Pat

Today was her last day.

Pat.

I couldn’t believe it.

I came in ready to be stuck.

Ready for it all to be painless

as usual,

but it wasn’t.

It hurt this time.

She told me she was leaving.

Moving to Florida.

West Palm Beach,

to be with her husband

who had been offered a great job.

They were going to live in a camper

and pay off their debt.

Save up

and buy a house.

And she was going to go back to doing administrative work,

wasn’t even going to tell anyone she could take blood.

I had been coming to her for over three years.

She’d gotten me through the quarterly

blood tests.

She was the first one who had success,

when four others had tried and failed.

I’ll never forget the first time they put me in her chair,

trembling and crying,

and scared.

So scared.

But she wasn’t scared.

I heard her say, “I got it.  I got it.”

And the blood came.

After a few months,
I went from shaking every time I saw her,

to laughing.

We’d talk about Christmas,

and Summer,

and how hot it was,

and everything but the needle in my arm.

She was my “go to girl”.

Her gray speckled hair.

So no nonsense.

She’d always count “one, two, three.”

Usually, I barely felt it

and every time when it was over with

I would say to her,
“Pat, you’re the best.”

And I would mean it.

Why couldn’t anyone else

take my blood

the way she could?

Why couldn’t anyone else understand

my veins,

my small veins?

The others were so ham-fisted,

determined to dig into me

with forks

making me more frightened.

Now she is leaving,

and I am starting over again,

trying to find another Pat.

Maybe it is just one more sign

that it’s time for me to leave Nashville too.

Nothing stays the same.

Not even Pat’s blood test.

This afternoon, I pulled off the pink arm band where she stuck the cotton.

And for the first time ever,

there was a faint purplish bruise 

beneath the insanely small red

pin prick.

She left me
something to remember her by.