Chapter 6

I made another hospital visitation the following morning. Alone this time, for LuAnne had other things to do and Mildred was still in bed. I went not because I wanted to but because I was hoping to find Mattie mentally sound so I could stop fretting about having her care on our hands.

I just hated feeling guilty about the possibility of having to do something I not only didn’t want to do but also didn’t feel I should have to do. But that was the quandary I was in. So if Mattie showed any signs of being in the present day, rather than in another era, I was going to ask her about that contingency plan that Sam had mentioned.

How much better it would be to know exactly what she wanted, given her present inability to know not only what day it was but what year. Some people plan ahead, but most of us don’t, assuming, I suppose, that we’ll live forever. I’ve even heard of people who go so far as to plan their own funerals years before the need arises, even down to the particular hymns they want sung at the service. They say they do it to take the burden off their families, but I think some of those preplanners enjoy the thought of still being in control. LuAnne’s husband, Leonard Conover, for instance, had already planned his funeral. He’d gone to the Good Shepherd Funeral Home, selected his casket, bought a cemetery lot, specified a vault, and paid for it all up front. But that made sense for him, because who would want to leave such arrangements to somebody like LuAnne?

But such thoughts were too far in the future for Mattie. There was no reason in the world to think she wouldn’t recover from a broken hip—many did and had a lot of good years ahead. Although, I conceded, most of them weren’t burdened with as many years behind them as Mattie had.

_______

I walked down the hall toward Mattie’s room, swerving around empty gurneys and wax polishers and the occasional robed patient shuffling along. As I neared her door, a short, paunchy man in a three-piece suit swung out into the hall, almost running into me.

“Pardon me, madam,” he said, without a glance but with a brief nod of his head as he strode with authority on down the hall, a briefcase swinging at his side.

Now, that looks like a lawyer, I thought, and felt immeasurably better. Unless he’d been visiting Mattie’s roommate.

As far as I could tell as I leaned over Mattie’s bed, there was no marked improvement in her appearance. In fact, she looked worse. Her face was sallow and gaunt, the wrinkles deeper, and her hair in tangles, but this time her eyes were open.

“Mattie,” I whispered, “how’re you feeling?”

She frowned as her gaze flitted around until it landed on me. “Did you find them?” she mumbled.

I frowned, too. “Find what?”

“My gloves,” she said somewhat sharply. “I have to have them.”

Now, what do you do in a case like that? Go along with whatever was on her mind, or tell her she had no use for gloves in a hospital bed?

“Well, Mattie,” I said, temporizing, “I’ll try to find them. What do they look like?”

One hand—the one with a needle stuck in it—grabbed my arm. “My kid gloves, the long ones that go up over the elbow. They’re required.” She released my arm and turned away. “You know that as well as I do.”

“You’re right, I do.” Deciding to humor her, I pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down. “Our youthful days were exciting, weren’t they?”

“Maybe for you,” she mumbled, trying to turn over. “But not for me unless you get busy and find my gloves.” Then she slung herself over in the bed and in a loud voice said, “I do my curtsy better than any of the other girls, and don’t tell me I don’t!”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t for the world. You do it beautifully, Mattie, so deep and graceful.” I stood up, deciding that I’d visited long enough. “Is there anything you need? Anything I can bring you? Besides your gloves, I mean.”

She glared at me. “Don’t come back without them.”

“Yes, well, I’ll look for them.” I backed away from the bed, turned, and started out of the room.

The woman in the other bed lowered her magazine as I walked past. “Good luck with that,” she murmured, but I hurried past, anxious to be on my way.

Seeing a nurse busily writing at her station, I stopped for a minute. “Excuse me, but can you tell me how Mrs. Freeman is doing?”

She looked up, frowned, and said, “Well, her surgery went quite well. We’ll be getting her up later today and she’ll soon begin physical therapy. There’s every reason to believe she’ll fully recover,”

“That’s good to hear, but somehow she doesn’t seem quite herself. Mentally speaking, that is.”

The nurse pushed back her bangs and sighed tiredly. “That’s another problem, but fairly typical for her age. Perhaps you should speak to her physician. I really can’t comment on that.”

“I understand,” I said, “but, I declare, it’s distressing to hear a ninety-something-year-old woman go on and on about a debutante ball.”

_______

By the time I got home, I’d decided that I had done all I could do for Mattie and I could strike her off my list. I had no authority nor any particular desire to make arrangements for her, and all I can say about what I’d done so far is that I had felt burdened to do it. Pastor Ledbetter was often led to preach on the topic of bearing one another’s burdens. It seemed, according to him, that the Lord puts these burdens—which I would call worries—on us so we’ll do something about them.

Well, I was ready to have the burden of Mattie lifted from my shoulders because I couldn’t figure out why the Lord would choose me to bear it. I mean, I wasn’t any closer to her than a dozen other women I could name, so why had I been selected to worry about her?

I decided right then and there that other than visiting occasionally and taking the odd gift now and then—as others would also do—I’d done all that I was being called upon to do.

So by putting aside my fretting over Mattie, I decided that I should concern myself with more current problems—possibly those that I could do something about. To that end, I did what I’d been meaning to do for a day or so.

I phoned Mildred and asked if she wanted to take a walk with me.

“What for?” she asked.

“Why, just to get out for a while. It’s a beautiful day, Mildred, and everything’s in bloom. Besides, I need the exercise.”

“Well, you can get it without me. But why don’t you stop by here when you’re through and have a snack with me?”

I had to laugh, but that meant I’d have to come up with some other way to get Mildred moving. Maybe a pedometer would be just the ticket.

Just as I finished putting that on my shopping list for the next time I was downtown, the phone rang.

“Julia? It’s Helen Stroud. How are you?”

Surprised at the call, considering how infrequently she was in contact these days, I responded warmly. “Helen! How nice to hear from you. I’m doing well. And you?”

“Oh, I’m fine. I’m calling to see if you’re still interested in a flower-arranging class. I remember your mentioning it at one time, and I’m getting a few people together to go over the basic elements of form, composition, and so on.”

“Well, I guess I’d about forgotten about that. To tell the truth, Helen, the only time I really think about it is in the fall when the garden club has the flower show. That’s when I realize how little I know. Will you be teaching it?”

“Yes, but only because a couple of people have asked me to. I’m not an expert by any means.”

“Why, Helen, you’re more of an expert than anybody else in this town. You’ve won more blue ribbons and best-in-shows than anybody I know.” Actually, Helen was an expert at anything she attempted because she studied and experimented with whatever took her interest. Take flower arranging, for example. She had a natural flair for anything artistic, and had trained herself to such an extent that she had become an accredited judge of flower shows.

And there was no telling what else she’d become, not out of personal interest, but rather out of personal need. Once a leading matron in town, wife of a successful businessman, keeper of a perfect home, and the serene and capable ideal of many of us, Helen had suffered a great downfall. Richard, her husband, had had money problems—not that he’d lost it, but that he’d taken it. Other people’s, that is, and he ended up in one of those white-collar prisons in Florida after a very public arrest in Mildred’s backyard. It had taken every cent the Strouds had to repay what Richard had stolen, and the shame of it all had taken the heart out of Helen. She had quickly sold their home, moved into a small apartment, taken whatever part-time jobs she could get, dropped out of or off all the clubs and committees that had counted on her leadership, and divorced Richard. I admired her more than ever.

All of this flashed through my mind as I realized that Helen might be indicating that she was ready to be sociable again. And far be it from me to stymie her efforts. “So, yes, Helen, I would be interested in learning something besides how to cram a bunch of flowers in a vase. And if you’re teaching, then all the better. Just let me know when you want to meet. And, oh,” I went on, “let me know whatever the class will cost, because I do hope you’re charging for your expertise.”

“Thank you, Julia. I regret that I have to, but it will be a minimal charge. I’ll let everybody know what they’re to bring to each class, but it’ll be mostly things you already have. A particular kind of container, for instance, or a piece of driftwood and one or two flowers will be all you’ll need.”

“That sounds easy enough. I’m looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll even put my name on my next flower show entry.”

I hung up feeling uplifted—not so much about learning to arrange flowers, but because I had missed Helen and was glad that she seemed to be coming out of her self-imposed exile. And if I was going to cut down on worrying about everybody and his brother, I would need other things to occupy my mind. Learning to arrange flowers in a formal manner could be just the thing to keep me busy—even though Japanese minimalism was not exactly my cup of tea.