Florence’s heart is failing, medication and her pacemaker have failed, and she won’t receive a transplant in time, so she decides on an infusion of dragon’s blood.
“You can’t,” Dan says. “Why?” They’ve been married twenty years, and he speaks like he runs, without wasted movement or breath.
Outside her hospital window, Turtleback Mountain rises jagged into the sky, turning fiery pink in sunset. “Will you go on one more run with me?”
“We mix one ounce of dragon’s blood into the transfusion,” the nurse says as he hangs the bag. Dan sits in the worn chair in the corner, already in his shorts, a long-sleeved T-shirt from the San Francisco marathon they ran three years ago, and his running shoes. One leg bounces up and down like the needle on a sewing machine.
“So little,” Florence says, craning her neck to get a better look. The bag glows with a fiery pink like the mountains. “How soon does it take effect?”
Dan answers. “Fifteen to twenty minutes. I’ve got your clothes right here.” He pats a duffle bag at his feet. “Flo, are you sure about this?”
“I want to finish on my own terms.”
Dan nods once, biting hard at his lower lip.
The nurse says, “I’m ready if you are. I’m sure they told you, but I like to remind people that it burns.”
Florence lets her head fall back to the pillow. It’s grown so heavy recently. “I ran the Badwater Ultramarathon. It can’t burn worse than the road when I fell at the fifty mile mark.”
He grimaces. “Fifty miles sounds like torture.”
“The race is 135 miles long. I made it to eight-seven and then I couldn’t go any more.”
“You only get about eight hours before the dragon’s blood wears off.”
“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on running an ultra today.”
The nurse wasn’t wrong; the blood burns a trail through her until her entire body is on fire. She moans and thrashes, waving off Dan when he approaches, but by the time the transfusion finishes, the burning is a more manageable simmer. When the nurse comes in to remove the IV and unplug the other machines, Florence is sitting on the edge of the bed. Her head —and the rest of her— no longer feels heavy. As the burning gives way, a fresh energy takes its place.
“It burned worse than the road,” she says, surprising herself with her honesty. It’s fine she always used to say. It was fine, until it wasn’t.
“I hope you find what you need out there.”
“I always do.”
She stands with Dan at the start of Sunset Trail, breathing in the smell of pine, enjoying the scuff of her running shoes against the loose dirt trail. She’s lost so much muscle, but with the dragon’s blood it didn’t matter; it would carry her far enough.
Dan lets her lead. He’s probably afraid she’ll collapse or pitch headfirst off the trail and wants to be able to grab her. She settles into the run, enjoying the sun warming her skin, the sweat cooling her, the hard work of her legs and lungs pushing her up the mountain from roughly six thousand feet to the peak at ten thousand.
The run is like so many others even though she hasn’t run in almost two years. Her left ankle, victim of multiple sprains, does a funny shimmy on a loose rock and throbs, as does her right hip, thanks to an old labral tear. She thinks about quitting at least a dozen times and just sitting where she is, but her legs have a mind of their own and keep pushing her, all while the burn from the dragon’s blood fades.
Seven miles after she starts running, she reaches the top of the trail and sits on a warm rock facing west. She rests her head on Dan’s sweaty shoulder. Her lungs feel cleaned out, like they always do after a good run, and the air is cool and sharp.
“We’ve run about twenty-six thousand miles together,” she says. “Enough for a trip around the Earth.”
Dan chuckles. “We can say we’ve gone places.”
“I’ve enjoyed every mile with you. Every pain, every win, every loss, all of it.”
“Flo,” he says, voice cracking.
“I’ve run from a lot. But not from this. I’m running straight to it, the way I ran straight to you, because that was the best decision of my life.”
“I can’t.”
“You’ll be fine, I promise.” It was always fine, until it wasn’t. But this is truly fine. This sunset, these moments with Dan. “I love this. I love you.” Her voice weakens. It’s harder to breathe.
The burn of dragon’s blood is gone. Her heart flutters uncomfortably, and her heavy head and body returns. She lies with her head in Dan’s lap, the fiery sunset washing over her vision, and then she’s above herself, out of her head for the first time in a lifetime, thank God; it was always too loud in there.
A lifetime of misery, pain, and suffering sloughs away, leaving only love to fill her heart like her blood used to, and now it’s larger and stronger than it ever was, and so full.
