The Plague Doctor

by E. Joan Sims

  “Her kids aren’t going to like pasta salad. I’ll make them some peanut butter and jelly.”

  “Yes, and I suppose you’ll eat one for every two you fix for the children.”

  “Que sera, sera.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Mabel and her husband Apollo lived a short distance down the road from us, which put them fairly far out in the country. Their double-wide trailer was nestled in a hollow on five acres of beautiful green lawn surrounded by miles of white picket fence. They also owned fifty acres across the road where Apollo grew tobacco and kept ponies for his children. Besides growing tobacco, he sometimes worked three jobs at once to keep his family fed and clothed in the manner he felt they should become accustomed to. He had already helped three older children through state university and was busy preparing the road for the next three. Apollo had my vote for Father of the Year.

  When we neared the house, there was silence instead of the usual noisy gathering of children and animals. Apollo appeared at the door and ushered us quietly into the spotless living room. He was a little bantam rooster of a man no taller than Mother and a lot shorter than Cassie. On a normal day he was so enthusiastic and energetic that he seemed bigger. Today he was dwarfed by worries.

  He made a grave and graceful speech of welcome once we were all inside.

  “Miz Sterling you don’t know how much I appreciates your coming. We thank you kindly for the food and the company.”

  “Apollo, you know we would have come sooner if you had just let us know Mabel was not feeling well. When did she become ill?”

  “That’s just it. You know how that ole woman of mine is. She’s so ornery she hardly tells a body anything. I just found out myself last night. I had to practically squeeze it out of her. Maybe she’ll tell you more. Would you talk to her, please? You, too, Miz Paisley, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course, Apollo,” said Mother as she patted his shoulder reassuringly. “Why don’t you and Cassandra feed the children some of those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?” She winked. “They’re a specialty of Paisley’s. And there’s some pasta salad and roast beef in those other containers. Better set them in the refrigerator.”

  I followed Mother back to the master bedroom at the rear of the double-wide where Mabel lay huddled in the middle of the bed. A meticulously stitched and very beautiful double wedding ring quilt was pulled up almost over her head. When she heard us coming and tried to sit up, the cover slipped back and revealed her pale, strained features.

  “Mabel! What’s the matter?” gasped Mother.

  “Miz Sterling, praise the Lord, and thank you for coming.”

  She grasped Mother’s hand tightly with her own.

  “I didn’t want to scare Apollo, but I think I’m gonna lose this baby.”

  She broke down, crying softly.

  “Nonsense, Mabel! We won’t let that happen. Come, Paisley. Help me get her up. We’re going to take her to the hospital right now.”

  “I can’t do that, Miz Sterling. You know how stubborn that ole man of mine is. He won’t accept any help from the county, and we just don’t have hospital money right now. He hasn’t sold the tobacco yet. We were countin’ on that money coming in before the baby came.”

  “Mabel, I don’t want you to worry another minute about money. That’s what friends are for. Paisley, hand me her houserobe and those slippers.”

  “He won’t take your money, either, Miz Sterling. You know as well as I do how he is.”

  She suddenly doubled over in pain.

  I could tell that Mother was searching desperately for an argument to convince her friend. Apparently she had a sudden inspiration.

  “Apollo will build my new porch addition this winter. I’m just advancing him some of the money for costs.”

  Mabel smiled in relief. “Yes, he’ll be more than happy to build that new porch. I’ll see to it.”

  Her face wrinkled in pain again.

  I wondered if maybe we shouldn’t call the ambulance. Then I remembered Mavis and her weird husband. We could get her to the emergency room just as quickly as that awful woman’s husband.

  “Mother, slip her other arm in that robe and help me get her on her feet.”

  Mabel was very weak. She spoke quietly to her husband and children for a moment and then leaned heavily on my arm. We practically had to carry her to the car. Apollo stood at the door and watched as he held the frightened children close to him. He looked so pitiful I almost cried. Cassandra couldn’t stand it. She ran back to the door and spoke urgently to him. He came running out to the car and hopped in back.

  “Yore sweet chile says she’s gonna stay with my kids so I can go with Mabel. I’m mighty grateful, Miz Paisley. And to you too, Miz Sterling. I’ll build you one hell of a porch.”

  “Language, Apollo,” remonstrated his wife weakly before she fainted.

  The emergency room of the Lakeland County Hospital was fairly well up to date for a town as small as Rowan Springs. The county commissioners had learned early on that the hospital had to be well equipped because of the proximity of our town to the lakes. The summer boaters were always having accidents, and the tourists were notorious for drinking and driving while on holiday.

  Because of the absence of our two local physicians, the emergency room was manned by a circulating roster of doctors from neighboring counties. Mabel was very lucky. The physician on call was an Ob-Gyn from Morgantown. He examined her quickly and wasted no time in starting her on an intravenous drip. He explained to Apollo that it contained something to stop the uterine contractions that were causing her early labor, and plasma to replace some of the blood she had lost.

  By the time she was stable and asleep in a room on the second floor, Mabel’s husband was exhausted and ready to go back home to his little ones. He had been assured by the doctor that Mabel would sleep though the night without any further danger to her or their unborn child. He could do no more here, and his babies needed him. I asked Mother to take him home and pick up Cassie. I wanted to stay with Mabel.

  “Paisley, dear, please don’t get into trouble.”

  “Why, Mother, whatever do you mean?”

  “Ask Leonard, he knows.”

  After they left, I wandered down to the hospital cafeteria. My stomach was telling me it was way past supper time. Sure enough, the cafeteria food line had closed, but a kindly kitchen worker took pity on my hunger and prepared a thick ham and cheese sandwich for me. She also gave me a cup of lovely hot tea. I sat at a corner table in the kitchen and ate as the cafeteria workers cleaned and closed down for the evening.

  I begged one more cup of hot tea and snagged four little packets of sugar to take with me. The stairs were just around the corner, so I took them back up to the lobby. Just as I opened the stairwell door, I heard the public announcement system. The very pleasant voice apprised visitors that it was time to leave and sternly gave them ten minutes to comply.

  I let the door close in front of me and leaned back against the wall trying to figure out what to do. Something had made me decide to stay with Mabel, and I was bound and determined to do so even if I had to break a few rules. Her floor was the next one up. I couldn’t remember her room number, but it was at the end of the hall. The question was, which end? I decided to cross that bridge when I came to it. The thing to do now was to stay out of sight until things had gotten quiet. The basement floor was the best place to remain unseen. People seldom take the stairs up. With the cafeteria closed, there would be no reason to go down them either. I retraced my steps and found that there was a sub-basement. The corner of the landing below was well out of sight from the stairwell. It was a perfect hiding place. Using my shoes as a broom, I swept out the corner and took up residence. My tea had gone a little tepid but I savored the sweetness and the flavor. In five minutes it was gone and I was bored.

  I counted the stairs going up and the ones going down. I counted ceiling tiles and the squares in the vinyl floor. By the time I had finish
ed counting everything, the sounds from the cafeteria had ceased and the elevator was no longer going down to the basement level. I crept back up to the lobby and opened the door just a tad. The receptionist was gone and the lights were dim. I was willing to bet that the front doors were locked. At one time or another I had seen a sign that directed all after-hours traffic to the emergency entrance.

  It was ten o’clock. The next shift of nurses was due to change at eleven, a little tidbit I had learned from Cassie the summer she had been a volunteer candy striper at a hospital in Manhattan. I could sneak into Mabel’s room now. I just had to make sure I was out of sight at eleven and then again at the next change of shift at seven in the morning. After that, I could go back down the stairs to the cafeteria, have my breakfast, and mingle with the incoming visitors, with no one being the wiser.

  Everything was going fine until I got almost to the landing on Mabel’s floor. I heard the door to the stairwell above open and froze.

  “What else do you want besides coffee, Annie?”

  There was silence while the nurse listened to a distant voice. I used those moments to race back down to the basement level. I had no idea where Annie’s friend would be going. I hoped there was a room somewhere on the lobby floor with a coffee and probably a soft drink machine. I barely made it back to my hiding place when a figure dressed in white descended to the landing and opened the door to the lobby. I pushed back into the shadows of the corner and held my breath while I waited for her to return and take the coffee back upstairs.

  While I was waiting, I decided another cup of tea and maybe a midnight snack, even from a machine, would really hit the spot. I felt around in my pockets, but all I could turn up was the change from my ham sandwich. Fifteen cents wouldn’t get me a stick of gum. I caught myself in the middle of a big sigh as the nurse returned balancing two cups and some cookie packets and made her way back up to the next floor. I followed quickly, thinking that no one else would be coming out for a while. I got almost to the landing before the door opened again.

  “Damn it, Annie! Two sugars should be enough for anybody. Now before I go back down make sure there’s nothing else you want. Salt? Pepper? A straw?”

  She came back down the stairs mumbling to herself, “A brain?”

  I huddled in the corner trying to keep from gasping for breath. Despite the cool temperature I was drenched in sweat. At least I could say I had done my aerobic exercise for the week. The nurse came back relatively quickly and was soon upstairs and out of sight. I peered out into the hallway and saw that the lights had been dimmed. Soft voices could be heard coming from around the corner, but I saw no one. Luck was with me—the stairs were just opposite Mabel’s door. I quickly crossed the hallway and slipped inside.

  I was grateful that Mother insisted Mabel be given a private room; I would have had a hard time explaining my presence to a roommate. A faint night light left most of the room in darkness, but I could hear soft snores coming from the bed. As I tiptoed closer, I could see that Mabel was sleeping peacefully. I checked her I.V. and saw that it had just recently been changed. The clear plastic pouch of saline solution that hung above her bed was full. I could be reasonably assured that we would not be disturbed until morning.

  The bedside chair was a big comfortable recliner. I pulled it a little closer to the closet so that I could slip out of the chair and into a hiding place quickly before I gratefully eased my body into the soft, cushy seat.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The two cups of tea I’d drunk earlier woke me up at two in the morning. I had to pee in the worst way. I eased myself silently out of the chair and over to the bathroom. Just as I closed the door and was lowering my jeans I heard someone enter the room. I pushed the door open slightly. I heard some paper rustling and something tear. I strained closer to the door and got cross-eyed trying to get a glimpse of Mabel’s visitor. Just at that moment the change fell out of my drooping jeans pocket and bounced with a loud metallic clink onto the tile floor.

  “Who’s there?” the visitor whispered urgently.

  The jig was up. I zipped up my jeans and decided to brazen my way out of it.

  I opened the bathroom door and yawned mightily. I held my finger up to my lips.

  “Shhh. She’s asleep. We don’t want to disturb her rest, now do we?” I whispered.

  I walked nonchalantly over to the man in the white coat. Even in the poor light I could see that he wasn’t her doctor. And oddly enough, the man seemed to be even more nervous at finding someone else in Mabel’s room than I was.

  “Who, who are you?” he stammered.

  “I’m a friend,” I whispered.

  I thought quickly and decided to go with most of the truth.

  “Her husband had to go home to stay with the children. I offered to stay with Mrs. Jones during the night. Mr. Jones will be back in the morning. Is there something you need to tell him? I’ll be glad to give him the message.”

  The more I spoke the more confident I felt. This turkey was definitely more ill at ease than I. The light was dim, but I could see his hands trembling slightly. The sheen of perspiration was visible on his wide cheeks and bald pate when he turned towards the night light. He was about my height but twice as broad. His resemblance to Porky Pig was uncanny. I tried to read the name tag on his jacket, but it was too dark. All I could make out was that the name of the hospital department embroidered on his jacket started with a large letter “P.” I wondered if someone had thought Mabel needed a psychiatric evaluation. Surely not. But it was possible. She had been very upset.

  Porky backed towards the door and further from the light as I advanced on him. “I’ll come back in the morning when the husband’s here. No need for a message.”

  He turned and was gone before I could assure him again that my presence was benign.

  Now I really had to pee. I decided to get it over with before the nurse came to kick me out. I was sure Porky was headed straight to the nurse’s station. Annie or her companion would be here any minute now.

  I went about my business quickly. I wanted to be ready when an irate nurse came barreling into the room searching for my butt to kick down the back stairs. When no one appeared after a few minutes, I was curious. Cautiously I peeked out the door and down the hallway. Everything was quiet as a mouse. There was no sign of Porky or anyone else.

  I tiptoed back over to the bed to check on Mabel, relieved to see that she was still sleeping. I turned to go back to my chair and crunched something with my foot. It was a paper sleeve from a syringe. How messy, I thought. I should complain to housekeeping. I picked it up and absently tucked it in my pocket.

  I took up residence in my comfy recliner once again and tried to get back to sleep. The worst had come to pass—I had been discovered, but nothing had happened.

  The dial on my watch was barely visible. So much for my beloved antique Rolex. All I could tell was that the big hand was somewhere in the vicinity of three o’clock. I had four hours plus or minus before I had to leave.

  Fifteen minutes later I realized that there would be no return engagement of sleep for me tonight. I looked around for something to read, but we hadn’t had time to get Mabel any magazines. The housekeeping department was remiss in some areas, but they had cleaned the room of any reading material from the prior inhabitant. Then I saw Mabel’s medical chart on a metal clipboard at the bottom of her bed. I struggled with my sense of decency and Mabel’s right to privacy for a minute or so until boredom won out. I grabbed the record from the bottom of the bed and took it into the bathroom.

  For the next two hours I tried to read Mabel’s medical record. Time after time I cursed my lack of knowledge. I was once again in the unpleasant situation of having to learn a foreign language, just as I had been when I first went to South America with Rafe. Somewhere in the back of my mind that thought rang a bell. Medical terminology was based on Latin and Greek. Spanish was Latin based. Maybe I should look again with that thought in mind. After a while I ab
le to make some sense of the information before me by thinking in Spanish.

  Mabel had borne six children in the last twenty-six years. She had been pregnant when she had married Apollo at age seventeen. Three months later she had given birth to a seven pound baby boy. Before she was twenty, she’d had two more children. Another boy and a little girl. Both children had positional deformities of the right foot which had been corrected with orthopedic splints in their first six months. At age twenty-three she had two miscarriages and a very serious case of hepatitis from a blood transfusion. After that she had not gotten pregnant for fifteen years, even though she and Apollo had never used any birth control measures. That little bit of knowledge made me a trifle uneasy and I almost put the chart away. Almost.

  Mabel was overjoyed when she found herself pregnant at thirty-five. Her new baby boy had no evidence of the foot problems of his older siblings, but the next two little girls did. Even though the couple loved children, they acknowledged that this last pregnancy was probably all they could handle. Dr. Edgar Baxter, who was Mabel’s physician, felt they already had more than their share of children. He tried to discourage his patient from having her baby. She was forty-three years old. She had a heart murmur, another detail I was uncomfortable knowing. And Apollo had prostate cancer.

  “Oh, God!”

  I let it out before I knew it. I flicked the light off and opened the door a crack to listen. Mabel was still snoring softly. I sat in the dark for a moment and contemplated what I had just learned. I was savvy enough to know that cancer wasn’t always a death sentence, but just the same, it had to be quite a burden—emotionally and financially. Dr. Baxter had urged Mabel to have an abortion. But she and Apollo, knowing that this child would be their last, resisted his pleas and opted to have the baby. From that point on, they began to have problems. Apollo needed to go to the Veteran’s Hospital in Nashville three times a week for his cancer treatments. Mabel had to take on more housecleaning jobs to make ends meet. She got sick. The doctor diagnosed a severe allergic reaction to house dust and goldenrod and started her on immunotherapy. Three weeks later she had some vaginal bleeding. She was working in Morgantown at the time and went to the emergency room there. Much the same thing had happened then as she was going through now. She had spent the night in the hospital and then gone home to bed for two weeks. Dr. Baxter reported at her next visit that the baby’s heart tones were strong and the fetal ultrasound was within normal limits. Everything was fine except for her allergies. He resumed treatment, and as of her last office visit two weeks ago, she had improved. She was five months pregnant