Let Them Eat Tea

by Coleman Maskell

Chapter 13 - Hospital in Winter

  It is late February in the Midwest, early evening, cold and dark. The edges of the roads and sidewalks are bracketed with low walls of packed snow, streaked with black dirt, with ash from chimneys and motor oil leaked from cars, with crushed remnants of dead brown leaves left from autumn. Across the lawns and fields the packed snow spreads out in every direction, covering any ground that isn't paved and salted. University Hospital's parking lot looks like a plowed field of tire tracks sculpted in slushy ice, seeded with scattered rock salt crystals, irrigated with shallow puddles of salt-melted snow. Neither stars nor moon can be seen in the sky; even the sky itself is invisible in the foggy glare of the streetlamps that shine down like cold dim spotlights on an empty stage. Occasionally a lonely snowflake drifts down, glinting as it turns slowly in the diffused light.

  Inside the hospital, in a waiting area near an operating room, the lovely and immaculate Marie Mallon reclines on a black plastic cushioned chair under white fluorescent lights. Rows of similar chairs and small sofas extend beside her, around her and in front of her, where Nick and the other faithful sit waiting. All wait to hear any news about their friend Angela, unconscious inside the operating room for the last three hours. Most of the women who volunteered for the fund raising dinner on the farm near Wright's Corner are present, their faces somber, genuinely worried and saddened. Though Angela has no immediate family, she has cousins and friends. Some of them have known her all their lives.

  "Angela's only fifty-three years old," Della says for the third time this hour, dabbing a handkerchief to the inside corners of her moist blue eyes, sniffling, struggling to hold back the sting of tears. Angela is her cousin. They've been very close since childhood. As Della struggles to keep from crying, the tears that gather in her eyes augment their stark blueness, so that her eyes seem to glow with sadness whenever she looks up.

  No one answers her for a minute.

  After a while Marie thinks of something to say, trying to sound reassuring. "She made the best little sandwiches for that rally in Columbus. You remember those, Charlie," she adds, looking over at the college student.

  He nods agreement and she turns back to speak to the distraught woman again. "Oh, Della, let's just hope and pray Angela will come out of this all right. They have really good doctors here."

  Of course Marie has no idea whether the doctors are good or not. She just wants to say something that will calm the unhappy woman, partly out of concern, but mostly just hoping somehow she'll settle down and stop repeating the annoying mantra about Angela's age.

  "It's a tragedy, that something like this could happen to our Angela," Nick offers, perhaps prematurely, but trying to prepare the others for the bad news he's sure will come. "She's been a rock solid supporter of the movement from the very beginning. Never wavered. Always there. A foundation stone of the movement. You could always count on Angela."

  He pauses for dramatic effect and looks around before continuing, "If we do lose her, we know she'll be going on to a better place." So saying, he places his right hand on his heart for a brief second and glances up toward the ceiling.

  She'll be going to the ceiling? Katrina, sitting with Charlie, thinks but doesn't say. An upper floor of the hospital? Are there better doctors on the higher floors? Probably not, she answers herself. Nothing is going to help Angela now.

  In fact Katrina is sincerely sorry for the unfortunate woman on the other side of the operating room doors. There is something poignant and incomprehensible about death. She is appalled at what she sees as soulless hypocrisy from Nick and Marie, pretending they can feel what the others are feeling, but probably unable to care about anything outside themselves.

  "Amen," Marie seconds Nick's speech.

  Others murmur and repeat the amen.

  "Join me again in prayer," Nick asks. All bow their heads, and Nick offers up a short prayer for Angela's recovery, with an alternate request for her to be taken directly to heaven if recovery isn't her fate. "Thy will be done," he concludes solemnly, and all present join in his amen.

  Everyone in the room resumes sitting in silence on the square plastic-covered cushions, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, staring at the white walls and each other.

  "Only fifty-three years old," Della says again after a while. This time her husband puts an arm around her and pats her shoulder, draws her a little nearer to him, saying nothing. With his other hand he caresses the top of her other arm. She rests her head on his shoulder, still dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief, fighting to hold back the irrepressible tears.

  Mercifully soon, a white-coated doctor emerges from the swinging doors of the operating room, looking grim, backed by two younger doctors.

  What could he possibly need with a stethoscope in this context? Katrina finds herself wondering, observing it hanging from his neck like an ID badge on a cord, or a techno necktie. The two younger doctors flanking him wear them as well. Doctor ID badges, she decides. She feels a sudden chill and shudders involuntarily, realizing Angela must be dead.

  The doctor glances around at the assembled visitors, not sure who the next of kin is.

  Everyone in the waiting area looks up at him apprehensively.

  The doctor looks toward a nearby nurse, who walks over to him and says something very quietly.

  He walks to the chair where Della sits. She stands up. Her husband stands with her, holding her, bracing her arms in his big hands, prepared for the worst.

  "I'm sorry," the doctor says to her quietly, seriously, eyes locked on hers.

  Della dissolves into tears. Her husband consoles her the best that he can, putting both arms around her. She buries her head on his chest. Her back rises and falls in rhythm with her quiet sobbing. The doctor waits.

  When she interrupts her crying after a time, the doctor continues delivering his message. "It was a brain hemorrhage. She didn't suffer. Strokes like this are unfortunately not uncommon with cases of uncontrolled hypertension, at her age, with her level of stress. There are no signs of bacterial infection or other incidental causes. It's just a stroke brought on by uncontrolled high blood pressure. I'm really very sorry. There was nothing further anyone could have done for her." Sensing the mood of the room, he adds, "She's in a better place now."

  At that Della breaks into crying again, this time on her husband's shoulder. The doctor turns and leaves silently, the two younger doctors following behind. The crowded room seems empty and hollow.

  "Her cats," a young woman finally says. "She had six cats. Who's going to take care of them now? Shouldn't we do something?"

  "We should take the cats," Nick agrees. "Find them homes if we can't keep them ourselves."

  All murmur assent.

  Della stops crying again to admit she has a key to Angela's home. It's a long way from the hospital, but they can go and get the cats tonight.

  "We probably should," Marie agrees, seeing that at least it would get them out of this dismal waiting room.

  Again a general murmur of agreement goes around the room.

  Angela has no relatives anyone knows of except for Della. She had spent all her free time working on the campaign. The cats had meant a lot to her. They'd been her immediate family.

  "Taking care of the cats is something we can do for Angela," a young woman observes. "It's about the only thing we can do, now."

 

  Going to get the cats gives them something they can do tonight, something that gets them out of the hospital waiting room without feeling like they're deserting.

  After some discussion, half a dozen volunteers each agree to take one of the cats, and several more agree to provide fallback homes if the first ones don't work out. Maps are drawn, directions given.

  With that, the group breaks up and retires to the frozen wasteland of the parking lot outside. Della and her husband head up the parade in a big SUV. Behind them a caravan of th
e mournful heads out of the parking lot. The SUV heads toward the house that had been Angela's, leading a caravan of half a dozen future pet owners, each one consoled with the thought of doing some last thing for their departed friend, may she rest in peace.