THIS IS SO GOOD—FLOATING OUT here on a gentle sea. The surface of the water barely moving, lifting and falling with a long, slow pulse—just enough to keep you from going completely to sleep and sliding under. I’ll keep my eyes closed and float as quietly as I can. The water is so buoyant and silky feeling, so perfect—this must be off the beach at Isla Mujeres. Nowhere else in the world is the water this perfect or the sun so warm and gentle.

What’s that? Somebody on the beach calling my name? I’ll just float here and maybe they’ll go away. What can be so urgent that I need to go in now? No, I’ll ignore them. They can come back later.

“Kennesaw.” Someone shook me by the arm. “Time for lunch and your noon meds. Wake up, you scoundrel!”

I opened my eyes. Nope, I wasn’t at Isla, I was still here in the hospital. I looked to the side and there stood Madilyn, the day nurse.

“Maddy, you just interrupted a trip to one of my favorite places. I was floating on a pellucid sea, a lovely island girl by my side, her bathing suit nothing more than two strands of dental floss, and then you come in here, howling orders like a drill sergeant,” I scolded.

“That’s what you get for not taking me with you,” she fired back as she swung the lunch tray across the bed. She then handed me a tiny cup with some pills and pointed to the drink on the tray.

I swallowed the pills at one gulp and washed them down with a shot of juice.

“I sure hope you’ve brought Jell-O today, Maddy,” I said as I sat up and reached for the cover to a dish. “You know I’m just wild about Jell-O. In fact, the only reason I even agreed to stay in this place is that I was promised I could have all the Jell-O I wanted to eat, and no questions asked. And now I come to find it seldom served more than three times a day. Madilyn, my love, I have been sadly misled.”

Madilyn ignored me and reached across the bed to check the IV, her monumental bosom hovering over my face and blocking out the light.

“Maddy! Careful there! What are you trying to do, suffocate me? You know my breathing is impaired! My God, woman, point those things in another direction. You know I can’t take that kind of excitement. What with me being in such a delicate condition and all, you’re liable to send me back to the ICU.”

Madilyn straightened again and gave me a stern look.