by Jackson Neta
“Uh, could you guys use a hand?” It seemed like the least I could do. “I don’t have anything else scheduled for the morning.”
“Sure. I only got this one day off work, and it’ll probably be long after dark before I get home.”
“Whaddaya do?”
“Ah, we install home security systems.” He pulled out his wallet and handed me a card. “It’s kind of far, but my boss has done jobs here before, ’cause we can beat most any local price.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.” I stuffed the card in my shirt pocket, knowing it would probably end up on my dresser until Estelle nagged me to clean it off.
The movers didn’t clear out any of the trash—magazines, boxes, old canning jars . . . the list went on and on. Couldn’t really blame them, and I told Krakowski to forget it so long as he informed the bank he had no further claim on anything in the building.
When I told Estelle about the old lady falling down the basement stairs, she sat down in a chair and held her head in her hands, shaking it back and forth. I waited until she looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “Harry, how can we move in there after what happened? It’s like . . . it’s like her ghost would still be there.”
“You believe in ghosts, Estelle?”
“No, but—”
“Well, then, she didn’t die. So there’s no ghost.” And it was too late to back out now.
“Harry! That’s not it. It just doesn’t seem right to benefit from her accident.”
“Yeah. I know. I felt that way too. But her son said he’d known for some time she shouldn’t be living alone. Now he’s finally got her in a good nursing home out in Elgin.”
“Hmm.” Estelle sat for several moments. “I’ve done a lot of in-home elder care, but sometimes a person needs more help than that. And a broken hip is probably one of those times, at least until she recovers her mobility . . . if she does.” She looked up at me. “Sit down, Harry. Let’s pray for her. Did you get her name?”
“Yeah, it’s Mattie . . . I think. Mattie Krakowski. And her son’s name is Don. He even gave me his business card.” I dug it out of my shirt pocket. “Here.”
Estelle looked at it a moment and then pinned it to her kitchen bulletin board. “I’m gonna keep this. I wanna know how she gets on.”
After Don Krakowski had cleared out all his mother’s stuff, the bank was remarkably flexible in letting me into the building with contractors to plan and collect bids on the rehab. The only restriction was that no work could begin and no equipment or materials could be left on the premises until after the closing date.
Three contractors bid on the first-floor work, and I lined up a furnace company Denny Baxter from my men’s group had recommended. We’d be converting to separate furnaces for each unit.
We closed Monday afternoon, March 15, without a hitch. As we left the title company, the overcast sky in the west began to break up, letting bright shafts of sunlight knife down to the earth.
Estelle grabbed my arm. “God is good, all the time!”
“And all the time, God is good!” I grinned at her. “Hey, let’s go out for an early dinner to celebrate.”
“What about DaShawn?”
“He’s got basketball. Won’t be home till later.”
“Hmm, guess there’s plenty of leftovers—”
“Oh, come on. He’ll be fine. How about El Barco Mariscos?”
“El what?”
“You remember, that Mexican place you liked down on Ashland.”
“Oh, yeah, Mexican seafood. That was good.”
The restaurant seemed crowded for a Monday evening, but we were seated within ten minutes. Our salads had just been served when my iPhone sounded.
Estelle gave me a warning squint. “Don’t answer.”
I looked at the screen and nearly complied because I didn’t recognize the number, but it was local, so I gave Estelle an apologetic smile and slid my finger across the slide to answer. “Yeah, Bentley.”
“Mr. Harry Bentley? Is your mother Wanda Bentley?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Mr. Bentley, I’m sorry to have to have to call you, but your mother’s here in the ER at Saint Francis Hospital, and it looks like she’s had a stroke. She’s—”
“What? My mother?”
“Yes. The paramedics brought her in about twenty minutes ago. We’ve got her stabilized for the time being, but . . . you should get here as soon as you can.”
Chapter 5
I turned off my phone and slid it into my pocket. “We gotta go!” I raised my hand to catch the attention of our waitress.
“Harry! What’s goin’ on? We just got here. Who called?”
I felt as if I was floating in a fog. “Saint Francis,” I mumbled. “Saint Francis Hospital. They took Mom there. Said she’s had a stroke.”
Estelle clapped her hand over her mouth, stifling a gasp. “Oh no. No, no, no. O Lord, have mercy.” She pushed her salad back. “Yes, let’s go.”
We stood up, and I pulled out my wallet, counting out three twenties. That ought to cover it with a hefty tip. Our actions had finally caught the attention of the waitress, and she came scurrying over, a big grin on her face.
“Is everything okay? Your salad? Can I get you . . . What? You aren’t leaving, are you?”
“Yes, we have to go.”
“Well, if there’s anything we can—”
“Family emergency.” I dropped the bills on the table. “There, we’re good.”
I helped Estelle get her arm in the sleeve of her coat, and I’m afraid we bumped a couple of tables as we bolted for the door, but I couldn’t help it if other patrons misunderstood our haste for dislike of the food.
At the hospital we headed straight to the ER, and the nurse at the desk confirmed a Wanda Bentley was still being evaluated. They let us in, but she wasn’t in Bay Six where she was supposed to be.
“You looking for Ms. Bentley?”
I turned to face what looked like an exceptionally young intern. “Yeah, my mother, Wanda Bentley.”
“They took her for an MRI. She should be back in a little while. Won’t be too long.”
“But how is she?”
“That’s what we’re trying to assess.” He gave us a who-knows shrug. “They got her in here right away, apparently as soon as she began exhibiting symptoms. So that’s good, and so far there’s only slight impairment. But we won’t know until we have more information.” The intern turned and looked across the ward. “Excuse me. I have to attend to another patient. Why don’t you folks pull up a couple of chairs and wait.”
I touched his shoulder as he turned to leave. “Can’t we go be with her while she has the scan?”
He shook his head. “No one can be in that room, but as soon as she’s done, they’ll bring her straight back here. Just have a seat.”
Estelle shook her head as we sat down. “That machine’ll scare her to death.”
“Why? What’s it do? Isn’t it just a big X-ray?”
“Hmph! Don’t know if it even uses rays! But they slide you in this narrow tube, and then the thing whirs and bangs like someone hitting the outside with a sledge hammer.”
I winced. Mom had always been slightly claustrophobic.
We kept on waiting, our conversation petering off for lack of anything useful to say. Estelle caught my attention with her eyes and rubbed her forehead with a couple of fingers. Her little signal to me that I was frowning again. But why not frown? My mom was in serious trouble, and there wasn’t anything I could do.
Finally, a nurse peeked in and said if we wanted something to drink there was a pop machine out in the hall. “Wait,” I said when she started to leave. “We’ve been here over forty minutes. What’s goin’ on? The doctor said my mother would be back right away. Is everything okay?”
“Oh, I’m sure it is. I’ll check.”
She came back to say Mom had been waiting for transport, but was on her way now.
Once the nurse had gone, Estelle sighed.
“That probably means she was stranded out in the hall like she’d been forgotten.”
When they finally wheeled her into the bay, she lay on the gurney, covered by a thin sheet, eyes closed, mouth open. A tube fed oxygen to her nose, and an IV drip hung from a pole.
For an instant, I thought she was dead. Then I saw her chest rise slightly. I waited for a second breath to be sure. “Mom?”
I was never gladder to see her eyes open and track over until they finally focused on me. She raised her right hand in a limp wave.
Thank you, Jesus; she was even conscious.
The nurse who’d gone to check on her busied herself tucking in the thin white blanket around her and adjusting her pillow. “There now, Ms. Bentley, does that feel better? Are you warm enough?”
Mom’s eyes rolled up to look at the nurse, and a smile animated the right side of her face. But I noticed that the left side didn’t seem to move.
“Can you lift your left hand, Mom?”
It moved no more than an inch.
I sucked in my breath as Estelle gripped my arm.
A doctor appeared and moved the curtain aside, asking if we’d mind stepping out for a few moments so we wouldn’t distract Mom while he checked a few more things. I glanced at my mom. She was looking at me as if pleading for me not to leave.
“We’ll be just outside, Mom. Don’t worry, we’ll be back.”
The nurse followed us, and I took the opportunity to ask whether she knew anything about what had happened.
“According to the paramedics, your mother was at Walgreen’s picking up a prescription when the pharmacist noticed her slurred speech and having trouble getting the money out of her wallet. He asked her a couple of simple questions, had her try to hold her arms up, and told her to smile at him. Apparently, she had enough trouble with all three tasks that he had her sit down immediately and called 9-1-1. So I think we got help to her about as quickly as possible. Which is good. Less chance of permanent damage.” The nurse smiled. “Excuse me,” she said, raising a finger as though she’d be back in a minute, and slipped away.
When the doctor finished, he came out and gave us his tentative prognosis.
Mom had apparently had an ischemic stroke, which he explained as a blood clot that had inhibited circulation to the right side of her brain. They planned to admit her and begin administering medication to dissolve the clot. They also needed to discover the source of the clot—he suspected her legs—and take steps to prevent new ones from forming. At that point they would assess how she was doing and design a plan for her rehabilitation. The doctor was hopeful for substantial recovery. “She still has a little movement on her left side, so that’s good. And though there’s some paralysis to the left side of her face, making it hard for her to speak clearly, the language centers of her brain don’t seem to be damaged. But we won’t know for sure until later.”
Estelle looked at me as though she wanted me to ask something more, but then she turned to the doctor. “What kind of time frame are we talking about here?”
“Hmm . . . impossible to say. Barring complications, we’ll probably begin rehab within forty-eight hours, and when she’s out of acute care, we can talk about a rehabilitation center. That’s usually most effective for the first two or three weeks. After that, if you can set her up in a supportive living environment, recovery can continue on an outpatient basis.”
For the first time, the implications of Estelle’s question hit me. “Are you saying she’s got to go to some place like a nursing home?”
He nodded. “Weeks, undoubtedly, but beyond that, it’s hard to say. There’s no telling how fast her recovery will go or how complete it will be. But if and when she achieves a certain level of functioning, there are home-based programs.”
He must have seen the shock on both our faces, because he raised both hands as though urging us to not go there. “Let’s take it one step at a time. She seems like a spunky person, so let’s just pray.”
Pray? Oh yeah. St. Francis was a Catholic hospital.
“You can be sure we’ll be praying,” Estelle said, almost fiercely, “and we’ve got some strong prayer warriors to call on too.”
We followed Mom when they transferred her to the critical-care ward and once the nurses had her settled, we went in and pulled up a couple of chairs to be near her. From somewhere—probably her big purse—Estelle pulled out hand lotion and began applying it to Mom’s dry, old hands.
She looked up at Estelle and gave her a crooked smile and then started making noises with her mouth. I got up and leaned in close as she mumbled the same thing several times, the left side of her mouth remaining still like someone who’d received too much Novocain from the dentist.
“That’s okay, Mom,” Estelle assured her, but Mom kept trying to compensate with exaggerated movements of the right side of her face.
She mumbled a long string of gibberish.
Finally, Estelle got it. “She’s sayin’ she thought they were trying to bury her!”
Mom’s eyes lit up. “Eee-ya. Eee-ya!”
I hardly cared what she was saying . . . just that she was trying to communicate. It was like she was coming back to us.
Estelle patted her hand. “No one was tryin’ to bury you, Mom. What are you talkin’ about?”
Mom launched into trying to tell us with mumbled words and wild eye movements while she pointed with the arthritic gnarled finger of her right hand.
Just then the nurse came back in. “Your mother’s getting a little agitated now. She needs her rest. Will you be back tomorrow?”
“Please, wait!” Estelle held up her hand. “She’s tryin’ to tell us somethin’. Mom, are you talkin’ about that MRI? Is that it? That big machine they slid you into, and it went bang, bang, bang?”
Even with the paralysis on the left side, Mom’s face expressed obvious relief as she sighed and closed her eyes.
“Well, you don’t need to worry, dear. That was just a hospital test. No one’s gonna bury you.” Estelle patted her hand.
The nurse pushed forward with a strained smile on her face. “I really need to check her vitals now and give her a shot so she can rest.”
I eyed her, trying to decide whether to be assertive or plaintive. Finally, I took a deep breath. “Couldn’t I just stay with my mother overnight?”
“I’m sorry, sir. When she’s in a regular room, yes, but not here in the critical-care unit.”
I didn’t see why not, but Estelle touched my arm to urge me to not make a fuss.
I leaned down, realizing as I did so that Mom wasn’t hard of hearing—at least not any more so than usual. “We’re goin’ now, Mom. But we’ll be back in the morning.”
Eyes still closed, she gave us a crooked smile, and we left.
“Where y’all been?” DaShawn scolded as we came into the apartment. “There ain’t nothin’ to eat!”
I glanced at Estelle out of the corner of my eye. Had she also forgotten? Didn’t matter. I’d forgotten, so there was good reason for the dark frown on my grandson’s face. Man! Is that how I look when I frown? No wonder Estelle’s been on me to break the habit.
I sighed and pulled my attention back to the situation at hand. “Now, just cool down, son. I’m sorry we didn’t call. We should’ve, but we’ve had an emergency. Great-Grandma’s in the hospital.”
Shock wiped the frown from DaShawn’s brow as his eyes got large. “Hospital! She okay?”
Estelle sighed and tossed her coat on the recliner. “No. She’s not okay. That’s why she’s in the hospital. She had a stroke.”
“What’s that mean? She gonna die?”
“We don’t think so. Least not now. But she’s facin’ a long road of recovery.” Estelle was digging in the refrigerator as she answered DaShawn. “Whadda you mean, there ain’t nothin’ to eat? What’s wrong with this leftover spaghetti?” She pulled out a big tub. “Serve yourselves what you want and nuke it. I’ll throw together a little salad.”
While we ate, w
e filled DaShawn in the best we could on what had happened to his great-grandma. He was sobered, and I realized how deeply he loved her. We’d become a tight family.
Later, as DaShawn watched TV, Estelle and I did the dishes and then sat back down at the table with fresh coffee. I hadn’t had time to think about the implications of Mom’s stroke, but it was starting to sink in. “If Mom’s gonna be in a nursing home for . . . for maybe months, what’s that mean about her living in our new place? We just bought ourselves a two-flat. Got a pretty hefty mortgage to meet!”
Estelle slowly nodded her head. “And she’s likely to need full-time support even if she does recover. We knew this would come someday, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Well, don’t forget—before we got married, even before I started working at Manna House, I did in-home elder care. I’m a certified nurse assistant, ya know.”
I’d totally forgotten Estelle was a CNA. “You sayin’ you’d take care of Mom? What about your job?”
“It’s not what I wanna do, Harry, but she’s family. We do what family needs, not just what we want.”
My wife’s comments rocked me. I knew she loved my mom, but I hadn’t realized how deeply she’d made “my people her people,” or however Ruth had said that line in the Bible. I reached out and took Estelle’s hand, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. “Uh, yeah. That’d be great, babe, but that’s months in the future from what the doctor said. And not even certain then. Even if she did move in, I’m still not sure it’d crack our mortgage nut. I mean, we’d have Mom’s housing money—like we planned—but we’d lose your Manna House income.”
“Ha! It’s hardly worth countin’, Harry.”
She was right about that, though every little bit helped. But something was troubling me. “I don’t get it, Estelle. We went into this thinkin’ God was leadin’ us. We prayed. We asked all our friends to pray. Buying the two-flat so Mom could live independent but still be near us seemed like a solid plan. And there wasn’t one person who suggested it was the wrong thing to do! Now I’m feelin’ the whole plan’s been derailed.”