Free T Wave by Steven F. Freeman Page A

conversation she had heard.
    Alton shook his head. “It always comes back to money—at least for some people.”
    Mallory glanced at her watch. “It’s a little after six. Have you heard from David or Fahima yet?”
    “No, but they should be done by now. Let me text David.”
    As Alton began to craft a text message, he received one from his friend. His eyes darted across the screen. “David said they’ve finished at the hospice. He asked if we could meet them at the Chili’s on Twenty-Third Street. Is that good for you?”
    “Wherever they’d like to go is good for me.”
     
    Alton and Mallory arrived at the restaurant to find their friends already waiting for them just inside the door.
    As he entered, a rush of déjà vu passed through Alton’s mind. 
    “It’s not Gandamak’s Lodge, but it’ll do,” said Alton, whose opinion of their former Afghanistan watering hole was favorably shaded with the recollection of the many hours the four friends had spent there. In appearance, Gandamak’s Lodge had been a rather plain, insufficiently air-conditioned restaurant and bar, but it had provided the fertile soil in which Alton and Mallory’s mutual knowledge and understanding of each other had taken root and as such was the closest thing to perfection in his eyes.
    As the hostess led the friends to a table, Alton dwelled on this thought. He supposed everyone had a place like this: a single location most meaningful to them, a spot perhaps unremarkable to others but which, because of the profound moments passed there, had been endowed in their eyes with superlative qualities—such was Gandamak’s Lodge, not only to Alton and Mallory but also David and Fahima. David had first met Fahima there as she had plied her bartending trade. How could the friends remember Gandamak’s Lodge with anything but fond recollections?
    The hostess stopped at a snug corner and gestured them in. The three combat veterans and former barmaid crowded into a corner booth. When the waitress arrived, they each selected the same brand of beer they had ordered back in “the Lodge.” While Livin’ on a Prayer thumped from the restaurant’s sound system, the friends drank their brews without speaking, each feeling strangely reassured in the resurrection of their former Afghanistan ritual.
    “Just like old times, huh?” said David with a feeble smile.
    Alton nodded and produced a wistful smile of his own. Eventually, he spoke. “So how did it go at the hospice?”
    “Okay, I guess,” replied David. “They had Dad’s stuff in a ‘personal effects’ bag. All I had to do was sign for it. It’s all very efficient—just take this bag and remove every trace of his existence from their halls.”
    “David—,” began Fahima.
    “I know,” he acknowledged with a sigh. “They’re just doing their jobs.”
    “I wish I had more time to know him,” said Fahima. “But in a way I feel like I know him for a long time already when he and I meet the first time.” She turned to David. “You spoke of him often when we were in Kabul.”
    David swallowed and nodded, requiring a moment to overcome a surge of emotion. “Dad being gone…it just hasn’t sunk in yet. I don’t even have a reason to return to the hospice now.” After another pause, he continued in an apparent effort to mitigate his sorrow by focusing elsewhere. “Speaking of the hospice, I heard another patient died there this evening. Do you remember Mrs. Ronquillo, the lady next door to Dad?”
    “Yeah, I do,” said Alton. “I’m sorry to hear that she passed.”
    “Me, too—and surprised,” said David.
    “Well, it is a hospice. That’s going to happen, right?” asked Mallory.
    “It is, but how it happened is the weird thing. I saw Nurse Corroto leaving Mrs. Ronquillo’s room tonight, so I asked her how the patient was doing. Corroto said she had died. It surprised me ‘cause I had spoken to Mrs. Ronquillo’s daughter once when Dad was asleep, and she told me her