forty

“Rest assured, she never stopped breathing, but her breathing was very labored,” said Doctor Krishna. We were standing a few feet from the door to my mother’s hospital room. The doctor’s gaze slipped sideways. I heard footsteps behind me, and then Tom was at my side.

“This is my, uh …” We really need to come up with something better than “my uh,” I thought.

Tom spoke up before my hesitation became even more awkward. “Tom Saunders. Friend of the family.”

“Ah.” She looked from Tom to me the same way Goldie does when she knows more than I think she should, but she didn’t comment. The good doctor returned to the subject at hand. “Janet, we are aware of your mother’s wishes and I—we—will honor them if it comes to that. I do not think we are at that point. But we would like to keep her here and run some tests to determine the cause of this misadventure.”

“How long will that be?”

“Depending on what we learn, we may release her this afternoon, or it may be a day or two,” said Krishna. She gave me her card so I could reach her directly and walked away.

I went back to the room and found Norm and my mom in deep, apparently serious, conversation.

“Janet,” said my mother, patting the bed beside her.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” I said, relieved that she knew me again, at least for the moment.

“We’re finished,” she said, patting the bed once more. I perched there, and she took my hand, surprising me with her grip’s boniness and strength. “I’m glad you’re here, dear, but I don’t want you worrying too much.” Her eyes were clear, and my real mother seemed to be fully present, the shadow at bay for now. “I’ve given Norm my power of attorney regarding medical decisions. I won’t want you to be hurt by that. I just don’t want you or Bill having to make those decisions.”

“Okay,” I said. “Norm, are you okay with this?” My brother-in-law has a deceptively tough, rational shell over a very tender center, and I wondered whether he really wanted this job.

“Yes, it’s fine. I’m fine.” He and my mom exchanged a smile. “I think we’re all fine.” He stood and reached for his pocket and, although I hadn’t heard it ring, pulled out his phone. “That was Bill. Let me go call him back. I left a message to call me, but he had early meetings. He doesn’t know …”

“Where is he, anyway?” I asked.

“Amsterdam.” He picked up his jacket and turned to my mother. “I’m going to go now. But I’ll be back later to check on you.” He kissed her cheek and then he was gone.

Tom teased Mom a bit about making him come out in the middle of the night. “I had more carousing to do,” he said, and she giggled. A nurse came in and said she had a few things to do if we could give her twenty minutes. I didn’t want to know what kinds of things. Just the thought of jabbing sharp implements into flesh makes me want to scream and flail my arms. I picked up my tote bag and said, “Okay, Mom, we’ll be back in a bit.”

“Coffee?” asked Tom.

We took the stairs down two floors to the cafeteria. It was a stark place of plastic and chrome, and very quiet. A couple of nurses ate salads by the windows and a family huddled over coffees and soft drinks in the back corner, but that was it.

“Are you hungry?” asked Tom.

“Just tea,” I said. I sat down at an out-of-the-way table and took stock. My mom was, apparently, going to be okay, at least physically. There’s a big fat thumbs up. My brother-in-law is taking charge of the messy world of legal directives. Another thumbs up. Tom is planning to leave the country and hasn’t told me. Big fat thumbs down. And I’d become embroiled in another murder investigation. Even worse, the suspects are all people I know and like. Including Tom. And me. Possibly in cahoots with one another, according to Hutch-
inson’s source in the investigation.

Tom returned with a cardboard drink carrier loaded with a cup of coffee, another of steaming water, a tea bag, two creamers, and a flimsy paper plate struggling to accommodate a big fat Danish oozing golden goo from one end. He set a pile of napkins on the table, unloaded the carrier, took it to the recycle bin, and returned with a plastic knife, which he used to saw the Danish into quarters. I ripped open the packet and pushed the tea bag into the cup of water, then bit into the gooey end of a bit of pastry. It tasted like sweetened cardboard. I ate it anyway.

A blast furnace seemed to have opened around me. I leaned back with a thud against the chair and fanned my face with a napkin. Great. That’s all I need, I thought. Hot flashes.

Tom was talking, but once again I managed to tune out the first part of what he said. I tuned back in just as he said, “… because life’s too short not to do what we know we want to do, don’t you think?” I looked at him, and he winked and said, “Besides, it will be fun.”

So he was planning to go somewhere. My whole body felt hot and clammy, my temples throbbed, and I thought my brain might explode. I said, “I need some water,” and started to get up.

“I’ll get it,” said Tom. He stood but hesitated as he studied my face. If it looked anything like I felt, it must have glowed like Rudolph’s nose. He put his hand on my shoulder and leaned into me. “Are you faint?”

I shook my head. “Hot flash.” And, oh yeah, my mother and my relationship may both be dying and then there’s that matter of the police … “And I feel a headache coming on. Water and drugs should do the trick.”

The ice dispenser sounded as disturbed as I felt, and it may have been having a hot flash, too, because no matter how many times Tom shoved the cup into the release level, it didn’t give up a single cube. He went to the counter and handed my cup to the woman behind the rgister and she disappeared into the kitchen.

I reached into my tote and rummaged around until my fingers found a bottle. I pulled it out. Anti-nausea meds for Jay, expired two years earlier. I shook the bottle, and heard the sound of one pill clapping around. I set it down and resumed my search, intoning, “Drugs, drugs …” I didn’t think I mumbled all that loudly, but two young men wearing lab coats with stethoscopes in the pockets both looked up from the files they had been poring over. I smiled and they looked away as my fingers closed over another plastic bottle.

Tom was still waiting for the glass of ice, and I felt a pang as I watched him. I couldn’t tell who I was most upset with, him or myself. I pushed and twisted the top of the bottle but couldn’t open it. I watched the woman hand Tom the glass of ice as I pushed and twisted again. Nothing. Tom turned away from me, headed back to the water dispenser on the pop machine. I muttered and set my teeth for one last attempt on the bottle before I resorted to violence, talking myself through the process. Push down hard on cap. Twist firmly.

I twisted a little too firmly. Despite pressure and stress, the cap remained attached to the bottle, and the two together leaped out of my hands. I tried to catch them, but as I lunged forward, my chair skidded on the waxed linoleum and I nearly fell out of it. The bottle hit the floor with a loud clack! and rolled. The acoustics in the cafeteria were terrific, and the pills on plastic sounded remarkably like popcorn popping. The young doctor who had his back to the ruckus whirled around and said, “What’s that?” The other one started to laugh. The bottle passed under a table and finally rolled to a stop under the next one.

“Sorry,” I said, walking to the second table. “It got away.” I tried to reach the bottle, but it was too far under the table. I pulled a chair out, got down on my hands and knees, and grabbed it by both ends. The cap came off in my hand.