| |
The aroma coming from the dining room tickled my nose but I wasn’t hungry.
I’d spent the rest of my afternoon checking in on the movie discussion and then planning the fall calendar—and having Anne shoot down nearly every suggestion I’d had for new activities. Ending my day by restocking the Bingo prize cart and laminating new cards pretty much summed up how my conversations with Anne had gone: nowhere. Just keep doing the same thing.
I shoved the box of restocked prizes—chocolates and hard candies and a roll of quarters to dispense one at a time for each winning game—into the Bingo cupboard and placed the stack of newly laminated cards alongside it. I was ready to go home, to kick off my sandals and have a beer or a glass of wine and just try to forget how stymied I felt on my first day back from vacation.
I went back to my office and powered down my computer. Home was only a fifteen-minute drive away, just east on John Sims Parkway, down toward Valparaiso Boulevard. With any luck, there would be a frozen dinner or something in the freezer, something I could quickly warm up and call a meal. I’d gotten back from my cruise just the day before and hadn’t paid attention to anything other than taking a shower and crawling into my own bed.
There was always the possibility that Megan, my roommate, might be home. Maybe we could grab dinner out, take-out or something a little nicer, even. Maybe have a drink. Or three.
If she wasn’t with Dylan, of course. She and her boyfriend had been together long before I’d entered her life as a roommate. We’d hit it off immediately, and I often wondered if we would be closer if she was single like me.
I closed my office door, glancing at the clock on the wall just before it disappeared from view. It was 4:45, which was definitely early for me to be heading out. Fortunately, I was salaried so I could set my own hours, and because I often stayed late or came in on the weekends, I had no qualms about leaving early when I did so, especially when there was nothing to do.
I knew residents would be streaming out of their rooms soon, ready for the clock to strike five and their meal to commence. Five o’clock always felt too early to be serving dinner, and if I had dinner at Oasis Ridge at that time, I would inevitably be starving and ready for a snack by nine o’clock.
I knew I shouldn’t complain about free food—free was free, right?—and I knew that the early meal time was because the residents often ended their day much earlier than someone like me. And I also knew that I didn’t have to eat there.
Which was exactly why I was leaving before the dinner meal was served: because I could go elsewhere.
A commotion near the dining room got my attention as I approached the end of the hallway. People were bustling toward the eating area, but these weren’t residents.
They were people in uniforms.
I craned my neck. Was everyone on staff today heading in early for dinner? Did they know something about the menu that I didn’t?
I squinted. The people hurrying into the room weren’t wearing nursing scrubs like the PCAs on staff, or even the couple of nurses we had on call each day.
No, these people were in white uniforms.
Paramedics.
I shouldered my purse and hurried down the hall, smiling an apology at Ethel, who I accidentally jostled as she shuffled out of her room.
Aidan was standing just outside the dining room, hunched over, one hand cupping his chin. He wasn’t bringing a resident to dinner. In fact, I didn’t quite know what he was doing.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
He glanced at me. “Arthur Griggs. He passed out in the dining room.”
“Passed out?” Is he okay?”
I didn’t wait for Aidan to respond. Instead, I gently pushed my way past the onlookers, navigating a path through the sea of walkers and wheelchairs until I was standing with a clear view of the dining room. Most of the tables were empty, save for clean pink tablecloths. Crystal vases sat in the center of each one, all of them holding a lone silk rose. The smell of Mexican food and some kind of cobbler scented the air.
Four paramedics were on the scene, the people in white I’d seen rush into the dining room.
But none of them were doing anything.
My gaze drifted to a table nearby.
Arthur Griggs was seated in one of the chairs. Slumped over, his head at an awkward angle on the table. Two plates full of food were on the table, and it was almost a miracle that his head hadn’t landed on his enchilada.
I swallowed and thought about what Aidan had just said. That Arthur had passed out in the dining room.
Arthur Griggs did not look like he was passed out.
I darted a look at the paramedics. They were stowing their equipment back into bags. One was standing near a stretcher with a white sheet neatly folded at the foot of it.
I swallowed again.
No, Arthur Griggs wasn’t unconscious.
Arthur Griggs was absolutely, positively dead.