At the Scent of Water

by Linda Nichols

  “I can find my way out,” she said and shook his hand. “Thank you, Barney.”

  “It was my pleasure. Give my regards to Sam.”

  She promised she would. On the way past, she paused at the door of the office that had been Sam’s. She stepped inside, feeling like a trespasser.

  It was spacious, beautifully appointed. Everything was neatly arranged on his shelves. His diplomas and certificates still lined the walls, and she read each one slowly and thought about what they had cost him, both in years of his life and pieces of his heart. She turned and looked down at his desk. It was polished mahogany and empty save one small oval photograph in the corner. Of the two of them.

  She sat down and stared into it, saw his vivid blue eyes looking at her with joy and love, and she realized then all that they had lost. She picked it up and put it into her purse.

  ****

  The hospital administrator was in and agreed to see Annie Dalton of the Los Angeles Times. She went in and shook his hand, disliking him immediately. He was gelled and cold, and he had a limp-fish handshake. She took the seat he offered and accepted a cup of coffee even though she did not want it.

  “How can I help you?” Tom Bradley asked with a pleasant expression that somehow left her chilled.

  “I’m interested in the Kelly Bright situation,” she said, “and Dr. Samuel Truelove.”

  “How can I help?” he repeated, and she knew then that she would get nothing out of him. At least nothing that he intentionally gave.

  “For a start, I’d like to know the hospital’s position on the matter,” she said, and before she had finished speaking he had risen from his desk and taken a paper from the credenza behind him.

  “This is our official statement,” he said.

  She skimmed the release. Dr. Truelove . . . temporarily on leave of absence . . . until the matter resolved. Blah, blah, blah. She handed it back and smiled at him.

  Kirby had been fond of saying it was her soft southern belle appearance and silky drawl that lured her subjects to let down their defenses. He tended to be cynical.

  Still, she supposed there was some merit to his claims. She’d found that when truth was the aim, the sideways approach was usually the best. If you must look under the skin, at least slide the knife in gently, peel it away a millimeter at a time to see the pulsing life underneath.

  “I’m trying to get an angle on this story that hasn’t been done,” she admitted. “Everything I’ve seen is so predictable and boring.”

  He tipped his head slightly in acknowledgment. “The media coverage has been less than brilliant.”

  She paused for a moment and looked at the administrator. No. He had a name, did he not? She looked at Tom Bradley, and she tried to put aside the grooming and mannerisms that had allowed her to dismiss him as a stereotype. He was not a stereotype. He was a person. With goals and ambitions, with hurts and needs. She wanted to see how they were at work here in this situation. She came back to attention and realized he was watching her, sitting forward slightly. Waiting for her to speak.

  “Is Sam Truelove a good doctor?” she asked, and the question seemed to take him aback. Not what he’d been expecting, she could tell.

  His eyes narrowed, and she imagined he was trying to discern her angle so he could best see how to protect himself and the hospital. Well, she understood protecting what was dear to you, didn’t she?

  “I’m not out to paint anyone in a bad light,” she said. “My main interest is in Kelly Bright. But I’m also interested in Dr. Truelove, and I was just wondering, before this came up, how would you have described him?”

  He looked at her for a moment, then apparently decided answering her question could do little harm. “I would have said he was brilliant,” he said quietly. “A rare combination of compassion and skill and something else.”

  She waited for him to go on.

  “A grace, a gifting. You can’t put a name on it. Whatever it was, it set him apart from the rest.” And then she saw that same expression she had seen on Barney’s face—that regret and sadness, and she lost whatever remained of her distaste for Tom Bradley at that exact moment.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  He shook his head. The professional face came on again. “I can’t go there,” he said simply, and then she was torn, and she almost wanted to laugh because it was her own secrets she was ferreting out, and he was the one protecting them.

  “If I ask you how he changed, you won’t answer because you won’t say anything that will put the hospital in a bad light or open it to litigation.”

  He gave her a respectful glance. “That’s right. I won’t. In fact, the assumption that he changed is yours. I didn’t say that, nor do I acknowledge the truth of the statement.”

  She brushed all his disclaimers away with a shake of her head and tried to formulate what she really wanted to know. He leaned forward again.

  “What do you want?” she finally asked. “What do you most desire for this place? This clinic?”

  He looked at her intently, and when he answered, his face had lost the polished, plastic look. “I want this hospital to be the premiere neonatal cardiac surgery center in the world. I want people to come here from Asia, from Europe, from Africa and Australia. I want our doctors to be the legends, the ones who mark the path for future generations.”

  “Why?” She asked it gently, without challenge.

  He answered quickly and decisively. “Because we can. And if we can, we should.”

  She looked at him and realized that was the culture of this place, the unspoken assumption behind every decision. She rose and extended her hand. “Thank you, Mr. Bradley. You’ve been very helpful.”

  He was surprised and therefore suspicious. “That’s it?”

  “I think so.” She gathered up her things and left and could feel his eyes on her back as she walked away.

  ****

  She did not stop to think or eat or rest. She drove straight to the Rosewood Manor care center. She parked her car, not sure what she would do now that she had arrived. She got out, locked it, and just looked around for a moment. It was not what she had expected, and she felt an ache of pain. Somehow it had been more bearable when she imagined the girl in a pristine hospital, surrounded by landscaping and flowers, not this decrepit sprawl of concrete and brick. What difference did it make? she asked herself. Kelly Bright did not know or care where she was.

  She walked to the entrance. The automatic doors opened, and she stepped in, but there was not much more cheer in here. The air smelled of urine and deodorizer. There was a line of residents milling around the foyer in wheelchairs and a beleaguered receptionist answering the telephone. A large notice proclaimed that all guests must sign in, that all press personnel must speak to the administrator, and Annie had a moment of indecision. Should she declare herself press or just walk on by?

  “What’s your name?” Not from the receptionist as she’d been expecting, but from a wizened old woman in a wheelchair who pushed right up to her and smiled.

  “My name is Annie,” she said, smiling back. “What’s yours?”

  “Eugenia Marie Whelty,” the woman said, holding out her hand, and Annie shook it. The next sentence would tell if the woman was coherent, or if she greeted everyone who came through the door with a handshake and an introduction.

  “I was going to the activity room to play bingo,” Eugenia said, shaking her head, “but bingo’s cancelled today. Delaphine’s got the flu.”

  “Delaphine?”

  “Activity aide. They’re understaffed around here. One person out sick and the whole joint shuts down.”

  Annie grinned, all doubts about Eugenia’s mental competency removed.

  “You here to see somebody?” Eugenia asked.

  “Not exactly,” she said.

  “Want a cup of coffee? The church ladies are serving down in the Grassy Meadow lounge.”

  “Sounds good,” Annie said and followed along beside the woman’
s wheelchair. They were indeed serving coffee in the Grassy Meadow lounge, actually a comfortable room in spite of the plastic furniture. It was full of hanging plants, and incredibly, a golden retriever lounged beside the sofa. There was gospel music playing softly from a portable CD player, and another woman was leading what looked like a Bible study in the corner.

  “That’s Elmo,” Eugenia said, pointing to the dog, and he patted his tail down once and raised his head upon hearing his name.

  A pleasant-faced woman served them cups of coffee, and Annie took a tentative sip while the woman went back for a plate of cookies.

  “This is good,” she said, surprised.

  “The Baptists make good coffee,” Eugenia agreed. “The Methodists? Terrible. Watery. You put your cream in, and it looks like tea. I’ll tell you who makes the best coffee, though, is Lutherans. I come from North Dakota, and if you want to have a good cup of coffee, just put a Lutheran in charge.”

  Annie grinned and sipped, and she took a brownie when the Baptist church lady passed the plate. It was good, too, the Baptists apparently understanding chocolate as well as coffee.

  “How did you end up in North Carolina from North Dakota?” she asked.

  “Came out here in sixty-three to take care of my brother. He died, and I didn’t have much to call me back. I lived in his house until I had a stroke, then I ended up here.”

  Not much to call her back, and Annie suddenly saw a similar picture of herself at that point in life. What would she have, she wondered, to call to her?

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Six years next fall.”

  Annie nodded.

  “So what brings you here?” Eugenia asked. “Just passing the time?”

  She shook her head and decided to be honest. “I came because I’m interested in Kelly Bright.”

  “You and everybody else,” Eugenia said with a philosophical shrug. “You a reporter?”

  “Sort of. Yes,” she admitted frankly.

  “Thought so. Had you pegged the minute you came in the door. Want to know what gave you away?”

  “Yes.” Frankly, she did.

  “The big purse. All the lady reporters carry ’em.”

  “Is that so?” She would have to remember that in case she wanted to go somewhere incognito.

  “That’s so. I notice things,” she said. “There’s nothing else to do around here. I refuse to watch a soap opera, and I hate game shows, and like I said, Delaphine’s out with the flu.”

  Annie grinned. She liked Eugenia. Very much. But she had come here for a purpose. She set down her empty coffee cup with a sigh.

  Eugenia set down her cup, as well. “Want to see her room?” she asked, apparently resigned to losing her coffee companion.

  “If you don’t mind showing me.” She had no idea what she would do once she got there.

  “Follow me,” Eugenia said, and Annie walked along beside her down three more hallways until she stopped in front of a half-closed door. “There it is,” she said. “Don’t let Nurse Ratchet see you.” She cocked her head toward the nurse’s station where a thin woman with dyed coal black hair was talking on the telephone.

  “Thank you,” Annie said, and Eugenia waved and was on her way.

  Annie hesitated for a moment before tapping gently on the door. No one was in the room except the patient, a still form in the bed. Annie looked, but she did not enter. She had no business violating Kelly’s privacy. There were some places she would not go for a story. Some standards she would not violate. She watched for a second. Saw the pale face, the eyes open but not seeing. She closed the door gently. She shook her head and backed away from the door, and it was a good thing because the black-haired nurse was coming her way. She ducked out of the nearest doorway and found herself in an outdoor courtyard. There was no exit without going back through the building, and she did not want to encounter the authorities just yet. She sat down on the concrete bench asking herself the obvious question. Why had she come here, after all?

  A woman who was sitting across from her looked up briefly and gave Annie a slight nod of acknowledgment. She was smoking, taking deep draughts of the cigarette, flicking the ashes off onto the ground with practiced movements. Annie guessed her age at forty-five or so. She had blond hair with brown roots. She had been pretty once.

  “Hey,” she said to Annie with a lift of her chin.

  “Hello,” Annie answered back. She took deep breaths and tried not to mind the cigarette smoke. She was the intruder here.

  Neither one of them spoke, and that was fine with Annie. She leaned her head back against the hard back of the bench. It had been a long day already. She felt as if she had taken in too much information, much more than she could absorb. She was exhausted, and except for the brownie and coffee, she couldn’t remember eating anything that day. It was nearly four o’clock.

  “Are there any good barbecue places around here?” she asked the woman. “I could go for a barbecue sandwich right about now with slaw and some French fries.”

  “I hear you,” the woman said. “There’s a Burger King up the road and a Hardees. No barbecue, though.”

  Annie shrugged. It had been a thought.

  “I haven’t seen you around,” the woman said. “I think I’d remember that hair.”

  Annie smiled. “It’s unforgettable. That’s for sure. I was just having coffee with Eugenia,” she said. Not a lie but not really the truth, either.

  “She’s a character.” Another stream of smoke.

  “How about you?” Annie asked. “Are you visiting someone, or do you work here?”

  “I’m visiting. You could say that.” She twisted her mouth into an ironic smile. “I’ve just about lived here for the last five years.”

  And suddenly Annie knew who she was.

  “My daughter’s here,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder toward the room Annie had just looked into.

  Annie kept silent. Now that she had the opportunity to ask a question, they all seemed crass and pointless.

  “I don’t stay here all day because of my other kids,” the woman volunteered. “I got a boy and another girl. Both younger.” Her look asked Annie to say she understood. “But I come for a little while every afternoon.”

  “I imagine they want to go places and do things. To have a life,” Annie said. “You’ve got to do for them, too.”

  “That’s it exactly,” the woman said, and something in her face looked deeply satisfied at Annie’s answer. “My name’s Rosalie,” she said. “Rosalie Cubbins.”

  “I’m Annie,” she answered back. “Annie Dalton.”

  “How about you?” Rosalie asked her. “Do you have any children?”

  “I did have,” she said, and she felt that Rosalie Cubbins deserved a truthful answer from her. “I had a little girl, but she died. Five years ago.”

  “That’s how long Kelly’s been sick,” Rosalie said, and it struck Annie odd that she would use such a euphemistic phrase. Shorthand for the pain and damage, and understandable, she supposed.

  She nodded. She knew how long Kelly Bright had been here. She knew exactly.

  “What happened to your daughter?” Rosalie asked without apparent embarrassment.

  Annie supposed it was natural, considering what she had lived with herself. Unbearable facts had become a part of her everyday life. “She drowned. She was four years old. Her name was Margaret.”

  “Sorry.” Eyes that understood even if the words were short.

  Annie nodded. “She was a sweet child. She could be a little headstrong sometimes. My papa said she got that from her mother.” She gave Rosalie a rueful smile. “She loved to play outside, no matter what the weather, and I tell myself I should have told my mother-in-law to watch her. She’d been getting up from her nap and slipping off to play, and I should have known that she would do that. And them having the creek so close. But I didn’t know my husband was going to take her to his mother’s house, or I would have warned her.”
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  “What happened?” Rosalie ground out her cigarette and lit another.

  “He got called in to work,” Annie said. “And he dropped her off at his mother’s.”

  Rosalie nodded. “This was my husband’s fault, too,” she said.

  Her words shocked Annie numb. She would never have said it so baldly, but it was what she thought, wasn’t it? This woman had only heard what she hadn’t said and put it into words for her.

  “He was driving, and he blew a red light. Got T-boned by a city bus. Kelly’s chest was all torn up.” She thumped her own chest. “Then the doctor screwed up when he tried to fix it. Screw-ups every whichaway.” She took in another breath of smoke.

  “So what do you do here?” Annie asked. “When you come to see her.”

  Rosalie shrugged. “I talk to her. I tell her how her brother and sister are doing. I used to braid her hair before we cut it off. We watch the stories together. General Hospital and Guiding Light. Her father doesn’t come anymore. Can’t stand it. But I’ve got to take care of her. I mean, she’s my daughter. What am I supposed to do?”

  “You’ve got to take care of her. Of course,” Annie said simply.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then though she doubted it would ever find its way into print, she did what she had come here for. “What was she like?” she asked Rosalie, turning to her with a half smile, and Rosalie’s eyes lit, as Annie had known they would. “What were her dreams and ambitions? What did she like to do better than anything in the world?”

  “I’ll tell you, it’s the silliest thing,” Rosalie said, her face shining at the recollection, “but that kid liked watermelon rind better than ice cream.” And while Annie sat and listened, Rosalie Cubbins talked about her daughter.

  Thirty-seven

  It was two o’clock Tuesday morning, and Sam was up, reading. He had gone straight from church on Sunday back to his and Annie’s house and had found his Bible where he had left it, at the bottom of the pile of things to be taken to the Goodwill. That night, after his mother was asleep and the light in Elijah’s cottage had gone out, he had sat and read, devoured the words, searched them intently, like a scientist set on proving or disproving a hypothesis.