Chapter Twenty-seven

The two cups of tea I’d drunk earlier woke me up at two in the morning. I had to pee in the worst way. I eased myself silently out of the chair and over to the bathroom. Just as I closed the door and was lowering my jeans I heard someone enter the room. I pushed the door open slightly. I heard some paper rustling and something tear. I strained closer to the door and got cross-eyed trying to get a glimpse of Mabel’s visitor. Just at that moment the change fell out of my drooping jeans pocket and bounced with a loud metallic clink onto the tile floor.

“Who’s there?” the visitor whispered urgently.

The jig was up. I zipped up my jeans and decided to brazen my way out of it.

I opened the bathroom door and yawned mightily. I held my finger up to my lips.

“Shhh. She’s asleep. We don’t want to disturb her rest, now do we?” I whispered.

I walked nonchalantly over to the man in the white coat. Even in the poor light I could see that he wasn’t her doctor. And oddly enough, the man seemed to be even more nervous at finding someone else in Mabel’s room than I was.

“Who, who are you?” he stammered.

“I’m a friend,” I whispered.

I thought quickly and decided to go with most of the truth.

“Her husband had to go home to stay with the children. I offered to stay with Mrs. Jones during the night. Mr. Jones will be back in the morning. Is there something you need to tell him? I’ll be glad to give him the message.”

The more I spoke the more confident I felt. This turkey was definitely more ill at ease than I. The light was dim, but I could see his hands trembling slightly. The sheen of perspiration was visible on his wide cheeks and bald pate when he turned towards the night light. He was about my height but twice as broad. His resemblance to Porky Pig was uncanny. I tried to read the name tag on his jacket, but it was too dark. All I could make out was that the name of the hospital department embroidered on his jacket started with a large letter “P.” I wondered if someone had thought Mabel needed a psychiatric evaluation. Surely not. But it was possible. She had been very upset.

Porky backed towards the door and further from the light as I advanced on him. “I’ll come back in the morning when the husband’s here. No need for a message.”

He turned and was gone before I could assure him again that my presence was benign.

Now I really had to pee. I decided to get it over with before the nurse came to kick me out. I was sure Porky was headed straight to the nurse’s station. Annie or her companion would be here any minute now.

I went about my business quickly. I wanted to be ready when an irate nurse came barreling into the room searching for my butt to kick down the back stairs. When no one appeared after a few minutes, I was curious. Cautiously I peeked out the door and down the hallway. Everything was quiet as a mouse. There was no sign of Porky or anyone else.

I tiptoed back over to the bed to check on Mabel, relieved to see that she was still sleeping. I turned to go back to my chair and crunched something with my foot. It was a paper sleeve from a syringe. How messy, I thought. I should complain to housekeeping. I picked it up and absently tucked it in my pocket.

I took up residence in my comfy recliner once again and tried to get back to sleep. The worst had come to pass—I had been discovered, but nothing had happened.

The dial on my watch was barely visible. So much for my beloved antique Rolex. All I could tell was that the big hand was somewhere in the vicinity of three o’clock. I had four hours plus or minus before I had to leave.

Fifteen minutes later I realized that there would be no return engagement of sleep for me tonight. I looked around for something to read, but we hadn’t had time to get Mabel any magazines. The housekeeping department was remiss in some areas, but they had cleaned the room of any reading material from the prior inhabitant. Then I saw Mabel’s medical chart on a metal clipboard at the bottom of her bed. I struggled with my sense of decency and Mabel’s right to privacy for a minute or so until boredom won out. I grabbed the record from the bottom of the bed and took it into the bathroom.

For the next two hours I tried to read Mabel’s medical record. Time after time I cursed my lack of knowledge. I was once again in the unpleasant situation of having to learn a foreign language, just as I had been when I first went to South America with Rafe. Somewhere in the back of my mind that thought rang a bell. Medical terminology was based on Latin and Greek. Spanish was Latin based. Maybe I should look again with that thought in mind. After a while I able to make some sense of the information before me by thinking in Spanish.

Mabel had borne six children in the last twenty-six years. She had been pregnant when she had married Apollo at age seventeen. Three months later she had given birth to a seven pound baby boy. Before she was twenty, she’d had two more children. Another boy and a little girl. Both children had positional deformities of the right foot which had been corrected with orthopedic splints in their first six months. At age twenty-three she had two miscarriages and a very serious case of hepatitis from a blood transfusion. After that she had not gotten pregnant for fifteen years, even though she and Apollo had never used any birth control measures. That little bit of knowledge made me a trifle uneasy and I almost put the chart away. Almost.

Mabel was overjoyed when she found herself pregnant at thirty-five. Her new baby boy had no evidence of the foot problems of his older siblings, but the next two little girls did. Even though the couple loved children, they acknowledged that this last pregnancy was probably all they could handle. Dr. Edgar Baxter, who was Mabel’s physician, felt they already had more than their share of children. He tried to discourage his patient from having her baby. She was forty-three years old. She had a heart murmur, another detail I was uncomfortable knowing. And Apollo had prostate cancer.

“Oh, God!”

I let it out before I knew it. I flicked the light off and opened the door a crack to listen. Mabel was still snoring softly. I sat in the dark for a moment and contemplated what I had just learned. I was savvy enough to know that cancer wasn’t always a death sentence, but just the same, it had to be quite a burden—emotionally and financially. Dr. Baxter had urged Mabel to have an abortion. But she and Apollo, knowing that this child would be their last, resisted his pleas and opted to have the baby. From that point on, they began to have problems. Apollo needed to go to the Veteran’s Hospital in Nashville three times a week for his cancer treatments. Mabel had to take on more housecleaning jobs to make ends meet. She got sick. The doctor diagnosed a severe allergic reaction to house dust and goldenrod and started her on immunotherapy. Three weeks later she had some vaginal bleeding. She was working in Morgantown at the time and went to the emergency room there. Much the same thing had happened then as she was going through now. She had spent the night in the hospital and then gone home to bed for two weeks. Dr. Baxter reported at her next visit that the baby’s heart tones were strong and the fetal ultrasound was within normal limits. Everything was fine except for her allergies. He resumed treatment, and as of her last office visit two weeks ago, she had improved. She was five months pregnant

The Ob-Gyn who had admitted her tonight had dreadful handwriting. I looked at his notes from every angle, even upside down, before I could decipher the fact that he had no idea what was causing her premature labor and bleeding. If he had known, I thought cynically, he would probably have written in big bold letters. I was slowly but surely losing my faith in the medical profession.

The rest of the chart was mostly lab reports and nurse’s notes. There was no mention of a mental evaluation having been ordered, although one nurse had mentioned that “the patient was anxious and distraught.” The doctor must have decided to call in a specialist after reading that.

I had been up for over twenty hours by this time, and the sleep I had sought to no avail earlier was threatening to take me unawares. Standing up was a chore because my knees and shoulders were cramped and stiff. I hobbled out of the bathroom like an old woman.

It was still dark outside. I had a couple of hours to sleep before pulling off my disappearing act. I opened the miniblinds so the sun would wake me at dawn and lay back to relax.

Mother shook me awake at ten-thirty. Cassie and Mabel were laughing at me as I struggled to my senses. I wiped the sleep from my crusty eyes and the drool from my cheek.

“Um, uh, oh,” was all I could manage.

“Good morning, Mom. How’s the sleeping beauty?”

“Don’t tease your sweet momma, child. She’s been watchin’ out for me all night long, and I really appreciate it.”

“You’re right, Mabel. I’m sorry, Mom. Here, I’ll get you a hot washcloth. You can wash the sleep off.”

“Never mind,” I mumbled. “I’ll come to the bathroom.”

I tried to get up, but my entire body refused to cooperate. The whole of me was one big aching muscle. I took the hot cloth from Cassie and wiped my eyes and face. By the time I had finished, I felt somewhat more awake. She then presented me with a nice hot cup of tea, which made me feel even better.

“Thanks! You’re an angel, Cassie. How are you feeling Mabel?”

“The cramps are gone, and I think everything is all right. The doctor’s coming any time now, and I hope he’ll let me go home. I surely do miss my own bed.”

By the time I finished my tea I could stand up. I stretched until I heard things popping. Mother offered me a comb with a disapproving shake of her head. I tried to run it through my unruly curls but they were too tangled. I did borrow a bit of lipstick, however. When I tucked my shirt back in my jeans, I was ready for the day.

“How about some breakfast?” I inquired hopefully.

“It’s almost eleven, dear. Why don’t we wait and see if Mabel’s doctor is going to dismiss her. We don’t want her to have to stay here a minute longer than necessary. When we get home I’ll fix you a nice lunch. Maybe an omelette with mushrooms and onions?”

“Ummm, okay,” I reluctantly agreed. “How come nobody minded that I was here, Mabel?”

“I don’t know, Miz Paisley. I woke up and saw you sleeping in the chair. When the nurse came in I told her you were my friend. She didn’t seem to care. I guess folks have family stay with them all the time.”

“Upfhh,” I grumped, thinking of the uncomfortable hours I had spent waiting in the dirty stairwell when I could have been up here in this cozy chair all the while.

Mabel’s doctor had gone off duty, but his partner came in shortly before noon. He read her chart and asked us to leave while he examined her. He came out in a few minutes and told us all was well and we could take her home. Mabel had to be on strict bed rest for at least two weeks. He asked if she had a regular doctor. When we told him Dr. Baxter had more or less retired, he gave us his card and directions to his office in Morgantown. Cassie kindly volunteered to take her to the appointment in fourteen days.

She and I helped Mabel get dressed while Mother waved her magic wand in the business office. Cassie brought the car around, and I followed the nurse as she wheeled her patient down to the exit. For a moment or two I had a sense of déjà vu. Only a few months ago, I was leaving this hospital the same way. I tried to shake the sleepytime cobwebs from my head. There was something I needed to know before we left, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of what it was. The thought eluded me until we had taken our patient home and helped tuck her back in bed. Porky Pig! I had forgotten to ask the doctor about the psychiatric consultation he had ordered for Mabel.