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Show 342 could recite the meal from memory like a bad poem and do not need to look at it to know I do not want it. "I'm supposed to encourage you to eat this," she is saying and I look into her eyes, anticipating her cheerful "but" before it comes. Flo is always cheerful when she comes in my room. It is a real cheer, often mixed with that wry and sometimes morbid humor necessary to survive working in a hospital on a unit where people die often. "But," she continues, "how would you like some Olive Garden and half of a burnt-almond fudge milkshake instead?" The last morsels ofthe garlic bread have done their job sopping up the remaining juices in our separate halves ofthe styrofoam take-out and we sit back, Flo on the guest chair and me in my bed, satisfied. "Thanks," I say. I will attempt to pay for my half at some future date but I know she will adamantly refuse it. "My pleasure," she responds and it is sincere. "Do you think I'll ever get out of here?" I am asking, looking at the ceiling, whose enigmatic stain marks I have memorized. Whose tiles I have counted. |