The Children's Ward

by Patricia Wallace

  “I think we’re all going to be replaced by computers.” Joshua closed his eyes, leaning back in the chair.

  Simon peered at the younger man. “Is that disillusionment I hear?”

  “Exhaustion.”

  “Then why don’t you go home?”

  “I will. I’ve got to go tell Quinn…”

  “Is she still here?”

  Joshua nodded. “She was hung up with the coroner for a couple of hours and she wanted to finish at least the first tapes.”

  “I think you’re both crazy. Go home.”

  Quinn was sitting with the clipboard poised, watching the screen.

  “How’s it going?”

  “A little slow.” She reached over and stopped the tape. “I don’t think I ever realized how boring being in a hospital must be for the patient. Especially for children.”

  “Children…yes. You saw Abigail’s scans?”

  “I did. Normal, aren’t they?”

  “Normal,” he agreed. “I’ve had copies made and they’re on their way back to her neurologist in Baltimore. I hope he can make some sense of all of this.”

  “I wonder. Do you think we should tell her that the scans were negative?”

  “I think I’d consult with Dr. Campbell first.”

  Her eyes searched his face. “Do you think it’s psychological?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I suppose anything’s possible, although I find it hard to believe that she could fool all the experts. How could she know enough about brain tumors to be able to mimic the symptoms so convincingly?”

  “Is there a chance that she knew or knows someone who does have a brain tumor…knows them well enough to be familiar with the symptoms?”

  “I don’t think she could consciously plan a deception like that.”

  “Not consciously then.”

  He frowned. “It’s an interesting theory. She’s scheduled to see Dr. Campbell Monday morning; maybe you should suggest it to him.” He considered further. “You know, you might have something there. We take the family history during a work-up but it wouldn’t have to be a family member…”

  Quinn nodded. “So for now?”

  “Just maintain the status quo.”

  For a moment neither spoke, then Quinn stood, placing the clipboard on top of the video player.

  “It’s odd…it seems so long ago that I was looking at her scans but it was only this morning…”

  “A lot has happened since then.”

  “The engineer. I wish I could have done something more. It happened so fast.”

  “From what I heard I doubt if there’s anything anyone could have done for him.”

  “I called the coroner’s office…they weren’t finished with the autopsy, but apparently the impact of the saw striking his chest and then him striking the scanner was enough to tear the pericardium. There was massive internal bleeding.”

  “Poor man.”

  “He never even cried out.” She stared out the window. The rain blurred the hospital grounds lights into a smear of color. “All this rain.”

  “I hear they’re expecting thunderstorms some-

  time during the night,” Joshua said.

  “I used to love thunder when I was a kid.”

  “But not now?”

  “I think it lost its magic when I heard the scientific explanation for it.” She rubbed her upper arms and smiled sadly. “There’s not much mystery left. Explanations for almost everything.”

  “Almost but not quite everything,” Joshua said, looking into her smoky eyes. “Come on, it’s time to go home.”

  FRIDAY

  Sixty-one

  Hortense had always been an early riser. In all of her fifty-three years she could never recall having slept past five a.m. It was something that had caused a few conflicts—her mother had insisted, awake or not, that she stay in bed until seven—and may have even influenced her decision not to marry. Regardless, she liked to be up and busy before the sun rose.

  She had, years before, found her niche; working early morning shifts at the hospital. She had worked briefly as a transcriber before transferring to admitting, where she had established herself as something of a fixture. Monday through Friday, six-thirty to three, and never a sick day in her life.

  She had a routine. Arrive at six, lock her purse in her desk drawer, go to emergency to pick up the admitting logbook and any paperwork from night admissions, then a quick tour of the hospital for the latest gossip.

  This morning, as she had expected, there was a lot of it. She had heard about the engineer moments after it happened and even knew about the therapist although Hortense was home when the body was discovered. The evening admitting secretary had called her with the news although with very little detail.

  Now the hospital was bursting with speculation. How could things like this happen?

  Hortense had her own theory: the engineer’s death was clearly an accident, but the therapist may have killed herself in grief at his loss. Yes, the man was married but even having spent fifty-three years as a spinster, Hortense knew that married was not the same as…dead.

  In fact, given a moment to think about it, Hortense could probably name at least ten married men working at the hospital who were carrying on with someone else.

  It was one of the things about working at the hospital that had shocked her at first; there was an atmosphere of blatant physical lust which, sooner or later, culminated in sin.

  Hortense was one of the lucky ones who was above such goings on. But she knew about them.

  And strongly suspected that there was some kind of a relationship between the dearly departed.

  The consensus in the hospital, however, was that it was nothing more than a coincidence. There was no proof that the therapist had even been aware of the incident in Radiology.

  Hortense listened skeptically as the night shift engineer (who everyone knew spent most of his time sleeping on the job) suggested that the girl had been trying to retrieve something from the whirlpool and had fallen in headfirst, striking herself unconscious.

  Not likely, she thought, pursing her lips and keeping silent. Hortense read murder mysteries and she knew that the center of gravity in the woman’s body was low enough that she’d have to be maybe two feet off the ground to have had the momentum to fall in that way.

  It was almost six-thirty and Hortense, with one last smirk at the night engineer, hurried off to punch in.

  Admitting was always quiet on Friday mornings, so Hortense was a little surprised to hear the computer printer tapping away in the back room.

  Ignoring it for the moment, she began her morning’s work by pulling the forms for the scheduled admissions. There were only two and both were “regulars,” patients who had long-term illnesses and were in and out of the hospital as often as once a month.

  Neither of them would be in before noon but she completed their paperwork, assigned rooms and made their plastic identity plates. The official procedure was not to make the plates until the patients were actually in the hospital, but Hortense, as the senior admitting secretary, preferred to have everything done so that when the patient arrived it was sign the consent form, sign insurance forms, put on the I.D. bracelet, and up to the room.

  Finished, she went into her office and turned on the computer. It took a few seconds for the screen to come up. She typed in her identification code.

  The computer ignored her.

  She repeated the command.

  Access denied.

  Hortense did not approve of cussing, so it was with some surprise that she heard herself say “Damn.” She also heard the printer, still working at full speed.

  The system had to be overloaded or else someone had erased her identification code from the memory.

  She would see what was being printed out. It might provide a clue as to who was messing up the system.

  Unlocking the door to the print-out room, she flicked on the light.

  Piles of computer pa
per covered the floor.

  She hit the interrupt key and waited for the buffer to be emptied. The printer stopped.

  Bending over, she picked up an armful of papers, tearing the last printed sheet from the machine.

  It took her a minute before she realized what she was seeing.

  The computer had discharged every patient in the hospital; it was printing out itemized bills on more than four hundred patients.

  Someone would have to go into each patient’s computer file and correct the errors.

  “God damn computer.”

  Sixty-two

  Betty Jo could not believe it: as hot as it was yesterday on the medical floor, it was equally as cold today on surgical. It was so cold that she could barely hold onto her pen, her fingers were so stiff.

  After about fifteen minutes of feeling ice-cold air pouring down the back of her neck, she was yearning nostalgically for the tropical climate on medical.

  “Don’t tell me,” she said, to anyone who might be listening, “this is a new experiment in cryogenics. They’re going to freeze us all and bring us back when there’s a cure for stupidity. Meaning the engineers, plural.”

  “Don’t worry, Betty,” the charge nurse said, “I’ve already called about it and they said twenty minutes, tops.”

  “With engineering, twenty minutes could mean Easter.” She gave up trying to write and put her fingers in her armpits for warmth. Was it her imagination, or was her breath frosting as she spoke.

  “Have some coffee and don’t worry about it,” the charge nurse suggested.

  “I am sure,” she said, “that the wooly mammoths on the plains of Siberia said to one another: ‘Have some more buttercups, and don’t worry about it.’ “

  The charge nurse laughed.

  But, with an open invitation to get coffee, Betty Jo thought she might as well.

  As her grandfather always said, it couldn’t hurt.

  “Hear anything from engineering?” she asked when she got back, exactly twenty minutes later.

  “They’re sending someone up.”

  “Brave group,” Betty Jo said, sitting at the desk.

  “They said the computer shows that it’s seventy degrees up here,” the charge nurse continued. “What’s happening, engineering says, is that it’s only supposed to be sixty-eight degrees, so the automatic air-conditioning is trying to cool us down. And it’s been trying for a while now.”

  “Well, all I can say is, I hope none of the patients needs an enema because I’m not going to be the one to break up the ice when it freezes up their—”

  “Betty Jo!”

  Sixty-three

  Abigail carefully punctured the yolk of her egg with one tine of the fork, then pressed down on the center of the egg. Thick yellow egg yolk seeped out of the hole.

  It had been a long time since Abigail had been served an over-easy egg; her grandmother preferred scrambled.

  She selected a triangle of toast and began to transfer the egg yolk from the plate to the toast, spreading the yolk like butter until the toast was covered with it.

  Eyes half-closed, she bit into the toast.

  It was as good as she had expected it to be. Wanting to make it last as long as possible, she took tiny bites, savoring the texture of the yolk-laden toast.

  When she had finished, she looked at the remainder of the egg. Tasteless, but the nurse would expect her to finish it. Instead she cut it into pieces and then hid the pieces in her empty milk carton.

  She ate the two slices of overcooked bacon and finished the toast. Hungry still, she lifted the lid off the bowl of cooked cereal. Lumpy and gray.

  She wasn’t that hungry.

  Nobody was that hungry.

  Abigail looked over at Courtney.

  Courtney had not slept well during the night, if she slept at all.

  Courtney was resisting.

  Courtney did not want to dream.

  Abigail understood this without knowing how she knew. She also understood that Courtney was getting sleepier.

  Abigail smiled.

  Outside, the rain was coming down steadily.

  At home Abigail had always looked forward to rainy days. Somehow it was quieter then, and she would open her bedroom window so that she could hear the rain sound. Even cars driving by were a part of it, the hiss of tires on wet asphalt.

  Alone in her room she would be soothed by the cool fresh air and the wet smells.

  If her grandmother was otherwise occupied, she would sneak out after a while, in rubber boots and her rain slicker, to find the deepest puddle and stand in it. Not to splash—grandmother would never permit that— but just to stand, letting the cold numb her stockinged feet inside the boots.

  Then she would look for earthworms.

  Repulsed but fascinated, she could watch them for hours. An older child had told her that you could cut them in two and rather than having a dead earthworm, you’d have two live earthworms. But she had never done it. She saw nothing to be gained by doubling the number of earthworms.

  Still, they were interesting to watch.

  Usually, she would remember to go home before her grandmother came out to look for her but sometimes she’d be startled by a hand gripping her arm and pulling her to her feet.

  “Look at you,” her grandmother would say. “You’re drenching wet. Come inside now before you catch cold.”

  And Abigail would be pulled along, her legs moving as fast as they could to keep up with grandmother’s stride. Sometimes she would slip and be lifted off both feet, held up by one arm.

  She remembered that…dangling in the air, one arm held painfully, her shoulder aching, unable to reach the ground. She remembered grandmother’s eyes, glaring at her like…just once…she’d like to let Abigail fall to the ground.

  She focused her eyes, blinking.

  Hammering.

  A workman was up on a ladder, pounding nails into a shelf which he had mounted high on the wall between Tessi’s and Courtney’s beds.

  Courtney was watching with heavy-lidded eyes. Tessi had her hands over her ears, blocking out the noise.

  Russell’s bed was empty.

  A second workman pushed through the double doors carrying a television set. He balanced it on a rung of the ladder.

  Abigail looked at Courtney and was certain that she had not yet fallen asleep.

  All that noise.

  She looked back at the workmen who had destroyed the peaceful morning. They were lifting the television onto the shelf. Almost done, then.

  A few more minutes wouldn’t matter, she decided.

  Sixty-four

  “It looks like a big iron lung,” Russell said.

  “How would a kid like you know about an iron lung?” The technician pushed Russell’s wheelchair closer to the hyperbaric chamber.

  “I read a lot. I’ve seen pictures of people who had polio…in iron lungs.”

  The technician raised his eyebrows. “Whadda ya know. A smart kid.” He went to the end of the chamber and unsealed the door. “You’re not gonna fit in here in that thing.” He indicated the wheelchair. “Can you walk at all?”

  Russell shook his head.

  “Great. So I get to carry you.” He eyed Russell critically. “Well, you don’t look too heavy at least. I’ll tell you I’ve had some two-hundred pound cripples that I had to muscle in there.”

  The technician picked the boy up easily, carrying him to the chamber door.

  “Watch your head,” he ordered.

  It was smaller inside than Russell had expected. With so little room to move in, the technician jostled him about, bumping Russell’s legs in the process.

  “Ya can’t feel that, can you?”

  “No,” Russell said, tight-lipped.

  “Well, there you are.” The technician was breathing hard, sitting back on his heels opposite the narrow padded treatment table. “I’d better strap you in,” he gasped but did not move.

  “I can do it,” Russell said, pulling up o
n the leather straps and crossing them over his chest.

  The technician nodded, then reached overhead and flicked several switches on the chamber’s curved ceiling.

  “Now you’ll be able to hear me and I’ll hear you.” Crouched over, he walked toward the chamber door. “Hope you’re not claustrophobic.” Then he was out and the door was swinging shut.

  Inside the silver chamber, Russell crossed his fingers for luck.

  The technician, who had been reading a magazine, stood up when Joshua entered the room.

  “Dr. Fuller…”

  “How is he doing?”

  “Fine. Been in for, let’s see, twenty minutes.”

  Joshua went up to the chamber and looked through the porthole. Russell was lying, hands folded across his stomach. “Let me talk to him.”

  The technician took off the headset and handed it to Joshua.

  “Russell,” Joshua said. “It’s Dr. Fuller. Can you hear me?”

  Russell’s voice, though faint, was clear.

  “Hi, Dr. Fuller.”

  “How are you doing in there?”

  “Okay. What’s the oxygen percentage?”

  Joshua looked at the LED display. “About fifteen.”

  A hesitation. “That’s okay for the first treatment, I guess.”

  “I think so. Listen, I’ll see you after you come out.” He looked back through the porthole. Russell waved.

  Joshua handed the headset back to the technician.

  “What does a kid like that know about oxygen percentages?” the technician asked, putting the headset back on.

  “Are you kidding? This whole thing is his idea. He read about a doctor who’s using hyperbaric therapy in spinal cord injuries, and getting results.”

  “But those are fresh injuries,” the technician protested. “His DOI is twenty-five or twenty-six months ago.”

  “He wanted to try it. And who am I to tell him that he can’t?”

  “Yeah, but if it isn’t going to help…”

  “Who’s to say it isn’t? If he really believes it will help him, maybe it will. If nothing else, when this is all over, he’ll know that he got every chance.” He patted the polished silver surface of the chamber. “Good luck, Russell.”