Excerpt: Forever Ends on Friday

There was a good hour of daylight left on this July evening. The sun, however, was beginning to cast long golden shadows along the countryside. Peggy peered out her window and watched the shadow of the car jump in and out of the ditches as it escorted the El Camino on its way to the Home.

They pulled into a gravel parking lot of a building that looked like it could have been a motel if you weren’t paying close attention. It was a Vee shaped building with the entrance at the crux of the Vee. On both arms were approx 15 windows on each of the two floors, and the grounds were well kept. It reminded Peggy of the grade school see attended back in Ohio.

The lobby was bright and clean and a nurse was sitting behind a counter that ran the full length of the lobby, behind her were two corridors that lead off in either direction. On the walls were plaques and diplomas. Behind a glass display case were letters of all shapes and sizes from grateful relatives expressing their thanks for the care their loved ones were receiving.

“Well, hello Jorge, I didn’t expect to see you so soon, what’s the occasion?” The duty nurse was in her sixties, maybe even seventy thought Peggy. She obviously knew George on sight, but maybe not well enough to call him by his Anglo name. A brief moment of embarrassment came over Peggy, maybe she didn’t know him well enough to call him by his given name.

This little excursion was revealing a lot about the man she was about to marry.