Organized to Death

by Jan Christensen

  “Yes,” Tina said with relief.

  “Is there anyone else with you?”

  “No. Yes, my mother is upstairs.”

  “Can she get the door while you stay with your uncle?”

  “She doesn’t know what happened. I don’t think she’d hear me if I shouted.” But Tina shouted anyway. “Mom! Mom! Come quick.”

  A pounding on the door made her start, then the bell rang. The light flashed for Uncle Bob, and Princess went crazy. She nudged her master with her nose, over and over again. Watching helplessly, Tina backed out of the room, then ran to the door to let the paramedics in.

  Laura hurried down the front staircase. When she saw the EMTs, her face turned white. “What’s wrong?”

  “Uncle Bob collapsed. I think it’s his stomach.” Tina was near tears, but she forced them back. She led the paramedics to the kitchen, then had to grab Princess by the collar to keep her away while they worked. “It’s all right. They’re trying to help.” She stroked the dog’s back.

  Laura stood in the doorway with the most helpless look on her face Tina had ever seen.

  The paramedics tried rousing Uncle Bob, but he was unresponsive.

  “He’s deaf,” Laura said. “He can’t hear you. Can’t you see his hearing aids? Oh, God, don’t lose his hearing aids. He’ll be lost. What’s wrong with him?” She collapsed into a chair and began to cry.

  Tina wanted to comfort her, but Princess was still intent on going to her master.

  The paramedics hooked up an IV, spoke to the hospital, transferred Uncle Bob to a stretcher, and started for the door.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Laura asked again.

  “We don’t know, ma’am. I’m sorry, but the doctor will have to examine him. Doesn’t seem to be a heart attack, though. Or a stroke. We’ll take him to the hospital. You want to come with us?”

  “Yes, oh, yes,” Laura said.

  “Just go, Mom.” Tina made a shooing motion with her hand. “I’ll bring your purse later. Get your coat though—it’s cold outside.”

  Tina held onto Princess until the door closed after Uncle Bob, Laura and the paramedics. When she let go, Princess ran to the door and howled. Her pitiful wail gave Tina goose bumps.

  She rushed upstairs for her and her mother’s purses, then down again. Princess howled the whole time. Tina found her orange vest that indicated she was a hearing dog, her leash, and had to set everything down to put on her own coat.

  She drove to the hospital right at the speed limit, breathed a sigh of relief when she located a place to park, and rushed in the emergency room entrance, Princess beside her.

  “You can’t bring that dog in here,” someone said.

  Tina faced a male nurse. He frowned sternly at her and pointed toward the door.

  “Yes, I can. This is a service animal for my deaf uncle who was just brought in by ambulance. Robert O’Neal. Where is he?”

  She spotted her mother sitting hunched over in a chair and started to walk toward her.

  “Wait,” the nurse called. He was blond with a Van Dyke goatee and wore green scrubs and white Nikes. Not bad looking, but his attitude stank for someone in a helping profession. “You absolutely cannot bring a dog in here.”

  “I absolutely can. It’s the law. You’ve heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act? ADA? Service animals can go anywhere with their owners. The dog’s owner is here, so the dog can be, too. She’s trained to help him and to be obedient.”

  The nurse came out from behind the counter and started to take Tina’s arm. Princess stiffened, but she didn’t do anything aggressive, Tina was glad to see.

  “Don’t touch me,” Tina said.

  “Look, I don’t want to have to call security. Dogs aren’t allowed in hospitals.”

  “Go ahead, call anyone you want. This dog is obviously better trained for what she does than you are for what you do. Haven’t you taken any classes on the ADA?”

  That stopped him for a moment. “Yes, but I don’t remember anything about ‘service animals.’”

  “You must have slept through that part. Who’s the supervisor on this shift?”

  “I am.”

  “Oh God, I should have known. Well, call someone in administration.”

  “It’s Sunday. No one here but us chickens. Now, take the dog out of here.” Again, he reached for her, but she stepped aside.

  Laura rose from her chair and walked over. “Where’s my purse?”

  Tina handed it to her.

  “There’s an applicable portion of the ADA in here somewhere—I keep it for just such occasions. For ignorant people. Even had it laminated. Here it is.” She thrust the shiny paper at the nurse. “Read it and weep.” Taking Princess’s leash, she led the dog over to where she’d been sitting.

  Tina noticed that several people were watching with interest. She waited while the nurse read, wondering what they were doing to Uncle Bob.

  Finally he finished. “Looks as if you’re right,” he admitted grudgingly.

  She nodded, took the laminated paper from him, and went to sit with her mother and Princess.

  “Any word?”

  “No. And he didn’t wake up in the ambulance. I hope it’s nothing serious, but it can’t be good if he’s unconscious.”

  “Let’s hope for the best,” Tina said. When she looked up, she was surprised to see Hank striding toward them.

  “Mrs. Shaw, Tina, Princess. I heard, so I came to see if I can be of any help.”

  “How’d you hear?” Tina asked. Stupid, she thought. What did it matter?

  “Does it matter?” Hank cocked his right eyebrow at her.

  Tina sighed. “I guess not. Maybe you could find out what’s going on. I almost had to punch out the head nurse because he didn’t want to let Princess in.”

  Hank looked amused. “You been practicing punching people out?”

  “No, but maybe I should. Could start with you. You wanna practice with me?”

  “Not today.” He grinned. “I’ll go check on Uncle Bob.”

  “Thanks.”

  Princess tried to follow Hank, but Laura held her back.

  “Why do you always bait Hank?” her mother asked.

  “I don’t know. Because it’s so easy?”

  “Really, Tina.”

  “Why do you care? You don’t think Hank is a suitable man. Especially for me. Do you?”

  “Brandon is a much better choice. I don’t understand why you don’t want to marry him. I’m sure he’s asked you, several times.”

  Tina began to feel uncomfortable. Since she couldn’t explain to herself fully why she wouldn’t marry Brandon, she didn’t want to talk to her mother about it.

  “Let’s not talk about it now, okay?”

  “All right. You’re right. This is neither the time nor the place.”

  Thank you, God, Tina thought and then she prayed for Uncle Bob.

  About ten minutes later, Hank returned. “They’re doing tests. He’s coming around. They’re thinking maybe ulcers—internal bleeding.”

  “Ulcers? Uncle Bob?” Laura asked. “What does he have to be stressed about?”

  Hank sat down next to Tina and reached over to pat Princess on the head. “I’ve read that having a hearing loss can be quite stressful. Always straining to understand. Sounds in the environment, and you don’t know what they are. You or I hear the phone ring, we know it’s the phone. Princess here alerts Uncle Bob, but he doesn’t know if it’s the phone, the door, or the smoke alarm. When he goes out, he has to be extra careful in traffic when walking, especially in parking lots. Every conversation with a stranger is a struggle. And so on.”

  “I never thought about that,” Laura admitted. “And he has isolated himself, especially as the loss got worse.”

  “I’ve read that’s a common reaction. But anyway, most ulcers nowadays aren’t caused by stress but by a very small bacteria in the gut. They just discovered this a few years ago because it’s so tiny. They have drugs that
can get rid of it rather quickly. The trick is the person has to go to the doctor and get the medicine before they get worse and bleed. Apparently Uncle Bob didn’t do that.”

  “He’s had trouble with his stomach for years. But he always thought it was something he ate.”

  “Maybe so—maybe something he ate is what introduced the bacteria in the first place. Didn’t he ever go to the doctor?”

  “Years and years ago. They couldn’t find any cause, so brushed him off.”

  “So he never went back, not thinking that something new may have come to light in the medical profession,” Hank said.

  “Exactly.” Laura sighed. “Men.” Her gaze lingered on Hank.

  He laughed. “Yeah, we’re incorrigible.”

  “But this means they can fix him?” Tina asked.

  “Ah, the gal who always goes to the heart of the matter.” Hank smiled at her. “It appears so.”

  Tina and Laura both breathed a sigh of relief. Princess seemed to sense the change in mood, and she relaxed a bit under Tina’s hand.

  A doctor came out to the waiting room. “O’Neal?” he asked.

  They all stood up. He looked at Princess, bemused, for a moment, then must have read the writing on the vest. “Is this Mr. O’Neal’s service dog?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good you brought her. He’s going to have to stay for a day or two, but he should be fine. A bit anemic, and we think some medicine should stop the internal bleeding so we won’t have to operate. He’s got several large ulcers. Too bad he didn’t see a doctor sooner.”

  Laura nodded. “Hank was just explaining it all to us.”

  “Good. We’re moving him up to a room right now. Three oh four. You can go up. It wouldn’t hurt for one of you to spend the night. We’ve put him in by himself so it’ll be calmer for him. Must be tough not to hear what’s going on around you all the time, and with another patient in the room, it would be hard on him. Right now he needs lots of rest, lots of protein, and, I imagine, his dog.”

  “Thank you so much, Doctor,” Laura said.

  “Not every nurse has dealt with someone with such a severe hearing loss. I’m sure they’ll try, but having a family member there to advocate for him would be good.”

  “We understand,” Tina said. “Mom, you want to go first? I have something to do this afternoon, after I see Uncle Bob, of course.” She glanced at Hank, who seemed surprised she remembered her date with him and Mitzi.

  Laura nodded and thanked the doctor, getting his business card before he rushed away.

  “I’ll come see Uncle Bob tomorrow when he’s more rested,” Hank said. “I’m glad it’s nothing more serious.”

  “Thanks for coming, Hank,” Laura said rather formally. She tugged on Princess’s leash.

  “Thanks, Hank,” Tina whispered. “I’ll call you in a while.” Then she followed her mother to the elevators, forcing herself not to look back.

  They found Uncle Bob awake, and when he saw Princess, his eyes lit up. Princess gave a little whine and pulled on her leash, tail wagging furiously. Tina noticed his hearing aids were still in place, and an IV line went into his arm. He was a bit pale, but otherwise looked rather well.

  First Laura, then Tina bent over to give him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Sorry for causing such a kerfuffle,” he said, and they both smiled at him.

  “You’re in deep trouble.” Laura sat down in the only visitor’s chair.

  Tina took Princess’s leash, undid it for a moment so she could loop it through a bed rail close to Uncle Bob’s hand, and put it back on the dog, who stood licking her master’s fingers. Uncle Bob stroked her between licks.

  “We’ll figure out how to get you back for the scare when you’re home and feeling better,” Tina said, grinning. “Really, we’re so glad you’re going to be okay. Did you understand everything they told you about what it’s all about?”

  “Pretty much. That doctor was really good about facing me and making sure I understood. I think he’s dealt with deaf people before. Or has one in his family.”

  “At least he was clean-shaven,” Tina said. “It looked to me as if he’d be easy to lip-read.”

  Uncle Bob nodded. “Even gave me a room to myself. That’s a relief.”

  “I’m surprised,” Laura said, “after what Tina went through with the nurse down in emergency.”

  “She give you trouble about Princess?” Uncle Bob asked.

  “He wanted to throw us both out. Threatened to call security. When I asked him who was in charge today, he informed me he was.”

  Uncle Bob began to laugh, holding his stomach. “You give him hell?”

  “Well, I tried. Mom saved the day because she had a copy of the ADA section about service animals.”

  “I guess we need to get one for you,” Laura said.

  “Looks that way, if Uncle Bob is going to continue to give us all this trouble.”

  He held up one hand like a traffic cop. “I promise to be good. Regular checkups from now on. This doctor impressed me. If I can continue to see him, I will. I promise.”

  “Good!” Tina said. “I need to go. I promised Hank I’d go see Mitzi this afternoon. He thinks maybe having some attention from a young woman might help.”

  The color drained from Laura’s face. “You can’t do that,” she said faintly.

  Tina and Uncle Bob stared at her. “Why not?” Tina asked.

  Laura seemed to come back to them from a distance, almost shaking herself. “What? Oh.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Don’t mind me. I was thinking of something else.” She looked searchingly at Tina, sighed hugely, and waggled her fingers. “Go on. Come back around eight to spend the night.”

  “There’s no need of that!” Uncle Bob said.

  “Maybe not, but you’re deaf, and someone should be here. She can rest on the other bed and act as interpreter if needed.”

  Tina bent down to kiss Uncle Bob’s cheek. “It’s all right. I don’t mind at all. You just rest.”

  “Okay.”

  Tina left, a sinking feeling in her own stomach. Uncle Bob seemed suddenly frailer, and older.

  When she got into her car, she called Hank on her cell. “I’m on my way. You want to meet me at your mother’s, or do you want me to come to your place and we’ll go together?”

  “Come on over here. When we’re done, we can have dinner and talk about things before you go back to the hospital.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Tina tried to make her tone light. Too much heavy stuff going on lately.

  Hank was waiting for her in his Jaguar when she drove up. He got out and held the passenger door for her. She brushed against him entering, and a fission of she wasn’t sure what went through her, making her shiver. He drove to the house he’d grown up in, only a few blocks from her own. It too was an old Victorian, but on the gloomy side. Dark gray clapboard outside and dark paneling throughout inside. Heavy velvet drapes, thick Persian carpets that had darkened with age.

  It also smelled old, stale. It hadn’t changed since Tina first walked in the door to play with Sally, almost twenty-five years ago. She and Sally had been good friends when young, but they grew apart during their junior year in high school when Sally became a wild child, rebelling against her stifling home life. It fell to Hank then to take care of Mitzi more and more.

  And here they were. Hank opened the front door, calling Mitzi’s name. “I always try to let her know I’m here so I don’t startle her,” he said to Tina in a low voice.

  There was no answer.

  Hank glanced into the living room, then walked through the dining room to the kitchen. There they found Mitzi, sitting at a huge round oak table in one corner of the room, drinking whisky from an elegant wine glass. Tina knew it was whisky because the bottle stood, half empty, on the table.

  Mitzi looked a lot worse than she had when Tina had seen her in the shop. Her hair stood out in strange places, her jaw was slack, and she wore a filthy bathrobe which gaped open i
n the front, showing her tiny breasts.

  “Mother,” Hank said sharply. Tina had never heard him call Mitzi that before. He strode over to the small woman and jerked the front of her robe closed. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Mitzi looked at them with bleary eyes. “Sally?” She squinted at Tina.

  “No, I’m Tina. You remember me?” Tina sat down opposite Mitzi and took the hand that wasn’t holding the wine glass.

  “Tina. You’re Laura’s daughter. Laura takes good care of you, doesn’t she? Laura was always strong. Laura always knows what to do. Laura wouldn’t have to self-medicate.” Mitzi laughed, a horrible sound, like a saw on wood. “That’s the new term, you know. What the doctors give me doesn’t work, so I decided to see if this would.” She held up her glass. “Doesn’t work any better than the last time.” She threw the glass across the room.

  Tina heard Hank groan behind her.

  CHAPTER 21

  “What happened the last time?” Tina gave Mitzi’s hand a gentle squeeze.

  “I got sick the next morning and poor Hank had to take care of me. And I didn’t feel any better. I wish I could find something to make me feel better.”

  “When did you start to feel so bad?” Tina asked.

  “Oh, when I was a young girl. Young girls are supposed to be happy, aren’t they?” She looked at Tina as if she didn’t know who she was any longer.

  “Yes, of course,” Tina said. “What made you unhappy back then?”

  “My mother was a drunk.” She looked at the bottle and picked it up. As she brought her arm back to throw it, Hank grabbed it away from her.

  “You don’t want me to have to clean that up, too, do you, Mitzi?” he asked.

  “He’s too good to me, you know. He should have left me years ago, left me to rot. I don’t deserve such a son.”

  “Why do you say that?” Tina asked. “You brought him into the world, didn’t you, raised him?”

  “Bringing him into the world doesn’t count for anything. And I fell apart after Jasper died. You remember Sally?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Poor Sally. Her grandmother was a drunk, and her mother was crazy. She probably figured she’d end up one or the other.”