Frank confirmed what she already knew, that it was none other than Vicky Lee Dooley who caused the accident, and that she was very sick, in the hospital, maybe dying, and that she asked to see her. Ever since then she felt compelled by some unknown force, something unfinished, some sense that if there was such a thing as fate, that it must be required of her to go see Vicky. And so it was with great apprehension and dread that she would do it, but do it, she must.
Allison moved slowly and painfully through the hospital lobby. She held on tight to the small spider plant she bought for Vicky and tried not to look at her distorted reflection in the shiny metallic helium balloon that was tied around the plastic planter. Her upbringing had taught her that one should never show up empty handed when visiting someone, be it in their home or the hospital. It was the thoughtful thing to do, but in this case, maybe it was something more than that. Maybe by the mere fact of offering Vicky something tangible, something pleasant, she could put some kind of buffer between them, some sort of guilt offering into which Allison could place all the years of silent resentment towards Vicky and all the helplessness she now felt over her inability to do anything to change the situation.
She had a hard time deciding what to get Vicky. What exactly do you get for someone who no longer has anything and no place in which to take anything? And then she remembered. Allison knew something that Vicky had no way of knowing… the whereabouts of one remaining possession which had once belonged to Vicky. Only Allison and one other person knew about it.
She traveled back in her memory, back to Camelot, back to Vicky’s small corner apartment on the ground floor of building 3300. She could see the rocking chair, the worn sofa with the afghan her grandma had made thrown over the back, the velvet painting that hung on the wall of the Native American warrior who looked like Mr. Universe, and in the middle of it all, the cedar hope chest. There it was in her memory, the hope chest, atop of it was a large glass ashtray with a still smoldering cigarette perched on the side. Next to that sat those coasters, the ones made from the cork-like material with beer ads embossed upon them. The old cork coasters sat there like dutiful friends, catching the condensation of melting ice from glasses half filled with brown watered down liquid. The rocking chair swayed slightly back and forth as if someone had just gotten out of it. There was the scene so clear in her mind, yet the chairs were empty, the room desolate, like an abandoned ghost town. But there in the center was that hope chest which now belonged to Sally.
*****
The timing of Sally’s phone call some nine and a half months ago seemed an odd coincidence at the time. Allison really hadn’t kept in touch with Sally, though they still sent each other Christmas cards and ran into one another from time to time at social events. Sally never married again and never had the children that she so hoped for, but she had done well for herself in the community. She sold the family dry cleaning business and got her real estate license. Allison was accustomed to seeing Sally’s larger than life, caricature-like face on signs in front of people’s yards. She chuckled to herself sometimes when she passed those signs, thinking how perfect it was that Sally was in the business of going in and out of people’s homes. But everyone knew Sally and respected her for her community and civic contributions.
How strange it was, Allison thought in retrospect, that nine months ago she would receive that call from Sally out of the clear blue. She always wondered if Sally’s busy-body-ness gave her some sort of psychic edge whereby she intuitively knew when something was about to happen. At the time she wondered if somehow Sally knew that she and Frank were in the process of separating. But how could she know that? Not even the kids knew it at the time. They thought their Dad was away on a business trip that week and had no idea he was in town staying in a hotel, looking for another place to live. His clothes and most of his belongings were still at the house. Tim was the only person who knew because he was their lawyer. But that was confidential. Surely Tim hadn’t said anything to Sally.
That was another strange thing; Tim was back in their lives again. They bumped into him that night after the symphony. Then what about later that night? There was the encounter with the drunken woman begging for money out in the cold as she and Frank walked to their car. The woman who deep down Allison knew was Vicky, but at the time she tried to rationalize that it couldn’t be; just someone who reminded her of Vicky. The Camelot she and Frank knew was crumbling, but at the same time all of the original people from their fairy tale Camelot were resurfacing.
She remembered that phone call and how after chatting with Sally for a while, Allison was satisfied that she knew nothing about her and Frank planning to split. Sally said she hadn’t seen Tim or anybody from the old Camelot days in the longest time, “but here’s the thing of it,” Sally said in her half whisper just like she’d always done when she wanted to inspire curiosity in another. And then she went on to tell her she’d been antiquing, her new hobby, and she ran across Vicky’s hope chest in an antique shop.
“It was unmistakably hers,” Sally said. “You remember? The one she used as a coffee table?” Sally had said.
“Yes, I remember.”
“I swear it still has the ring on it from the one time Tim sat his glass down without a coaster. Remember? She had us all over for dinner I guess in an attempt to kiss up so we’d quit complaining about her to Louise.”
“Louise! That was the landlady’s name. I was trying to think of it not long ago and I couldn’t recall it to save my life.”
“Remember that night? Remember how much wine we drank? That girl really knew her wine.”
“Huh?” Allison had said. For a moment Sally’s voice was only background noise whose words had no real meaning. She was remembering the scene, and she was thinking about the drunken woman she’d seen on the street, wondering if it could be, if it could really be…
“Remember how pissed off she got at Tim for setting that glass down without a coaster? It was so crazy! She was so anally retentive about that damn hope chest. The rest of her apartment was like a pigsty, but she kept that thing cleared of clutter and dusted, treated it like crowned jewels. Poor Vicky! It was the only thing of value she owned. It really is a beautiful piece of furniture.”
“It had sentimental value too. It was her grandmother’s. Her great-grandfather made it for her grandmother as a wedding gift.”
“That’s right! I remember. Wasn’t she almost superstitious about it? Like she thought bad luck would befall her if she opened it?”
“Somehow she felt she didn’t have the right. Her grandmother kept some things in there. Vicky never knew what exactly. She thought that maybe they were intended to be wedding gifts for her someday. I can’t imagine her ever parting with it. Are you sure it’s Vicky’s?”
“I’m positive. It’s got traces of some kind of gummy, sticky substance right on the side where she had that stupid bumper sticker. Remember the one?”
“Real Women Ride Harleys,” they both said in unison and then they chuckled. It was a sad chuckle; the kind that ends with a sigh, the kind that leaves questions hanging in the air after it’s over, the kind that occurs when remembering something funny about someone who’s died.
“I never could figure out how she could be so picky about setting a glass down on it without a coaster, yet she goes and puts a bumper sticker on the side.”
“That’s Vicky for you.”
“But here’s the thing,” Sally said again in that gossipy hushed tone. “There’s still stuff in it.”
“What? Are you sure about that?”
“Most definitely. The antique dealer told me, plus you can feel it in there shifting around when you lift it. It’s not completely full or anything and I’m fairly certain it’s nothing hard or breakable. It’s like cloth or material, maybe sheets or blankets, something like that.”
“Why would an antique dealer sell a chest that still has someone’s personal belongings in it?”
“He said it came that way. It’s s
till locked and he never got a key. I asked him who he bought it from. He said he bought it from another dealer. He said he has no way of knowing who the original owner is but whoever it was they must’ve given him permission to sell it, contents and all. He said he had a locksmith try and open it, but the lock was too old and it couldn’t be done without breaking it or damaging it somehow. He said he didn’t want to do that because it was such a beautiful, well crafted piece of furniture; said ultimately that should be the buyer’s decision, whether or not they wanted to break the lock and replace it with something new.”
“Oh, my gosh! This is all so weird,” Allison said thinking of the drunken woman on the streets and wondering if it really could be Vicky.
“So anyway, my question is do you have any idea what ever happened to Vicky?”
Allison did a quick debate in her mind as to whether or not she should tell Sally about the drunken woman on the street that she and Frank encountered a few weeks back. She decided not to since it probably wasn’t Vicky anyway. “I have no idea. I haven’t seen her since my wedding; and you know how that went.” Allison replied, her final words quivering as a lump lodged in her throat and tears welled up in her eyes
“Oh, my God, remember? What a fiasco! I felt so bad for you and Frank. Wasn’t that just like Vicky though, to go and do something stupid like that?”
“Yes, unfortunately it was,” Allison said blinking back the tears and feeling the bitter irony of that incident with Vicky at her wedding. A cynical chuckle escaped her lips as she thought of what a fittingly bad omen it turned out to be. “She really showed her true colors that day. I never wanted to have anything to do with her after that.”
“Well, I figured it was a long shot but if anyone knew you would.”
“So what are you going to do about the chest?”
“I don’t know. I guess just leave it for now. If I decide to break the lock I’ll let you know.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“No, I want you to be there if I ever open it. I don’t know why exactly, it just seems like somebody from the old days ought to be there. You never know, there might be something valuable in it.”
There wasn’t much more to the conversation after that. They exchanged pleasantries about Frank and the kids and Sally’s most recent community projects. Allison was anxious to get her off the phone before she broke down and sobbed and completely spilled everything about Frank moving out. She ached to pour out her heart to somebody, but Sally was definitely not the person and now was not the time.
*****
The lady at the information desk looked up Vicky’s room number for Allison. The lady peered intently at the computer screen over the top of thick framed glasses that were perched on the tip of her nose, her eyes roving quickly back and forth, her hand moving the mouse and clicking until at last she found the information she was seeking. She glanced up at Allison and said something about Vicky having been moved. Allison watched as the lady efficiently but discreetly, with a steady and flowing hand wrote down the name of the patient and the room number on a card.
“She’s in the Intensive Care Unit now. That’s on the second floor,” the lady said handing the card to Allison.
“Intensive Care Unit? What happened?”
The lady behind the desk glanced at her over the top of her thick framed glasses and shrugged. She had the curious smile of someone secretly annoyed; as if she was terribly wearied with questions she couldn’t answer, such as the medical status of every patient in the hospital.
“I’m sorry. Could you tell me how to get there again?” Allison inquired, still taking in the shock of the news that Vicky was in ICU. When she spoke with Frank the night before he said she was doing much better, that they were going to keep her a couple more days just for observation and that a social worker was working out all the arrangements to have her moved to a half-way house. What could’ve gone wrong?
The lady behind the desk gave her directions to the ICU and Allison listened with the heightened alertness of those who must respond to a sudden emergency. She felt a surge of adrenaline, a vigilant sort of feeling. It was the same feeling she had a few years ago when her grandmother was admitted to the hospital right before she died. She didn’t know why she would have this feeling for Vicky, someone who only touched upon her life for a very brief period, someone whom she hadn’t seen in twenty years, someone with whom she had nothing in common and didn’t even like anymore. But all the same, she was strangely grateful for this feeling because it made her visit seem more purposeful somehow, less obligatory. She was able to focus on the present while in this state and that’s precisely what she needed to do; for whatever the reason was that brought her there.
The Intensive Care waiting room was an area walled off by glass. Although it had the institutional looking carpet, wallpaper, wall hangings, and upholstered chairs in soothing colored fabric of slate blue with wooden arms and legs, it bore the overall feel of a place more lived in than the rest of the hospital. Chairs were pushed together and in the corner was a loveseat with blankets draped over it. Next to the loveseat was a couch on which lay a tired looking woman of about sixty, her head propped on two pillows with pink bedroom slippers on her feet. The sound of voices in dialogue blared a bit too loudly from a television affixed to the wall. The woman on the couch with the pink slippers stared sleepily and hypnotically at the TV screen, the light from which alternately dimmed and brightened upon her face. A few others sprinkled here and there throughout the room were sitting in chairs, most of them looking as if they’d been there too long, in wrinkled clothes with blankets wrapped around them, either sprawled with heads back and legs stretched out or curled up with shoes off and socked feet. Half drunken coffee cups, water bottles, and pop cans sat on end tables next to a deck of cards, magazines, and newspaper sections. One man was typing on his laptop, his suit coat flung over the back of his chair, his tie loosened to one side, and his dress shoes untied and loosened. Allison felt out of place, like an outsider walking into the middle of a family gathering.
She saw what appeared to be a reception desk in the corner but no one was there. Next to the desk were large heavy double doors that opened automatically at the push of a button. A sign outside the doors read, “Visiting Hours–Every Even Hour–8:00 AM to 8:00 PM–On the hour for 30 minutes. Please sign in before visiting.” Allison looked at the foreboding double doors and understood. They were wide enough to get a gurney through. Suffering went on behind those doors, suffering and death and lives hanging in the balance somewhere between.
Allison looked at her watch. It was 12:35 PM. She’d missed the visiting hour. What was she to do? She couldn’t get away from work until after 12:00. What would Vicky do if it was me in there and her out here? She would just march right through those doors, regardless of any signs or rules, Allison thought. She smiled to herself. Vicky used to call herself a renegade. There were obvious advantages to being a renegade. What’s the worst they could do? Ask me to leave. I could always feign ignorance, Allison tried to tell herself, one hand holding on to the plant, the other hand reaching out for the door. Certainly distraught loved ones entered the unit without seeing the sign or because there was no one there to stop them and their only instinct was to see that loved one. If it was one of her children in there, nothing would stop her from pulling that door open.
She was just about to open the door when she caught a sudden glimpse of her reflection on the shiny metallic side of the helium balloon. The distortion of the reflection seemed to exaggerate the expression of fear; an expression that no one but the wearer of that expression might read. The reluctance to open that door really didn’t have anything to do with breaking the rules. She pulled her hand away from the handle of the right double door; that large steel handle which was only one mere grasp, click and push away from entering the unknown.
Oh, well, she had missed visiting hours. At least she tried. She would come back some other time, but what to do with the plant
. Should she leave it on the unattended desk with a note asking that it be delivered to Vicky Dooley. She decided to do just that and was writing Vicky’s name on a piece of note paper when she heard a young woman’s voice call out to her.
“She’ll be back in a minute,” the voice said.
Allison turned around and in one of the chairs she saw a young woman in her early twenties curled up in the fetal position, her feet on the seat of the chair, with a blanket draped around. It was indeed a cold day and Allison noticed the temperature in the hospital was a bit chilly, even with her coat on she felt the chill in the hospital. She remembered from her grandmother’s illness and death how the hospital invariably seemed cold; particularly for those visitors like the ones she saw here who spent most of their time sitting and waiting, moving about only minimally. The young woman who called out to Allison looked like a caterpillar in its cocoon. She was so tightly wrapped in the blanket that the only visible parts of her were the upper portion of her face (from the tip of her nose to the top of her head) and her feet which were covered by worn, dingy socks.
“Pardon me?” Allison said in response to the girl in the blanket.
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