by Barbara Ebel
Annabel shifted the open box towards Bob to take the first ones. He did and then she poured a few chocolate-covered blueberries into her free hand. With much discretion, their hands went back and forth to their mouths. Annabel giggled and leaned closer to Bob. “It’s the little things,” she whispered.
He nodded, took the clipped pen off his vest pocket, and slipped out an index card. Thanks, he wrote. Delicious!
CHAPTER 8
To Annabel’s disappointment, Robby Burk never contacted her in the evening. Perhaps he was on call, she thought as she prepared for bed. Even if he wasn’t, a chief resident’s responsibilities were stacked high just like it was her duty to be studying and absorbing everything related to internal medicine.
Annabel woke with a chill and realized she had not turned up the heat the night before. She opened the curtains to the view of the street and the tree and grinned at the falling snowflakes and the flurries bouncing against the window. Some clung to the branches and accumulated on the ground. At least it was better than boring weather; she liked the white landscape rather than the usual dismal gray typical of southern Ohio in the winter.
After dressing in warm black pants and an overhead sweater, Annabel drove to the hospital, traffic slower than normal with one fender bender cluttering up the slow lane. After checking on her patients, she went back to the office and in a short time, everyone arrived except for their chief resident.
“Go grab a cup of coffee or something,” Dr. Burg said as Annabel noted the resident’s high heels. The weather was no deterrent for Melody’s choice in shoes.
“I just saw Dr. Schott,” Melody said, “and he’s gone off with our attending for a meeting. We’ll have rounds in an hour or two after he gets back.”
Bob tapped Annabel’s arm. “Come on, let’s find some decent coffee.”
“ICU or the cafeteria?”
“We can sit undisturbed downstairs.”
“I’m in,” she said and got up.
They hastened down the hallway and then Bob stopped short. “Do you mind if we see my patient, Mr. Harty? He’s getting ready to leave and we can say good-bye.”
“He makes me think of my grandfather and he helps instigate a floodgate of memories.”
“Memories and some old people make you want to hug them like your only dog.”
“But some of them can be crabby and cantankerous,” she said as they turned into his room.
An aide parked a wheelchair next to the window and helped Mr. Harty put on his jacket. He wore street clothes and sturdy brown shoes.
“Mr. Harty,” Bob said. “Dr. Tilson and I are the send-off committee, but we hope to see you in clinic.”
Annabel stooped over and pulled up the foot pedals as he stepped in front of the seat and sat down. Bob grabbed the suitcase on the bed.
“I’m all in order,” Mr. Harty said. “This young woman is carrying the paperwork that gets passed on to the Mother Superiors in the facility where I live. That’s what I call the two women who each have their own office when you first walk in the entrance. Everything goes through them … like decisions about everything. They’re like school principals. For instance, I get reprimanded that storage space is limited so I can’t stock up on extra items when there’s an internet sale. Such as on my nonskid slippers, which I practically live in. I have two pairs and someone told me I own one pair too many.”
The aide began wheeling him out and Annabel and Bob followed on either side.
“Or, for instance,” he continued, “I can tolerate an hour or two a day on my small computer. Most elderly folks think they are actively involved with emails and the internet age by just pressing the ‘forward’ button on the stupid jokes and political rhetoric emails they receive from friends. They can’t write decent correspondence themselves, so that’s what they do.
“Anyway, the time I spend on my electronic device is the brainiest activity I do all day. Googling things I’m curious about and checking if any unseen family emailed me. Plus, I pulled off a coup and managed to break the facility’s space restrictions. I smuggled in a small drop-leaf table to place my Apple computer on. However, the Mothers forbid my chair on wheels to use with the table.”
“They prohibited a rolling chair?” Annabel asked. “Why?”
They entered the empty elevator and the aide pushed the ground floor button as Mr. Harty’s eyebrows went up. “I suppose they considered it to be a lethal weapon. Heaven forbid, I could break a speed limit rolling around in my confined space and plummet myself out the window or crash into a gawker ambling down the hallway.”
Annabel and Bob glanced at each other and couldn’t resist laughing.
“I can see it now,” Bob said. “Elderly man accomplishes a Guinness World Book record for the fastest and most creative use of a rolling chair.”
“Darn right,” Mr. Harty said. “At least I’d be remembered for something.”
On the first floor, the young woman stopped and pushed the lever to lock Mr. Harty’s wheelchair in place. “Can you two mind him a moment so I can step out the door? I need to flag the attention of the van driver so he can pull up the vehicle.”
“Sure,” Annabel said.
Mr. Harty began fastening the snaps on his jacket and continued. “And even though I’m in assisted living, there isn’t much I can depend on being assisted with. The caregivers, the CNA’s, are overworked and underpaid just like the nursing staff. I don’t like leaving my designated wing to get someone from over in the nursing home section. I walked through there the other day when residents were crying and a family member was yelling at the nursing staff. The nurses can’t help the fact that the place is short staffed.”
Mr. Harty looked back up at them and let out a big sigh. “I could tell story after story,” he said. “The other day, there was a woman over there who wet herself. Staff tried to change her but she was pounding her fists at them like you’d swear she used to be a sport’s fighter. So mean and nasty, but what does that woman know? Her mind is completely gone. It took a whole team of CNAs and nurses away from their other duties to try and distract her so they could put clean clothes on her.
“But what’s the point in living when this sorry existence is all these residents have left?” he asked.
“Those are tough questions,” Annabel said. “My grandpa slipped into dementia in the end and I counted on and was blessed by his wisdom for years before that. He’s in here,” she said, putting her hand over her heart. “We hated for him to not be the person he always was in the end. And where a person should receive their care in the end is a real dilemma for the elderly person or patient and the family.”
Outside the revolving doors, the aide spoke with a man in a uniform and then he hurried across the salted parking lot.
“The two of you are probably too naïve to realize that the primary purpose of the facility where I live or others like it is to make a profit. It makes for an easy, profitable business. Build cheap buildings with paper thin walls and no extra space, stock it with residents who pay triple the monthly fee of a nice rental unit, stick in a couple of overworked staff, and watch the bank account soar.”
“Were you a businessman before you retired?” Bob asked.
“For years, I was in one of the top four positions of a major corporation and then, after I retired, I stayed on as a consultant to the board. My medical problems and transfer to assisted living has changed all of that.”
“That must have been a huge and sad change for you,” Annabel said.
The van pulled up outside the door, the driver hopped out, and the aide came in. She unlocked the wheelchair and they headed for the door.
“You two did good work,” Mr. Harty said as Annabel and Bob took a few steps alongside him. “Thank you and keep it up.”
The man from the van helped Mr. Harty up from the chair and took the case Bob was holding. Annabel and Bob watched as they went out and climbed into the vehicle.
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Annabel and Bob po
ured coffee, paid at the register, and sat down. A man in a suit sat at the adjacent table and the cafeteria was peppered with visitors and hospital staff. The breakfast selections were slim; people were drinking coffee or eating scrambled eggs, grits, or bagels.
“I still find it amazing that Mr. Harty is eighty-seven years old,” Annabel said.
“He sure is smart,” Bob said, “and loves mental stimulation. I bet he has a thousand tales to tell.”
As Annabel dumped a creamer into her cup, she realized the man next to them was on his cell phone and she had a beef with hearing other people’s private conversations. “Too bad we can’t listen to a few of his stories,” she said. She leaned over for a spoon wrapped in a napkin and began stirring her coffee. The man beside her was not aware of his voice carrying over to her as he talked.
“All those plans are in place,” the man said. “The marketing people I hired are used to recruiting admissions into assisted living facilities.”
Bob borrowed Annabel’s spoon as she peeked over to the man. Middle-aged and tan … maybe from a winter tanning bed, she thought.
“What I had to drill into them in no unsubtle terms,” the man said, “was that I want to stock the facility with retard women. It’s easy to pick women out like that during the application process and interviews. Then all we do is add horny retard men; the two sexes can keep busy amongst themselves and no one will be the wiser. Keep staff to a minimum and if problems develop with residents complaining about anything to outsiders, who’s going to believe a bunch of daft old-timers anyway?”
Annabel’s jaw dropped as the man tapped a knife on the table and stared off, listening to the other party on the line. She gazed at Bob, who furrowed his brow, and she leaned closer.
“Did you hear any of that?” she asked.
“I missed the beginning,” he whispered, “but I heard enough.”
“Yeah,” the man said, “if you look at my financial schematic, it’s a win-win situation. I’ll need another dependable administrator if and when I open up the second one on the other side of town. Think about it.”
A text dinged on Annabel’s phone. Hoping it was Robby Burk, she picked it up immediately. “It’s Dr. Watts,” Annabel said. “Dr. Schott is back and they’re ready for rounds.”
“Good,” Bob said, pushing back from the table. “Sitting here, we overheard more than we were supposed to or wanted to.”
Annabel mustered up a critical frown and glared at the man while Bob placed his half cup of coffee on the edge of his table and tipped it over. With an “oops” and a “sorry,” they kept walking.
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The brown van pulled into the circular drive under the awning of “Winchester’s Cove.” The nursing home and assisted living facility received its name from a negligible inlet on the Ohio; the name based more on an idea rather than a reality. The driver helped Mr. Harty out and the woman went with him inside where she handed over the hospital discharge papers to a woman in the front office.
“Mr. Harty,” the woman supervisor, Dale, said, “I’ll pass along your updated medicine list to the nurse coordinator. I hope you haven’t lost all your strength and there are no more GI bleeds.”
“Me too,” he said, admiring the fresh flowers on her desk. He leaned over and took a sniff at the most natural thing he’d seen in days.
“Would you like one of us to walk you back to your room with that bag?”
“No thank you,” he said, knowing she only wanted to get rid of him. He stepped outside her door and fidgeted to open the snaps on his winter coat and ambled down the hallway with his trusty suitcase.
A woman with bright white hair pushed a walker along the carpet as she mumbled something and looked straight ahead, not making eye contact with him. Her room was two doors down from his, but she had never said a word to him. He started to say good morning but decided instead not to waste his breath.
Mr. Harty fumbled in the deep pocket of his jacket for his room key. The facility always locked the room of a resident who was away, but he laughed at that. He knew most of the stealing was done by people who worked there and if a resident stole something from someone, what were they going to do with it? And if an old person did steal, they were either one of the nasty ones or clueless as to what they were doing.
He unlocked his door and stepped into the single big room that functioned as his entire home. A baby refrigerator and a sink with a few cabinets was on the left, a bathroom on the right, and the rest of the single space functioned as a bedroom and a place for a chair. His wonderful drop-table was to the side and his computer still sat on top.
On his dresser, there were only a handful of knickknacks. After holding on to a lifetime of a few precious items of sentimental value, he had none of them. Since space was limited, the facility let him know that collectibles must be limited if not extinct. “No space, or they could get damaged by housekeeping or disappear” was what they told him. He chuckled again at the housekeeping part. If they referred to housekeeping as waving a square cloth around his room once or twice a month as dusting or cleaning other than vacuuming, then he and his wife had done it wrong their whole life.
He opened his double-door closet. Inside, the space now held almost every single physical thing left from his life … like a stack of pictures in a box. Pathetic, he thought, because “they” put a limit on how many pictures he could hang on the wall because of the nail holes they would make. That meant when he died and the room went to the next person to die in, they would have to repair the holes. He hung up his jacket and closed the squeaky door.
When he turned to his computer table, he realized his throw rug underneath was not there. Strange, he thought. The colorful piece had belonged to his parents and he cherished it; they had brought it back from a trip to Europe at least sixty years ago.
Mr. Harty wanted to sit in his recliner for a short rest before the mid-day “dinner” meal but instead walked back up to the office. Every door along the hallway was open and several rooms away he witnessed a man on the floor, a cane on the tile floor next to him. “Help,” the man inside said slowly several times.
Kevin kept walking. A CNA walked the other way and he waved ahead for her to stop. “Mr. Riggs fell again,” he said. “He’s on the floor.”
The woman heard him but disappeared into the doorway next to her. “Mrs. Underwood, you need to turn the TV down to a hospitable volume,” she said loudly in the room. “And you knocked your milk container on the floor.”
Mr. Harty continued on, but the administrator wasn’t in the office. He guessed where to find her through the double doors into the nursing section where she most likely was talking to the head honcho of the entire place. Walking through the doors, a new, yet familiar, odor hit his nostrils - the pungent mixture of urine and potent cleaning liquids.
The woman he needed to speak to was headed his way. He waited outside the doorway of Mrs. Trindle, a woman who, years ago, was way ahead of her time. She had started and owned an interior design company and had furnished upscale hotels and businesses with their decorating plans; her husband being her assistant. Her vast wealth was now left to her only survivor – a lucky niece – who rarely and only came to see her to make sure that no one was showering attention on the woman with the motive to somehow hone in on her wealth.
Mr. Harty frowned because now Mrs. Trindle was a demented old lady notorious for peeing and pooping everywhere. He poked his head in because he didn’t see her, but he could smell her. Around the bend, she was in the bathroom on all fours smearing poop on the wall. What irony, he thought, the transition from what she was to what she has become; and from being an intelligent woman running a business, now someone needed to wipe her butt. He grimaced and almost missed the administrator who rushed to flee the odors before they permeated into her clothes.
“Dale,” he said.
“What is it?”
He lagged as she pulled ahead of him to the double doors. “My throw rug that means a lot to me i
s not in my room. Maybe one of the staff accidently put it back in my closet, but I don’t see it.” He carefully chose his words. If it seemed like he was complaining about staff and they heard about it, they would inflict repercussions on him. They would pay him back because they got in trouble. Their deeds would be crafty and nasty or they’d neglect to answer his calls for help in the middle of the night. And then he would have to keep his mouth shut about that too, or he’d suffer worse.
“Mr. Harty, we’ve told you before that throw rugs are tripping hazards. Before, I was nice enough to ask the maintenance man to store it in your closet, but you retrieved it. One of your doctors said we can’t have you falling, so I had the piece removed.” She opened one of the doors and held it for him. “Don’t be late for lunch,” she said and turned into her office.
CHAPTER 9
Annabel and Bob turned into the office where Dr. Schott lounged on the sofa with a USA Today obscuring his face. Melody swung her feet while sitting on the desk and Chineka’s head was buried in a textbook. Jordan and Stuart snuck glances at their index cards.
“Scientists announced that Antarctica registered the warmest temperature ever recorded,” Donn said from behind his newspaper. “Sixty-eight degrees. Time to buy land in Alabama because that will become Gulf-front property someday, particularly for our heirs.” He folded the paper and made eye contact around the room.
“Dr. Burg and Dr. Tilson,” he said, standing up and pointing to the white board. “We’re going to see your patient, May Oliver, first. She is scheduled for her bronchoscopy and I’m encouraging Annabel to go along with her and see the procedure. Nothing like having a bird’s eye view of travelling down the upper airway.”
Annabel smiled. “Thanks, Dr. Schott. That will be amazing. Not like dissecting a lung in gross anatomy.”
“So true. Also, I believe your presence will be supportive and beneficial for Mrs. Oliver.”