by Leanna Ellis
“No, no, no,” I whisper to no one but myself. Swallowing back the urge to step on the gas and make a fast getaway, I plaster on a fake, Dallas smile that comes too easily and hit the button to roll down the window.
“Mom”— she leans in the opening—“I wanted you to meet Coach Derrick. Coach, my mom.”
He bends down to peer in the open window. His smile is friendly. Too friendly. He sticks out a hand, which I shake quickly, then pull away.
“Nice to meet you.” I settle my hand on the gear shift.
“Isabel’s one of my top swimmers.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
“She has potential.”
Does that translate scholarship? “Oh, uh . . . good.”
My phone sounds off, this time with “If I Loved You,” a song from the Oscar and Hammerstein musical Carousel. It was a stupidly sentimental late-night download I made over a year ago. Since Cliff never calls, I haven’t had to admit to the weak moment or regret it even once. In fact, I’d actually forgotten about it.
Until this moment, when the song soars through my car like an anthem.
For a millisecond, I am frozen in place, unable to move. Cliff is calling? This early? Something must be wrong. Does he suddenly have regrets? I can’t miss this rare call.
Izzie’s eyes widen. Coach Derrick asks, “That your phone?”
I lunge over the backseat for my purse, but my phone isn’t in its usual pocket. With my backside skyward, probably showing Coach Derrick that Izzie didn’t inherit her athleticism from me, I gopher-dig down to the depths of my purse, trying to make the song stop sooner. Finally I find the phone and flip it open. “Hello? Are you there?”
“Kaye? What took you so long?”
“Hi!” I swivel and turn, righting myself in my seat, ignoring Izzie’s scowl and Coach Derrick’s raised eyebrows. I press a hand against my heart as if I can still its sudden riotous cadence.
“Thought you were—” His voice is tight. Either he cuts out or he restrains himself. “I’m here at the hospital.”
A spike of fear wedges between my diaphragm and heart. “Hospital? Which one?”
“All Saints. Can you come?”
Jolted by the fact that Cliff needs me—me, not Barbie—I clench the phone. “Yes, yes. Of course. I’ll be right there.”
He hangs up first, and I toss my phone on the seat next to me. “Get in the car, Iz. Your dad is in the hospital.”
The coach opens the door for Izzie but she steps back. “I’ve got practice, Mom.”
Maybe it’s for the best. Putting her and Cliff in a room together is like pouring kerosene on fire. I’ll call her, take her out of school, if this proves life-threatening. But maybe the fact that Cliff called proves he’ll be all right. Still . . .
“I’ve got to go.”
The coach slams the door closed as I shove the gear in Drive.
“I’ll call you later.” I step on the gas. The Volvo lurches forward. I’m three blocks away before I realize the window is still open. Breathe, Kaye, breathe.
Chapter Two
Please, God, let Cliff live. Let him live. Let him live long enough for him to say he’s sorry . . . he needs me . . . he regrets leaving, wants to come back.
It’s the moment after I speed-stop by my house to change out of sweats and put on two swipes of mascara, and as I’m driving toward the hospital that I realize I never asked Cliff on the phone what happened, why he’s in the hospital. A car wreck? Chest pains? A four-hour side effect from some medication? I give myself a mental shake and settle on Cliff having chest pains. Severe chest pains.
Fear and panic collide in my cluttered thoughts. With my hands at ten and two, I grip the steering wheel. All my self-centered worries fall behind me. I whip into the hospital parking lot, squeezing my sedan into a compact car space near the Emergency Room entrance. At my approach the automatic doors slide sideways, opening a floodgate of overwhelming fear.
What if I’m too late? What if Barbie is here in all her toned and surgically enhanced glory? What if Cliff is delusional from pain medication?
I walk straight to the nurse’s station where a busy middle-aged woman shuffles paperwork. Prominent signs forbid cell phones.
“Excuse me?” My voice crackles. Dread surges up within me. What if I’m too late? What if Cliff is having that coronary I always told him was coming if he didn’t quit eating trans fats? “My husband was brought in this morning.”
She ignores me, writes in a folder.
It occurs to me I omitted ex from my statement, but it feels perfectly normal and makes it easier to say the second time. “Excuse me? My husband—”
She holds up one rigid finger. Finally, after what seems like a whole pass on the clock’s dozen numbers, she gives a huff and brushes back her bangs with her forearm. “Name?”
“Kaye Redmond.”
The nurse poises her fingers over a computer keyboard and begins typing.
“No. Sorry.” I shake my head. “His name is Cliff . . . Clifford Peter Redmond.”
A baby coughs in the waiting area. A siren wails outside. Each sound makes me flinch, look around, then back at the nurse.
With irritated punches at the backspace key, she backs over my name and inserts my ex’s. “Not here.”
“What? But he called. He said All Saints.”
“What was the last name again?”
“Redmond.”
She clicks in the name. “No Cliff or Clifford. But there is a Redmond.”
“Could he have been released already?” I’m thinking aloud. Did I take too long changing from sweats to khakis? Maybe I should have skipped the mascara, blush, and lip gloss. “Maybe he moved to a room?” I lean on the counter, press my fingers against my throbbing temple, and imagine the worst. What if I’m too late? What if he was sent to the morgue? Irrational tears press, hot and urgent, against my eyes. Please, God, no.
Then reason, brief but clear, settles over me. “Did you . . . say there’s another, as in a different, Redmond?”
The nurse nods and studies the computer screen. “It’s a woman.”
“A woman?” My brain clicks through possibilities and I remember the call before Cliff’s. Darth Vader’s march. No, it couldn’t be . . . or could it? “Marla?”
“Yes. You know her?”
Boy, do I! “She’s my mother-in-law.”
It takes much more effort to leave out the ex in that statement as that was the only part of my divorce worth celebrating. A mixture of wariness and relief filters through me. At least Cliff isn’t knocking on death’s door. But my first (admittedly unChristian) instinct is to thank the nurse and return to my car. Then I imagine my coddled and spoiled ex-husband wrought with grief over the possibility of losing his mother. He needs someone strong comforting him. He needs me. Me! God wants to use this moment, I’m sure of it. After all, He turns everything into good, even hospital visits. “Can you give me her room number?”
“Room 525.”
Is that the psych ward? But I refrain from asking that particular question. I glance around. “And where . . . ?”
“Around the corner to the elevators. Take one to five.”
“Thanks.” I walk through the maze of hospital corridors passing gurneys, medical personnel, and wheelchairs. My footsteps are slow, almost dragging. I should have taken longer with my makeup, maybe even showered. In the steel, industrial-sized elevators, I see a blurry reflection of myself—face elongated, eyes narrowed with determination. Not exactly what “Mirror, mirror” had in mind.
I step out of the elevator and try to get my bearings. Locating the sign that points me in the right direction, I follow it down one hall, bypassing breakfast carts and doctors making their rounds. When I spot the room number, I verify the name beside the door: Redmond, M. I gather my courage as if piling laundry into my arms, but I sense my composure slipping out on the floor like wayward socks and worn-out bras.
The door is cracked open, and I inch it forward,
peer inside. A nurse stands beside the first bed. A patient (which I can tell by the bleached blonde hair is not my ex-mother-in-law) sniffles, and the nurse pats her arm. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Excuse me?”
Both nurse and patient look over and stare at me as if I’ve barged in during an exam. The patient, her face mottled red, looks about Isabel’s age. She wears a tight bandage around her chest. “I’m sorry. I’m looking for Marla Redmond.”
“Next bed.” The nurse tilts her head in the direction of a mauve curtain.
“Sorry.” I move past the first bed, edging around the moveable table with an untouched breakfast tray. A giant step over an open suitcase brings me to the curtain, which reminds me of a circus tent where I’m not sure what oddity I’ll find on the other side. What should I do? Knock? Scratch? Whisper, “Cliff?”
I breathe in a deep, cleansing breath, fortifying me with the strength I never had during our marriage, and release it slow and steady. Straightening my blouse and praying Cliff is on the other side, I pull the thick material to the left.
A woman swathed in bandages groans. Tubes spring forth from her like antennae on an alien. She looks like a mummy waking up. My hand clutches the curtain. “Marla?” A glance to either side tells me Cliff must have gone for coffee. I hope he brings two cups. “Marla?” I take a hesitant step into the inner chamber, hoping it isn’t her. Marla Redmond has never been my favorite person, but I wouldn’t wish something like this on her. Unfortunately I recognize her auburn hair sticking upward in places and matted down in others and her blue eyes—well, one eye—staring straight at me. “It’s me, Kaye.” She attempts to drink from a straw, but her mouth pulls to the side, and water dribbles down her chin. It somehow galvanizes me into action. A tissue box sits beside her breakfast tray, and I yank out a square and dab at her chin.
“Careful.” Her consonants slur, making it sound like, “car full.”
I can’t imagine what happened to her . . . a fall? A car wreck?
“What happened?” I reach out to touch her but stop short at the sight of the IV taped to the back of her hand. The skin covering her petite bones is pale, almost iridescent, but that’s normal for her.
The nurse comes around the edge of the curtain. “How are you doing there, Mrs. Redmond? Getting a sip of water? That’s good. It’ll help wash the anesthetics out of you.”
The nurse doesn’t seem to be interested in any answers to her questions and simply checks the machine next to the bed, which I realize is hooked up to Marla’s heart. At one time I imagined nothing occupied that space. But from the steady green blip on the monitor, I see I was wrong. My own heartbeat accelerates. Then with a “See you later,” the nurse leaves the curtained-off portion of Marla’s room.
“What happened?” I repeat. But Marla doesn’t seem capable of answering. Or maybe she’s simply ignoring me as she did when Cliff and I were married.
Reluctantly I sit in the chair next to the bed and stare at the tubes and wires hooked up to my ex-mother-in-law. Guilt settles into a cozy nook in my heart, as if I somehow willed this to happen. Usually so formidable, Marla looks fragile. Around the edges of the bandages, her skin looks dark, bluish, bruised.
Glancing toward the doorway, which is obscured by the curtain, I wish Cliff would hurry back. Where is he? Maybe talking to the doctor in the hallway? Or buying flowers down in the gift shop? I don’t have time to babysit Marla all morning. I’d like to see Cliff, see if I can bring him something, and be on my way. After all, I do have appointments today. Guilt once again pinches my conscience. Wasn’t there a sermon at church recently about God’s time, not our own? Cliff used to say, “I’m not tithing to hear that!” when the pastor would preach on a prickly subject. Which is probably why he wasn’t paying attention the weeks the topic was infidelity. Gritting my teeth, I lean forward, touch Marla’s hand. “Did you have a car wreck?”
“Surgery.” Her words are loose like she can’t quite handle them in her mouth. “Heart.”
I glance at her chest, then to the heart monitor blinking at me. “You had heart surgery?”
“Heart arrythm.”
“Arrhythmia?” My own heart skips a beat. “But why surgery?”
“Cosm,” she mumbles.
Did she mean because? I state my question slowly, clearly, and loudly. “Because why?”
She gives a tiny shake of her head, then grimaces. “Plastic.”
“Plastic what?” Memories of the nauseous feelings I suffered after my C-section have me searching around for a plastic container. “Are you going to throw up?”
“No,” she croaks. “Face”—she draws the end sound out like the hissing of a snake—“lift.”
My knees suddenly feel like the threads holding them together have come undone. “All of this”—I indicate the tubes and bandages—“for plastic surgery?” I stare at the heart monitor and watch the blips and numbers. Heart arrhythmia. What does that mean? That her heart is off rhythm? Someone should have consulted me. I could have told them that years ago.
I grimace at my sarcasm. Bad habits are hard to break.
Marla’s one visible eye shutters closed. She looks tragic. She went through all this to look younger? I’m not surprised at the lengths Marla would go to find the fountain of youth at her overripe age. What is she sixty? Sixty-five? Even though she took meticulous care of her skin, having weekly facials and staying out of the sun, I suppose age catches up to all of us. Would I do this? Go to all this trouble, and face possible death just to hold onto Cliff? How desperate am I?
A knock at the door breaks the awkward silence. I jump up, readjust my clothes and poke my head out of the curtain’s slit. Instead of Cliff, an older gentleman stands in the doorway. I notice the woman in the next bed has fallen asleep.
“Yes?” I answer for both women.
He glances down at the flowers he holds, which appear to be a literal garden variety and not the hothouse kind. “I’m looking for Sylvia—”
“Sylvia?” I prompt when he seems to have forgotten the last name.
“Plath.”
“Oh, well, um . . .” I try to remember the other name beside Marla’s on the outside of the door but can’t. “I’m not sure of her name. But this is—”
Marla gives an alarmed cry. She holds her hands up, waving her arms like windshield wipers gone amok.
“Sorry, wrong room.” The man backs away.
“You might check at the nurse’s station.” I move toward Marla.
“What’s wrong?” Her heart monitor blinks rapidly. “Should I call somebody?”
Marla gives a stiff shake of her head, making a drainage tube bob, and reaches for the Styrofoam cup of water. I place the straw between her lips, which are pinched and dry. “I thought that might be Cliff. I wonder when he’ll be back.”
“Wok,” she says but did she mean “work.”
“What?” I pinch the straw and water spurts out of the end, dotting Marla’s hospital gown. “Oh, sorry.” I dab gently at her chin. “Did you say Cliff’s at work?”
She nods.
Terrific. Now I’m fully entrenched in my nightmare. “Well, how do you like that?” Figures that’s where he’d hide out. His relationship with Marla can be characterized as cat and mouse.
“Kaye,” Marla’s mouth barely moves as her fingers curl around mine and squeeze tight. “Don’t go.”
With anger tightening its grip on my throat, I manage to pry loose its tentacles and draw a steadying breath. “He could have at least told me.”
“Kaye,” she says again, her voice slightly clearer, more forceful. “What am I going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
She sighs through her partially open mouth. “I’m fifty-five. Old.”
That can’t be right. I’d have thought she was at least over sixty. My gaze follows the IV. Maybe the drugs are making her hallucinate. I cup my hand over hers and try to reassure her. “You’re not old, Marla.”
�
�Don’t know what it’s like.” Her face crumples like a rumpled tissue. She moans. “Now this!”
“What do you mean?”
“Such mess. My face . . .”
Stunned, unable to believe my stoic mother-in-law (ex-mother-in-law) is admitting anything other than, “I’m fine,” I hope she’s also had a change of heart. Or maybe the drugs she’s been given are making her babble. Or the anesthesiologist could have used truth serum.
She squeezes the stiff hospital sheet, her knuckles white. Her eye wells with tears.
“Don’t cry, Marla. You’ll make your bandages soggy.” I reach for another tissue. “It takes a while to heal from surgery. You’ll be better in no time.”
She sniffs, tries to regain her composure. I’ve never seen her lose control, not even when her husband died suddenly five years ago. “Dr. Scar—” her tongue overworks the ‘r’—“didn’t finish.”
“Who?”
“Surr . . .” She garbles the word.
“What?”
“Doctor,” she says carefully, barely moving her mouth.
“What do you mean?”
“Could not finish lift.” She taps her heart. Her mouth twists. “One side, one eye.”
I draw a quick breath and plop back into the chair. Over the years, I’ve joked with friends that my mother-in-law was Frankenstein.
Now, she truly is.
Chapter Three
Living in the most affluent area of the Dallas and Fort Worth metroplex has its plusses (and a few items in the negative column). Though I’m unable to keep up with the Joneses, the Joneses are able to hire me to help sell their mini-mansions, which in turn helps me keep the lights on at my own humble abode.
Southlake teems with all the best stores from Ann Taylor to Williams-Sonoma, along with every bistro and boutique imaginable. Nip and tucked between them are plastic surgeons and day spas for the relaxing and pampering of the already pampered, places I once frequented but which I now avoid. Even though the economy has been hard hit in the past year, the parking lots full of Mercedes, Beamers, and gas-guzzling Escalades seem to indicate otherwise. Either credit cards are smoking from overuse and credit agencies are hounding the rich and careless, or money really does grow on trees. If so, I need to find that variety at my local Calloway’s Nursery and plant an orchard.