded Sam of a frightened rabbit. At first, he also tried to defer to her regular doctor, so Sam decided to reason with him.

“Listen, shit-for-brains,” she growled, “I am going goddamn stir-crazy sitting in this fucking room, and I’ll tell you right now that I AM going outside. If you want to stop me then you better get a squad of MP’s in here, otherwise, I’ll mop the floor with anyone who stands in my way!”

The doctor quickly saw the logic of her argument and agreed that she could go out and sit in the garden. Fifteen minutes later, an orderly she had never seen before came into her room pushing a wheelchair. “Hello, Samantha. My name is Earl. I’m gonna be taking you out to the garden, if’n you still want to go.”

Sam’s trained eyes examined Earl. He looked like an NFL linebacker, standing about 6’3” tall and weighing around 260 pounds—260 pounds of muscle. He had buzz-cut red hair, was wearing orderly’s scrubs that were too small for him, and there were combat boots on his size thirteen feet. He must be an MP they called in to babysit her.

“What’s the wheelchair for?” asked Sam.

“Hospital regulations. Until the Doc releases you, you gotta be pushed around in a chair when you goes outside. Nah, don’t worry about shoes Ma’am. You shouldn’t be gettin' outa da chair when we’ze outside nohow.”

As soon as they had exited her room, another linebacker just happened to walk up. This one was in an MP uniform, complete with a sidearm. “Hey there Earl. I was looking for you," he said. “I’m about to go on a break and I thought we could discuss our trip.”

“Hey, Owen. Sure, I’ze just taking this pretty lady out to da garden," said Earl. Turning to Sam he asked, “You don’t mind if’n I talk with Owen while we all are out in the garden, do you? Our families are going on a cruise together this Easter.”

Sam was constantly evaluating the situation as she rolled along the halls. She noticed that there were lots of patients and staff around, in stark contrast to her small wing of the hospital.

It took Earl five minutes to push Sam through the hallways, out the door, and down the sidewalk to a concrete patio surrounded by pink, purple, and yellow flowers. “You’re in luck," said Earl. “Nobody’s out in the center of the patio. If’n I put you there, you’ll seeze everything better. I guarantee it.”

Being in the center of the patio didn’t give Sam a better view of the garden at all. It did, however, leave her with the hospital behind her, a flower bed backed by a high iron fence in front of her, Earl and Owen to fifteen feet her left, and another linebacker-orderly in combat boots pretending to read the newspaper fifteen feet to her right. At least they were giving her props by assigning her three jumbo-sized guards.

Today reminded Sam of a Jim Carey movie she had seen once. She couldn’t remember the name of the movie, but Carey was trapped in a giant TV studio that he thought was his hometown. Every time he tried to leave town a sequence of strange events, orchestrated by the director, would occur that forced him to stay. Yes, she was just as much a prisoner as Carey was.

She sat there for a half-hour to avoid suspicion since she had been so adamant about getting outside in the first place. Besides, the weather was nice, the flowers were beautiful, and it was a peaceful place for her to review her decisions about the next steps. “This is so beautiful. It smells like fabric softener," she reflected.

She didn’t think it was safe to read her “Exercise Routine” notes on the patio, but she had pretty much decided on her next steps while she was eating lunch. She was just about to call for Earl to take her back inside when she saw Agent Black walking towards her wearing a black suit and tie.

“Samantha, I heard you were out here enjoying the garden. I thought this would be a good enough place for us to talk.”

Earl and Owen moved further away from her, ostensibly to examine the flowers down the walkway. When she turned her head, she saw that the other orderly had also moved about ten feet off that end of the patio but was struggling to find a reason for lingering there.

“Agent Black. I was hoping to see you soon," Sam cooed. “I’m ready to blow this place, and I think you’re my ticket out of here.”

The agent looked a little surprised at first. He must have been expecting to go back into his sales pitch. “Sam, that’s great! And I’m glad to have you on my team.”

“You mean the Chaplain’s team, don’t you?” she asked with an innocent smile.

“Yes, um, of course, he’s ultimately in charge," Black replied without missing a beat. “But the important point is that we’ll be on the same team. And I’m looking forward to working with you. Let’s see, it’s five-thirty now. How about I come back at, um, eight tonight to pick you up. I’ll introduce you to the other member of our team. And we’ll go out and celebrate. Sound good to you?”

Sam put on a big fake smile. “Sure, it sounds great to me, but my doctor is out today, and we’ll have to get all of the discharge paperwork taken care of," she said, hoping to stall and get a little more therapy for her brain injury.

“Don’t worry about it," said Agent Black as he turned to walk off. “Your records will say you died five months ago, and a corpse doesn’t need a doctor’s authorization to leave.”