63
Three hours after I left them, Tom and my mother were still walking. I found out later that they’d been around and around the common area, up and down two hallways that led off it, and around the lobby I don’t know how many times.
Tom was the picture of patience, and where my little old mother got the stamina was a mystery. Somehow Tom had convinced her that the door we came in was “in only,” so they were still looking for the exit. Mom asked several people how to get out, with mixed results. Some didn’t answer, one told her there was no way out, and at least three pointed in the general direction of the lobby door. Tom asked her every so often if she’d like to rest for a while, but she said no, she was fine.
At 4:52, Mom stopped a volunteer who happened by and asked her how to get out. The ever-so-helpful but not-so-observant young woman pointed to the lobby door.
“No, that’s the entrance. I need the exit.”
“You can go out that way too.”
Mom stiffened. “I can?”
Tom tried to signal the girl to shut up, but she bubbled on in the affirmative.
Mom jerked away from Tom and swung her purse at him all in one unbelievably fast maneuver. “You tricked me! You son of a bitch! How could you? Get out! Let me out!” She kept whacking at him with her purse, her intent clearly to maim if not kill. Jade shot out from behind the desk, and another staff member came running from down the hall.
“Calm down,” pleaded Tom, trying to grab the ninja purse, but Mom was too fast for him, landing a couple of good whacks to his shoulder and forearm. He stepped toward her and she backed away, swinging and yelling. One end of the shoulder strap on her purse tore loose, letting the business end of the weapon bob erratically from the remaining strap as it arced back and forth. The clasp popped open and the contents flew around the lobby, a billfold, pens, tissues, checkbook, and a lipstick scattering across the floor. I watched a quarter ricochet off a gilt-framed mirror and roll across the vinyl floor to topple by my toe.
I looked up in time to see Mom swing her handbag toward the top of the lobby counter. She let go of the strap, and the film in my head went to slow motion. I could see what was coming before it happened, could think oh, shit, but I couldn’t stop the inevitable.
64
The gaping metal maw of the purse struck the vase dead on and the crystal exploded in a sparkling burst of water and glass, daffodils and pussy willows. Jade screamed and ducked. Tom pivoted away from the bouquet shrapnel, hooking a protective arm across his face. And my mother finally stopped.
My muscles slowly came back under my control and I jumped out of the chair. “Mother!” I crossed the lobby in two lunges, grabbed her by the arms, and shoved her into a chair. “Stay!” She sagged into the seat as if drained. Finally.
I turned back to Tom and Jade. “Are you guys all right?” Jade had picked up a phone and was calling for help, but she nodded at me.
Tom got the worst of it. He was drenched with water, and a daffodil was draped upside down across his shoulder. A fine trickle of crimson traced the center line of his right temple. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding,” I hurried to him and pulled a clean tissue from my pocket.
“I am?” He recovered more quickly than I did, and grinned at me. Looking at his hands, he asked, “Where?”
“Here.” I pointed at his temple. “It’s not bad. Just a nick, but it’s bleeding.”
“I’ll live. What about your mom?”
“I guess she’ll live too, although I’d like to throttle her.”
Tom was already moving to Mom’s chair, so I followed and pressed a tissue against the nick on his head. He took it from me with a nod. “Are you okay, Mrs. MacPhail?”
Mom didn’t answer. Two young men had appeared with mop, broom, and bucket and had started to clean up the mess.
“Vacuum that after you get the water up. Do the whole room to be sure,” Jade acted as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “Mrs. MacPhail, are you ready to go to your room?”
Mom jumped to her feet. “Yes. Let’s go home, George,” she called Tom by my father’s name again as she took his arm. “Let’s go now.”
“Why don’t we go see the room as long as we’re here.” Tom tried to get her moving toward the hallway.
No way.
“Why don’t you take her home and bring her back later, when she’s calmed down?” asked Jade.
“She’ll never get in the car with me again after this,” I fought back tears. “I don’t know what to do.”
Mom busily unfastened and refastened her blouse, one button at a time.
“Can you sedate her slightly to calm her down?” Tom asked Jade.
“Not without a doctor’s order.”
We were all quiet for a moment. “This can’t be your first difficult admission.” Tom used a no-nonsense voice that surprised me. “What do you suggest?”
“We could call for an ambulance and take her to the hospital for evaluation. If a doctor prescribes sedation, that will calm her. You can have them bring her back.” Jade put her hand on my forearm. “Sometimes it’s easier on the resident if family members aren’t present at first. She may be more cooperative with strangers.”
Mom seemed to have forgotten us and her buttons, and was watching the cleanup efforts. “Someone must have spilled something. People should be more careful.” She smiled at me. “Do I know you?”
I turned to Jade. “Call the ambulance.”
65
Twenty minutes later two EMTs walked in the door. One was the gymnast-looking little blonde who responded to Abigail’s collapse. She nodded at me. “Our bus is here, Mrs. MacPhail,” said Tom. “Shall we?”
“About time,” Mom muttered as she walked out the door hanging on to Tom’s arm. I tagged along behind and almost bumped into her when she stopped short. “That’s an ambulance.”
“It is! Come on, let’s take a ride.”
“I’m not sick.”
“I know. We’ll go for a ride. It’ll be fun.”
“George, I don’t have time. I have to get to work.”
“Work can wait. I’m going for a ride.” He unhooked her arm from his and took her hand as he climbed aboard the ambulance. “Coming?”
She hesitated but then started forward. One of the EMTs, a muscular young man in blue scrubs, stepped up to help her in, but she slapped him away and climbed aboard on her own steam. Mom looked around, then surprised us all by lying down on the gurney.
I started to follow them up the steps, but Tom tossed me one of those winks. “Alice, you bring the car in case we need it there.”
Right. So once again I found myself not the least bit reluctant to abdicate my self-determination for a while. By the time I walked into the emergency room the staff had told Tom to “just wait,” and he and Mom were strolling around the waiting room.
“They say we need to wait for a doctor. They can’t do anything since they haven’t seen her in action.”
“I owe you.”
“Nah. It’s okay. It was this or grading exams. This is more interesting.” I stepped closer and laid my fingertips against his cheek, turning his head for a better view of his wound. It was barely visible now that the bleeding had stopped. “Think I’ll need plastic surgery?” he asked, flashing that grin of his. I wanted to cry, or punch someone. I went to get Tom a cup of coffee instead.
When I got back, Sylvia Eckhart, hair pulled back neatly and not a speck of baby goo on her scrubs, was talking to Mom. I hadn’t realized she was back at work, but knew that they could no doubt use her salary with two babies in the house. Sylvia placed a hand on Mom’s arm. “Mrs. MacPhail, if you’ll have a seat over here I need to take your temperature.”
Mom jerked away from her. “I’m not sick!”
Sylvia did something to the thermometer in her h
and. “We can’t admit her against her will, Mr. MacPhail.”
“I’m Tom Saunders, a friend. This is Mrs. MacPhail’s daughter, Janet MacPhail.” He tipped his head toward me, his hands occupied with trying to link Mom’s arm back through his for control.
“Oh! Janet!” Sylvia smiled. “I didn’t realize … I’m sorry, Janet, but we can’t do anything if she’s not showing any symptoms.”
“Can you call Shadetree Retirement Home? Ask Jade Templeton, the assistant manager, how she was over there.”
As I spoke, Mom apparently decided to help me along. She was squirming around, trying to get her arm away from Tom’s grasp. When he wouldn’t let go, she took a swing at him with her other fist, socking him in the shoulder and yelling, “Let me go!” She leaned forward and tried to bite his bare wrist, and Tom let go. Mom pummeled his chest with both fists, shouting, “I don’t even know you! Keep your grubby mitts off me!”
Sylvia shoved her thermometer into her breast pocket and reached for Mom’s arms. “Okay, Mrs. MacPhail, everything’s fine.”
Mom rounded on her and gave her an uppercut, and Sylvia called out, “Need some help here! Now!”
Two orderlies came running from behind the swinging double doors and gently but firmly grasped Mom from both sides. They guided her back through the doors, and lifted her onto a gurney. Sylvia signaled me to come along, so I tagged close behind, leaving Tom in the waiting room.
A young, dark, sharp-featured man in a white lab coat appeared and began talking to Mom in a hypnotically silky singsong, asking questions and soothing her at the same time. Must be the old lady whisperer, quipped Janet Demon. She always responds to stress with a smart remark, this one in reference to “whisperers” who soothe troubled animals with gentle talk and body language.
When Mom had relaxed a bit, the doctor issued some orders to the nurse, then turned to me. “I am Doctor Patel. She is your mother?”
I explained, none too coherently, what was happening. Dr. Patel, in turn, explained that he had prescribed a sedative and would examine her when it took effect. He assured me that mine was not the first parent to resist nursing home care, even if it was the safest option for her. I felt a lot better when I watched them move my now-calm mother into a curtained examination area. Sylvia hugged me and said, “It’ll be okay,” and I returned to the waiting room.
“They’ve given her a mild sedative,” I told Tom, as he nudged me into a chair. “Dr. Patel suggested we leave and let them examine her, talk to her regular doctor, and take her back to Shadetree.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Tom nodded. “I think Ms.—what was her name?—Temple?”
“Templeton.”
“Templeton. I think she was right, your mom will probably cooperate better with strangers.” Considering how often she mistook me for someone else, I thought I qualified, but I could see his point.
I walked out in a daze. Tom drove me home and offered to come in for a while, but I said I’d call him later. I just wanted to curl up in my bed with my dog and, if he was so inclined, my cat.
66
I slept deep and short, and by 5:30 the next morning I was enjoying the cool massage of dewy grass between my toes and the “pretty, pretty, pretty bird” song of the resident cock cardinal. This early morning stuff was getting to be a habit. Jay was back to his normal bouncy self and elated to spend the better part of an hour reading the tale of the night with his nose while I pulled a few weeds and tried to push the events of the past few days out of my mind. I couldn’t.
My rendezvous with Virginia Scott, Fly’s breeder, was set for 11:30 in Valparaiso, about two hours away. I showered, dressed, and still had half an hour before I needed to pick up Fly at Marietta’s house. I decided to sort some more old photos. It was a good mindless job for a short time slot.
I had another half-filled shoebox of old candid photos I’d taken at Dog Dayz back when I still used film. A few went straight to the circular file. The others I put into piles by subject. As my pile of group photos grew, I put everything else aside and re-sorted those into two piles, one for photos with Abigail or Greg in them, and the rest. As I’d noticed in the photos I sorted the other day, whenever Greg was present, you could bet that Giselle would be there as well, in the background or off to the side. Some of these adoration shots went back years. For all Giselle’s imposing size, her longing for Greg, so clear to me now, had been invisible.
Surely Greg knew? Or not. He’s a man, after all. But what about Abigail? She must have seen it, especially if she spent time with Giselle, as Connie seemed to think.
I rolled my observations around in my mind until I noticed the clock on the wall. Five to nine. Time to go get Fly and head west.
_____
I cruised along U.S. 30 at about five miles over the limit and made great time. This is a straight run across the northern tier just south of the interstate that fools out-of-staters into thinking Indiana is all flat fields of corn. By some miracle, I hit all green lights through Columbia City, Warsaw, and Plymouth. In Wanatah my luck ran out and I sat behind a clean-emissions-challenged gray pickup with red cellophane duct-taped over the starboard brake light and a muffler a few inches too low and several decibels too loud. Why Indiana dropped vehicle inspections is beyond me.
The cows munching away in the big feed lot on the north side of the road distracted me from my impending asphyxiation. Give her a platinum wig and the little Hereford by the hay rack would be a dead ringer for the gum-popping clerk at the Clark station where I fill up my van from time to time.
I survived the toxic exhaust, dodged around the truck as soon as we got the green, and opened all the windows to clear the fumes. I pulled into the parking lot at the Broadway Inn in Valparaiso just before eleven. No sign of the white van with the Scotswool Border Collies sign on the side that Virginia Scott had described to me, so I got Fly and Jay out of their crates, and hooked them up to retractable leashes, and walked them in the grass edging the pavement.
Fly nibbled Jay’s ear, bowed in front of him, spun around, and bumped his face with her tail, inviting him to play. After they twisted their leashes together for the third time, I put on my boring-old-fart-human hat and told Jay to jump back into his crate in the van. He gave me his best “I never get to do anything fun” look, but in vain. I walked a more sober Fly to the grass and then to a dumpster at the back of the parking lot.
When I turned back toward the parking lot, I found I was being watched.
67
A tiny dark-haired woman stepped from a white van parked beside mine. She barely reached five feet in thick-soled walking shoes, but she exuded energy and strength. She walked toward us, waving. “You must be Janet!” When we were ten paces apart, she knelt and opened her arms, and Fly nearly upended me to get to her. The dog was wooing and whining and squeaking, alternately slurping her breeder’s face and rolling in ecstasy at her feet.
“You definitely must be Virginia!”
“Ginny, please.” She wiped her hand on her jeans, and held it out, pushing Fly down with her left. “Thanks so much for meeting me here. I’d have come to Fort Wayne if necessary, but this saves me about five hours of driving. I appreciate it.”
We chatted for a few minutes while Fly settled down a bit before Ginny loaded her into a crate in her own van. We moved both vehicles to the far side of the parking lot, under some trees and away from foot traffic but within sight of the restaurant windows so we could leave the backs open for air.
We ordered, and I gave Ginny a folder Yvonne Anderson had given me. She removed the contents and went through Fly’s registration, veterinary and health-screening records, and various other papers, including a notarized letter from Suzette saying that in the event of her death, Fly should be returned to her breeder, Virginia Scott, Scotswool Border Collies.
“Leave it to Suzette to have everything in order.” Ginn
y choked on the last two words. “Damn. It just stinks, you know?”
“I know.”
“You were good friends?”
“Not really. I mean, I saw her all the time at training and at trials, and I photographed Fly a couple of times, but that’s about it.”
“She was a breeder’s dream as a puppy buyer. Took great care of Fly and did everything she told me she’d do with her. More than everything. She was absolutely thrilled when she finished the OTCH and UDX.” Ginny’s eyes were red, and her little button nose was puffing up. “I can’t believe it. It doesn’t make sense.” She blew her nose. “I don’t believe it was suicide. Things were finally falling into place for her.”
“Really?”
“Did you know she was getting married?”
“Not officially.” I pictured the diamond ring I’d seen at Suzette’s house, and flashed back to how weird she acted when I asked who the lucky guy was. I meant the stud dog she planned to use for Fly, but she must have been thinking of a different stud.
“She was very private about it. I didn’t even know until last week, and we e-mailed almost daily. She said she’d been seeing this guy for quite a while but there were some things to deal with before they could make their engagement public.” Ginny leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I wondered what things, but it wasn’t my place to ask.”
Alarm bells started clanging in my skull. Could Connie have been right after all about Greg and Suzette?
When she continued, Ginny’s voice crackled with emotion. “The funny thing is, Abigail introduced them. Suzette’s parents weren’t happy about the marriage, so Suzette was having a tiny wedding. More of an elopement, I think.”
“Abigail introduced them?” Of course she did, I thought. She was married to the guy.
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