Chapter 17

Just as I reached Mildred’s columned porch, gasping for breath as I struggled up the low steps, I heard the wail of sirens coming closer. I had never in all the years I’d known Ida Lee seen her in an agitated state. But there’d been nothing composed or regal about her as she’d bounded back across Mildred’s lawn like a deer, Lillian and me struggling along behind her. Even so, the blaring sirens announced that she’d kept her head long enough to call 911.

Lord, what had happened? I hurried inside, Lillian panting right behind me.

“Ida Lee? Where are you?” I called. “What’s happened?”

“In here, Mrs. Murdoch.” Ida Lee’s voice, reverting to its usual professional tone, came from Mildred’s wicker-and-chintz sunroom.

I ran across the foyer to the sunroom and found Mildred sprawled on the floor. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, and she was as white as a sheet.

“Oh, Mildred, what happened?” I knelt beside her and felt her forehead. I don’t know why, just that it was what people seemed to do.

“She fell,” Ida Lee said. “I was in the kitchen and I felt the thump when she hit the floor. I can’t get her up, and I’m afraid to try. She might’ve broken something.”

“Mildred? Mildred, do you hurt anywhere?” I patted her face, but she didn’t answer. Then, as the blare of the sirens died away, I looked up at Ida Lee. “Run meet them, Ida Lee. Get them in here. She’s not responding. No telling where she’s hurt.”

As professional men and women, loaded down with cases and tanks and I-don’t-know-what-all hurried in and set up shop all around Mildred’s fallen body, Lillian, Ida Lee, and I moved aside. Even though there were five emergency workers milling around, I wondered how they would get Mildred on a stretcher. She was a large woman, so I knew lifting her would be a problem. I didn’t get to see how they managed it, though, because they ran us out to wait in the foyer.

Ida Lee, wringing her hands, stood trembling beside me, her lovely, caramel-colored face drawn with anxiety. “Oh, I hope she’s all right. I should’ve watched her better. I try to, I really do.”

“Ida Lee, nobody could do better than you. Mildred’s lucky to have you. But let’s don’t fall apart until we know what’s going on.” Although in the back of my mind, the memory of another friend who’d so recently suffered a fall kept popping up, and look what had happened to her. I began to tremble a little myself.

Leaving Lillian to close up Mildred’s house, I drove Ida Lee to the hospital, where we waited and waited in the waiting room of the emergency room. Finally a doctor who wasn’t old enough to shave or to wear a decent pair of shoes came out to talk to Mildred’s family. There were only the two of us.

“How is she?” I asked, jumping up from my chair. “Mrs. Allen, how is she?” He kept looking around, apparently for a family member.

“Is she married?” he asked. “I should speak with her husband.”

“Obviously,” I said, waving my hand at the empty room, “he’s not available. Ida Lee, do you know where Mr. Allen is?”

“Yes, ma’am, Mr. Horace is sailing on the Mediterranean. I think you can reach him by ship to shore or maybe shore to ship.”

The young doctor looked taken aback—not many people from Abbotsville sailed anywhere, much less on the Mediterranean. “What about children? Does she have any children?”

“Ida Lee?” I asked again. “Do you know how to reach Tonya?”

“Miss Tonya is somewhere in Provence.”

“That’s in France,” I said, in case he’d missed geography in grade school. “Now, look, Doctor, we’re all she has at the moment, so you can tell us how she is. Ida Lee here is as close to kinfolk as you’re going to get.”

His eyebrows went up at that, but he had enough savoir faire not to comment on the relationship.

He cleared his throat. “Well, the X-rays show that nothing’s broken, but she had a hard fall. She’ll be bruised and sore for a few days. The thing is, though, we don’t know why she got dizzy and fell, which is what she says happened. I want to admit her for a few days and do a battery of tests. Someone will have to speak with the admitting office. Does she have insurance?”

Has it come to this? I thought. What would he do if she didn’t? Call Washington and report her?

“Doctor,” I said, “Mrs. Allen underwrote this fancy emergency room you’re working in, so you don’t need to worry about insurance, be it term or whole life, home owner’s, health, or final expenses.”

_______

Well, somebody finally recognized Mildred’s value to the hospital, for when Ida Lee and I were directed to the third floor, we found Mildred in a private room with not one but two windows. She was lying in bed hooked up to some kind of intravenous apparatus, and, I declare, she looked mountainous under the covers.

“Mildred?” I whispered as I tiptoed to the bed. “How’re you feeling? Can I get you anything?”

“You can get me out of here,” she said, but with only a smidgen of her usual commanding tone. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No, I couldn’t find the swatch I’d decided on for my new curtains, so I got up to look for it . . . and the next thing I knew some doctor was feeling me up.” She managed a weak smile. “Where’s Ida Lee?”

“Right here, Mrs. Allen.” Ida Lee moved in closer as I stepped back from the bed. “You’ve given us a real fright. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

Mildred clasped her hand. “Don’t leave me, Ida Lee. I feel better when you’re around.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.” Ida Lee began to straighten Mildred’s bedcovers and smooth her pillow. “I’m right here.”

“Tonight, too? I don’t want to be left alone at night.” Mildred looked up at her, and I realized how dependent Mildred was on Ida Lee. And also realized that Mildred may’ve been thinking, as I had, of what had happened to someone else who’d fallen, gotten better, then, alone in the hospital, died in the night.

Glancing at my watch, I saw that I would soon need to leave to meet Helen at Mattie’s apartment. Before I could say anything, the door opened and a technician came in to draw some of Mildred’s blood—a process I’d just as soon not witness.

“Let’s walk out to the hall,” I whispered to Ida Lee, then, standing outside Mildred’s door, I asked, “Are you planning to stay?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am, I can’t leave her. I’ll stay until she can go home.”

“Not day and night, Ida Lee. That’s too much. I have to leave now to meet Mrs. Stroud, but I’ll relieve you after supper tonight. That way, you can go home and get some rest.”

“Oh, Mrs. Murdoch, you can’t do that. I don’t mind staying. I can nap in a chair.”

“So can I. No, Ida Lee, you’re not going to stay around the clock. She’s going to need you in good health when she goes home, so you must take care of yourself. I’m going now, but I’ll see you later this evening.”

_______

On my way to Mattie’s apartment, I went from worrying about leaving Mildred to fretting about being late for Helen. And on top of that, I had no time for even a bite of lunch, and, as I’d forgotten my cell phone, I couldn’t call Lillian. So as soon as I got inside the apartment, I used Mattie’s phone to give her an update on Mildred’s condition and also to tell her where I was.

“Let Sam know what happened,” I told her. “He should be home anytime now. And tell him where I am, and, Lillian, please help me remember not to ever leave home again without my cell phone.”

“Yessum, but you got to ’member to plug it in to keep it workin’. Won’t do no good if it die on you.”

“I know, and I will. Oh, I think Helen’s here.” I hurried to the door to let her in. “And, Lillian, you might mention to Sam that I’ll be spending the night in Mildred’s room tonight.”

“Why I got to mention it? Seem like that be ’tween you and him.”

“I want to give him time to get used to it.” I opened the door, smiled in welcome to Helen, and motioned her in. “I have to go, Lillian. I’ll be home before supper.

“How are you, Helen? Come in and look at this mess.” I waved my hand at the jumble of furniture in Mattie’s living room. “I’m so happy to have you help make sense of it all.”

Helen, a small, slim woman who always looked put together from the stylish cut of her hair to the tip of her wedge-heeled shoes, looked around in astonishment. “I had no idea,” she said in wonder. “Where did all this furniture come from? I don’t remember it being so crowded when we visited her.”

“I don’t, either. But I think maybe she had some of it in the bedrooms. Why she had it all moved in here, I couldn’t tell you. Anyway, I have to go through her dresser drawers and collect her jewelry, so I’ll let you wander around and see what you think should be done with it.

“Oh, by the way, Helen,” I went on, “we had to take Mildred to the hospital this morning.” And after Helen’s proper expression of dismay, I went on to tell her what I knew about Mildred’s condition. Which wasn’t much, but I knew I couldn’t avoid reporting on our mutual friend’s hospitalization.

Leaving Helen to examine the undersides of the furniture, I went to Mattie’s bedroom and began opening drawers. Her jewelry drawer was crammed full of gold chains, pearl necklaces, and silver links of one kind or another. And under all of that were several small boxes whose appearance was pregnant with the promise of a sizable increase in Mattie’s estate.

Maybe, I thought as I removed the drawer and sat on the bed with it, her beneficiaries won’t go begging after all.