Jacinda was staring at the cracked hospital ceiling, the fluorescent light bulb flickering above her head.

“Well I’m not letting it end this way,” she promised  herself.

She hated the drab greyish hospital walls, the uncomfortable bed, the sweaty sheets.

More than anything she hated the woman sharing her room who had hacked all night. Wilting bouquets arranged on the window shelf  and the radiator shed petals everywhere  on the antiseptically cleaned floors that still looked grimy. November rain streaked the windows, casting the room in despair.

The obligatory visitors had come. Her eldest daughter, the one she had never really got along with, had even squeezed out some tears. Relatives she had not seen or cared to see in years. Her good friends, the ones who mattered, the ones she cared about, the ones she had laughed and cried with since her youth,  the ones who had spent hours and gallons of wine and coffee over the men in their lives, how to raise children, how to deal with nasty bosses, and each other  came with pale faces and heavy sighs.

“That is enough of this,” she muttered. She felt like she had been erased. No longer someone who selected her own clothes, hours of sleep, or meals. She was an inanimate article that somehow had vital signs, vital signs that were charted with industrial precision.

A roar of her individuality was building up inside. She didn’t need the pills and tubes. All day while they treated her the memory of Florence surged up in the back of her mind.  Even over the crowds of tourists the surge of beauty traversing the centuries was so intense it was almost painful. She longed for the bitter taste of negroni and fried Carciofi, pecorino and biftecca Florentina bloody on the plate.  She wanted to wander through its magnificent streets crowded with tourists, have one last look at the astounding beauty of the Duomo and stand  at the feet of the David in awe of his imperfect perfection.

In her favorite bar in Florence she would be vibrantly alive for one last moment. She would order a plate of salty parmesan cheese, bitter plump olives and Tuscan bread. She would sip the full bodied red  wines of the Tuscan country side.

The vividness of her life ignited the will to escape the drab hospital walls. She would not suffocate here. She formed an escape plan for she had never been one to embrace bitterness.

She was looking up flights on her cell phone when the doctor came in.

Jacinda’s first instinct was to laugh when she saw him.  He looked younger than her grandson.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Rose. I’m the senior resident. How are you feeling today?”

“Hello, Dr. Rose. I’m assuming Dr. Goldstein will not be by today?”

“No, he will come tomorrow morning.”

“Excellent. Can you relay a message for me?”

The young man did not look up from the bed chart he was appraising.

“Sure. What is it?” He replied politely, his eyes on the chart.

“Please thank Dr. Goldstein for his care. I am discharging myself. I have some business elsewhere that makes it impossible to stay here. Please arrange for the nurse to unplug the IV. I have an Uber waiting downstairs.”

The young man suddenly looked up, slight panic and a little bit of anger in his eyes. She could see him take a deep breath without meaning to. She almost saw him thinking, “another crazy old lady.”

“ Mrs. Chambers, I’m sorry but that wouldn’t be appropriate. I need Dr. Goldstein’s approval. As you know, your condition requires care.”

Jacinda smiled.

“My dear Dr. Rose, you cannot treat me unless I consent. This is not a prison. I am free to go if I choose. If you need me to sign a waiver of liability I am happy to do so.  I have not been declared incompetent. This is my considered wish. Now please arrange for the nurse or I will have to remove these tubes myself. And then you will be liable.”

The young man’s face blanched into the same color as the walls.

“Well…., but…”

“Yes?” She was getting impatient. Innocence and inexperience were no contest for imminent mortality.

“I have to call Dr. Goldstein.”

“Certainly, but I will have to rearrange my Uber ride. As you know they have certain policies about waiting only a limited amount of time.”

The patient in the next bed began hacking again.

Not for the first time Jacinda wondered why the lack of hospital space meant the private room her insurance coverage ostensibly gave her  meant sharing with this irritating hacker. “Private”   turned out to be a shared room with a bed separated from other patients by a thin curtain, leaving you  dressed  in a hospital gown that didn’t  close at the back. Privacy apparently was no longer insurable.

In fact she was more and more certain that she would have been no better off in the Middle Ages when entering a hospital meant certain death. How anyone could think this horrid place was a haven to heal the sick was beyond her.  To blot out her anger while she languished in this nightmare she silently practised her Italian.

The young resident finally returned, his cell phone pressed to his ear. “Yes and she is insisting that she will refuse further treatment.”

He then turned away, his next words muffled. Jacinda had to swallow the urge to get up and smack the phone out of his hands.

He passed the phone to her.

She heard the gruff, insensitive and exhausted voice of her treating physician. “You do know that you will die within days without treatment.”

“I’m dying anyway.” She surprised herself  by how calmly she stated this.

“If you get treatment you probably have a lot longer.”

“We both know that is very likely a large exaggeration. I don’t want the treatment. I don’t want to be bedridden.”

“There are other options.”

“Of course. There is MAID.”

“Would you like to see someone to discuss  MAID? Or a counsellor?”

She wanted to scream at him. She longed to say, “No, you fucking fool I want to die in the way of my own choosing. When did it become OK to tell people what to do?”

Instead, in a complete deadpan voice she said, “Please arrange whatever paper work you need for a release. I’m leaving.”

She handed the phone back to the sweating resident.

He listened meekly to Dr. Goldstein, hung up, nodded to her and left, she hoped, to get the release papers.

While she waited she silently conjugated Italian verbs.

An hour later he returned with a nurse and some documents in triplicate.

She noticed his hand trembling as he sat on the edge of the bed to review the documents with her.

To calm him more than herself she said, ”I’m a lawyer. I understand exactly what they mean.”

He pulled up the bed tray, produced a pen, and let her sign, giving her a copy.

A feeling of exhilaration pumped through Jacinda. She watched as the nurse began removing the tubes.

Free of dripping IV tubes and cords, she raised herself out of the bed.

Those first moments of liberty felt marvelous. Suddenly she was light as air.

She reached for her phone and ordered an Uber.

A sense of agency rushed into her limbs. She was the master of her own fate. She felt like James Bond escaping Dr. No.

Indeed, the world had not ended yet.

Discarding the hospital gown and putting on her own clothes gave her another boost of joy. Her identity was returning like a pentimento reemerging on an old canvas.

She didn’t object when the nurse insisted on taking her to the main entrance in a wheel chair.  She endured the trip to the door with barely concealed impatience and practically leapt into the waiting car.

The Uber took her home to her beautiful condo, once the epicentre of her life. The signs that she had had to leave in a hurry when she was rushed to hospital were everywhere.  She was normally abstemious to the point of OCD, or at least that was what her children told her. As she entered she smelt the odour of decaying flowers on the dining room table in murky water the bed was unmade, and there were dishes on the counter. She closed her eyes remembering the moment when her heart began to pound so rapidly the earth under her feet felt like it would cleave in two and swallow her. She shut down the memory with all the force she could muster. Fear had no place in her life.

She did her best to tidy up even though she knew she would not be coming back. She didn’t want her children to think she had not been able to care for herself  when they came to pack up after she was gone. She ignored the fact that her strength was fading. It was hard to breathe and sharp pains across her chest forced her to pause her movements. But her determination was unfailing.

She sat at the computer and ordered the flights she had researched while fuming at the hospital.

She took out her smallest suitcase and put her favorite dresses in them.

“I can always buy more if I last that long,” she thought happily.

At last she was on her way to the airport.

She had debated but decided on the wheelchair assistance because there were no direct flights to Florence. She knew she had to have the strength to spend one night in Rome and take one more flight to Florence.

Seated in her business class seat at last, she ordered a glass of champagne. sipping slowly to savour it and sat back trying not to doze while she  watched Casablanca.

In spite of all her efforts to distract herself the flight seemed to last forever. Her chest would not stop hurting. She confronted the pain as she always had, tenaciously,  without wavering from  her pursuit of her goal.

At last the plane landed in Rome. She had reserved a suite  at the Bulgari, a suitably elegant hotel. There was no need to adhere to a budget now and she wanted to be surrounded by beauty every last moment. The courteous staff showed her to her room. She would not let herself collapse. After a short rest and a very long hot bath she dressed with great care and examined her reflection in the full length mirror.

“Not bad for a last hurrah.” She smiled at her reflection.

In the dining room she ordered saltimbocca and carcioffi and chianti even though she could not manage to swallow any of it. Still,  she revelled in the delicious smell of the food and the deep red colour of the wine. It was art and it carried her away from the pain.

The flight to Florence from Rome is short but the pain in her chest made it excruciating.

It took all her will to force herself forward. She walked slowly from the plane dragging her small piece of luggage to the  exit. She looked among the many drivers with white placards until she found the card with her name on it.

“Mrs. Chambers?”

“Yes.”

A tall lean young man in a crisp white shirt smiled at her.

“May I help you with your luggage?”

“Yes please.”

She stared out the window of the car at the city bathed in sunlight.

“Pretty warm for November isn’t it?”

“Yes, you know, climate change.”

“Your English is excellent.”

“I lived in the U.S. for a year before I came home to Florence.”

At a different time in her life this would have been a long  and meaningful conversation but the pain had robbed of the ability. The rest of the ride went by in a kind of professional companionable silence.

She realized she was sweating but hoped it wasn’t noticeable.

A shudder of delight went through her as they pulled up to the St Regis.

“We have a champagne sabering at 6:00 with an apertivo” they told her at the  front desk.

She hoped she would have the strength to make it.

She laid her best dress on the bed and ran a bath.

She trembled as she lowered herself into the bathtub hoping she could climb back out.

She used what was left of her strength to dress and walk to the lobby.

Harry’s bar was only a short walk away but she knew she would not make it. She ordered an Uber.

Fading fast, she asked the waiter for a table on the patio and sat in the cool evening looking at the Arno. She ordered the most expensive white wine she could find on the menu.

For a moment the pain in her chest subsided. The wine teased her with its refreshing tones.

Jazz played softly in the background. There was murmured conversation around her.

The night caressed her and a soft hand seemed to touch her back.

For one moment  she felt a slight wave of panic when her chest convulsed and her breath stopped.

And then it ended and she floated softly into evening with the sound of the Duomo’s bells behind her.

Suzette Blom has had careers in Academia and law. She has published 19 short stories. Suzette lives in Toronto, Canada.