Goodbye, Miss February

by Sally O'Brien

  “Sounds wonderful,” I said. “Andy?”

  Bonnie shook her head. “She’s NPO. Nothing for her until after surgery.” I declined the coffee and felt virtuous.

  Other hospital people came and did whatever they do with needles and vials and machines. After that, we were short on action, but Bonnie was good about sticking her head in with updates. In four hours we advanced from “your doctor called—should be here soon” to “your doctor has arrived” to “your surgery has been pushed back an hour—doctor ran into trouble with the one ahead of you.”

  The wait was like purgatory—you knew it would end eventually but meanwhile time inched along. We tested various positions for comfort. All failed. Andy’s feet hung off the edge of the bed. We talked a little but couldn’t say what we were thinking: No coffee! A rerun of The Price Is Right on the small TV set showed the man who’d replaced Bob Barker presenting the showcase—but not the one we had in mind. How about a showcase with a week on a tropical island—and a cure for cancer?

  Shortly before noon the surgeon breezed in. He looked as massive in green scrubs as he did in the white lab coat. “Well, my dear, how are you feeling?”

  “Her back hurts from lying on that cot for hours and she’s scared to death. How are you feeling?” I said at the same time Andy said, “Fine.”

  The doctor went with her answer. “According to your blood work, you’re not fine. In fact, you’re not cooperating at all. White count’s elevated and you have a slight temp.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Well, it’s not good, but nothing to worry about. You’ve got a little infection somewhere and we can’t operate until it’s taken care of. We’ll admit you and give you IV antibiotics and you should be good as new in a couple of days. We’ll do the surgery then.” And he left. I wished I’d asked whether this would upset his vacation plans.

  It took less than an hour to settle Andy into a private room that made an attempt at hominess in the form of bright yellow curtains and a picture of daisies. I thought the painting was pretty; Andy wanted me to take it down. A cross was nailed to the wall above her bed, safe from theft. Andy still wore the hospital gown (no chance yet for the vacation wardrobe) and an IV dripped into the back of her hand.

  An aide brought a lunch tray and explained that in the future Andy could use room service and order what she wanted to eat whenever she wished. She left a menu on the table and with a flourish whipped the cover off the entree. Despite several minutes of intense speculation, neither Andy nor I could work out what it actually was. She drank a little juice but ignored the very green vegetables (asparagus?), something gray that might have been meat, and plastic cup of orange Jell-O. We turned on the television set hanging from the ceiling and watched beautiful people who wore beautiful clothes and lived in beautiful houses look miserable. Some of them took off the beautiful clothes and rolled around on expensive sheets without sweating. They didn’t seem happy either.

  I was watching a blond nurse kiss a blond doctor by a sign that said SURGERY. They were stumbling into the supply closet when Andy said, “Janie?”

  “Right here.” I reached for her hand. We hadn’t held hands this much since she’d tried to get me to walk faster on our way to school.

  Andy tried a little smile that mostly failed. “I’m not ready but it’s okay,” she said. “I’ve had a good life—didn’t turn out the way I’d planned but no complaints. I’ve painted a few good pictures, seen some better ones, gone to exciting places, had a lot of fun. I haven’t finished everything I wanted to but I guess you never do. It’s okay.”

  I closed my eyes and took a few calming breaths. My mind was full of things I wanted to tell her but I had no words. Following what seemed like a very long silence, I heard myself say, “Listen to me, Cassandra Marie Stendler, you are not dying. I will not allow it.”

  Andy was quiet for a moment. Then with a forced smile she said, “Good old Janie. Ruins my deathbed speech.”

  Our eyes returned to the TV screen, and Andy’s drifted shut. I sat beside her and clung to her hand. As she relaxed, I disentangled our fingers. I hadn’t realized how hard I’d been hanging on.

  I ventured down the hall to the kitchenette where the nurse had promised I’d find coffee. Once I’d poured a cup I helped myself to crackers and little containers of pudding. Surely these were meant for starving relatives who didn’t have to be NFL or NPH or whatever the nurse said that meant no eating.

  Andy was still asleep when I got back. I learned we were on the oncology floor. Not good news. I overheard a social worker on the phone outside Andy’s room making arrangements for hospice care. “Yeah, he’s completely out of it now, doesn’t know what’s going on. Shouldn’t be long.” Thank goodness Andy couldn’t hear that. I hoped.

  By the time I’d out-argued my conscience and eaten the Jell-O on Andy’s tray, my back and leg muscles were complaining about the bedside vigil, and I risked leaving long enough for a short walk. After two trips up and down the corridor I peeked in on Andy. Still asleep so I branched out. The medical-surgical floors were busier. Halls jammed with equipment and people, an array of dark odors I didn’t want to identify, every bed with a patient, most of them surrounded by family and flowers, IV stands, plastic bags, wires. Only the number of tubes and monitors varied. I eyed supply closets warily, wondering what was going behind their closed doors.

  Between trips I checked on Andy but the nurse assured me the medicine would make her sleep for a while and why didn’t I just take a break and get some rest myself? Back to walking the halls. Two nurses pushed a heavy, flat-topped cart covered by a bedspread into the elevator. As one punched the floor button, the other reminded her that the morgue had been moved. Good grief, they were delivering a dead body!

  I shuddered at the reminder that some patients didn’t go home. Did he, or she, die of thyroid cancer? No, of course not. I wouldn’t even consider that. He probably died of old age and was looking forward to being with his wife in heaven.

  I slid as far into the corner as I could and got off at the next floor—pediatrics. Full of cheerful bright colors and depressing sick children. I knew these kids weren’t there just to play with the toys.

  Then I located the nursery. Visitors lined the window to look at blanket-wrapped newborns topped with little knit caps. Everyone beamed; some people waved. A nurse smiled at me and gestured an offer to hold up a baby for viewing but I shook my head and turned away. As I passed the elevator, I found myself walking beside a young man carrying roses, balloons, and a teddy bear. “Someone’s a new daddy,” I said.

  “Sure am. Our first. A little boy.”

  “Josh?” We both turned as a young girl wearing a robe and slippers burst out of a room. Her face fell when she saw us and she looked ready to cry. “Oh,” she said, “you’re not Josh.” Where had I seen her before?

  “No, ma’am.” He kept walking.

  A voice from inside the room said, “Give it up, Tiffany. He’s not coming.”

  Then I recognized her. “You’re the girl from the Holiday Inn,” I said. “Remember me? You were saying how your friend told you to stay there so you’d be close to the hospital.”

  She looked at me for the first time. “Oh, yeah.”

  “I guess you had your baby.”

  “I guess I did. A boy. Joshua, after his daddy. Want to see him?” She led me into the room. “This is my friend Stevie.”

  Another impossibly young girl sat rocking a bundle of blankets. Even in the teenager’s uniform of baggy sweatshirt and tight jeans, she looked unorthodox. Her spiked hair belonged on the Statue of Liberty and a painful-looking stud decorated her left nostril. Her wrists were covered with wide rubber bands in a variety of colors, some printed with words such as Intelligence or Peace.

  We said hello. Had I seen her before? Probably not. At my age, I had to admit all skinny young girls looked alike.

&nb
sp; Tiffany filled me in on the details of the birth: what she was doing when the pains started, how she got to the hospital, what the doctor said. She offered to let me hold the baby, which saved me from snatching him out of Stevie’s arms. It had been so long since Chris was this size. Joshua purred and gurgled. With some reluctance I handed him back to his mother.

  As I left, I wondered what would become of them, the mother barely out of childhood herself, no father. How would they pay for Little League, let alone college? I wanted to take baby Joshua home with me. Heck, I wanted to take the whole nursery home with me.

  Thirty

  Spending the night in a hotel wasn’t as much fun alone. I missed Andy.

  She was asleep when I got back to the hospital the next morning and I settled into the now-familiar routine of hand holding, coffee drinking, and hall walking. Andy opened her eyes and said she’d already had visits from the day nurse who wanted to be her friend and a phlebotomist who didn’t care for vampire jokes. An untouched tray featuring a melting square of green Jell-O rested on the bedside table. The hospital must buy gelatin by the ton. For sure, they should get a quantity discount. Maybe they could follow the example of sports arenas and change the name to Jell-O Hospital.

  Andy insisted she felt fine and drifted off again. I left for my daily supply-closet check, stopping outside closed doors to listen for sounds of romantic activity. What would I do if I heard anything?

  I pushed my way onto an elevator. Maternity floor visiting hours had begun, and it was filled with people of various shapes and hues holding stuffed animals and flowers. I checked on Tiffany and her baby and still had them on my mind when I returned. Andy’s eyes were open and she had a visitor.

  “Florence! What are you doing here? Andy, look, it’s Florence.” Andy’s eyes closed again but not before she shot me an accusing glare.I wanted to blurt out that I hadn’t told, honest, but settled for asking Florence how she knew Andy was in the hospital.

  Florence stopped struggling out of her coat and looked surprised. “Was it a secret?” Just then she wrenched her arm free of the sleeve and one of today’s metal bracelets shot across the room, narrowly missing a woman in a lab coat who said she’d come back later.

  “I was glad to come.” Florence continued as she retrieved her jewelry. “Betty Gibbons was driving down to the basketball tournament—her girl plays, not very well but don’t tell her I said that. Doesn’t matter if she sits on the bench—it’s a big deal just to be on a team that’s in the state tournament, something she’ll remember, you know, her whole life. Anyway, Betty asked did I want to ride along and I thought sure why not? Figured you might need, you know, company during your time of trial.”

  A housekeeping employee wandered in and swished his mop around the center of the floor. On his way out, he kicked the wastebasket on the off chance anyone was trying to sleep.

  “How nice of you. Andy, isn’t that nice?” I knew Andy wasn’t asleep but she fooled Florence. “What about the store?”

  “Closed it. Whole town’s down in Des Moines watching the games.” Florence lowered her voice and flapped an elbow in Andy’s direction. “What’d she say about . . .”

  “. . . the blizzard? She said it was the worst in years. Andy, we’re going to the cafeteria. You get some rest.” I shoved Florence through the door. The weather and the surgery, or lack of surgery, had pushed the robbery out of my mind. “I’m waiting until later to tell her about Leland’s arrest,” I said as we walked toward the elevator.

  “Oh. Good thing there wasn’t much about it on television. The snow kind of overpowered it.”

  “Thank goodness. I never thought of it being on the news.” I could imagine the story: And on the local scene, Andy Stendler’s last chance for a simple date, let alone any kind of lasting relationship, is in the pokey for bank robbery and stupidity.

  I followed Florence into the elevator, relieved to find we were the only occupants. Florence’s news report would continue regardless of audience size—and I couldn’t handle another ride with the morgue cart right now.

  “It’s the talk of Cherry Glen, that’s for sure,” she said. “He was supposed to be at this big meeting, and the town council couldn’t believe the reason he didn’t show. They said he’d done a lot for the community—pumped in major money. You probably haven’t heard the latest.”

  “What?” The elevator door opened at the basement level and we followed the aroma of food down the hall.

  “They think he robbed two other banks, one in Marshalltown and one in Eldora. But that guy didn’t wear the coat—you know, his salmon-colored one—and he had a handgun instead of a shotgun. And, are you ready for this? Leland’s wife said she wasn’t sure he owned a gun.”

  My reaction was everything Florence could have hoped for: I stopped dead. “His WIFE!”

  “Yep, back in Alabama. She’s thirty years younger and they’ve been married two and a half years, the old coot.”

  Oh my gosh, this was going to kill Andy. The person it really should kill was Leland. I wanted to strangle him myself. How could he hit on a wonderful person like my sister when he already had a wife still writing with crayons to occupy his time? Not to mention several banks.

  In the cafeteria I picked up a tuna sandwich while, after considerable deliberation, Florence limited herself to cherry pie and coffee. We found a table near a window and watched the north wind blow the snow across the patio. Florence didn’t seem to mind the draft, and I was relieved she hadn‘t wanted to sit at the picnic table.

  “Did you play basketball in high school?” Florence asked. Seriously? Had she not noticed my feet dangling an inch above the floor? After I explained the lack of interest with which coaches usually regarded five-foot-tall basketball players, she nodded. “Oh yeah, I guess that could be a problem.” She waved her fork at me. “You are pretty short, aren’t you? Do you have trouble finding clothes that fit?”

  I shook my head. “Not any more. I had to shop in the Chubbettes Department for years but then clothing companies came out with proportioned sizing: tiny, typical, and tall. I was a twenty-two tiny.” No response from Florence, and vanity compelled me to explain. “That was a joke, Florence.”

  Florence took her time putting the last bite of pie in her mouth. “Would have been better with ice cream,” she said with the air of a state fair judge. She placed the fork on her empty plate and looked around the room before continuing. “I just couldn’t let you be, you know, by yourself at a time like this. I remember when my Larry died, how alone I felt.”

  I told her she was thoughtful and explained the surgery delay. I’d quit pretending no one knew our reason for being here.

  We switched to snowstorm updates. Florence knew what everyone in Cherry Glen was doing before and after. “You know Alice Berman? No matter. Her husband lost his thumb in the snow blower. And the Swensons . . .” She paused and I shook my head. “Well, Channel 13 reported they lost eight thousand pigs when their electricity went out but it was actually eight sows and pigs.” She chuckled and took a sip of water. “Oh, Vera Hopkins’ cat died.” Now him I recognized. “And Becky Sutton lost her . . .” Suddenly Florence interrupted herself to say, “Oh, yeah, almost forgot. Here . . .” She handed me a slip of paper with a phone number written on it. “When Esther was cleaning yesterday, you got a phone call from a Marilyn about someone named Thelma. She thought it might be, you know, important.” I no longer questioned why Esther would give Florence this information.

  “Thelma! What about Thelma?” My voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

  “Why don’t you call and find out?”

  “Have you seen a phone?” I looked around in a panic.

  “Don’t you have a cell?”

  “Oh yeah.” I fished it out of my purse and managed to punch in the number. When I identified myself, the woman who answered said, “Oh, I’m so glad to hear from you? This is Marilyn
Goodman? From the bridge house?” It took a minute before I placed her. We’d played together a few times. The woman blinked like a nervous rabbit, ended every sentence with a question mark, and had to ask how to bid any hand with more than opening count. “JoAnn Bently asked me to call? She’s in the hospital but she said to tell you Thelma’s all right? Oh, I guess you don’t know? They were in a car accident? But Thelma wasn’t hurt?”

  “Car accident? What were JoAnn and Thelma doing in a car?”

  “Well, you see, JoAnn said you got a reminder about Thelma’s shots and she didn’t want to risk waiting until you got back so she was taking Thelma to the vet? Then she pulled out in front of a car and got broad-sided? But Thelma’s fine?”

  “Oh dear. How about JoAnn? Is she all right?”

  “Not exactly?”

  “What do you mean? Was she injured?”

  “Not exactly?”

  I wanted to drag this woman through the phone line and pound her head against the wall until the information fell out. “But you said she’s in the hospital.”

  “Yes, well, that’s because of the heart attack?”

  I felt a quiver of fear. Dear heaven, not JoAnn too! “What heart attack?”

  “The one that caused her to black out and turn in front of the other car?”

  “Oh dear heaven! How bad is it?” My voice cracked.

  “Well, at first they didn’t think it was too bad?”

  I relaxed a little. “That’s good. Wait, what do you mean at first?”

  “She’s had another one? They’re going to do bypass surgery and, well, they don’t know if she’s going to survive?” Marilyn stopped to blow her nose. “Her kids are on their way, from Florida and Oregon? But anyway, I’m going to take care of your cat until you get home? Is that okay?”

  “Sure, fine, thank you.” Poor Thelma. She hadn’t been happy about JoAnn and now she was stuck with this blinky stranger. I’d make it up to her later.