After the Fall

by Brad Graber

  The doctor glared at her. She cringed. She’d angered him.

  “Do you realize the risk you’re taking? Osteoporosis is a serious condition that should be managed. And at your age, you need a family physician. I hope you’ve at least had an annual flu shot.”

  Daisy blushed. She’d passed on flu shots. What was the point? She never got sick.

  The young doctor shook his head. He returned to the discussion at hand. “The orthopedic surgeon will stop by later. A counselor will also come by and make sure your paperwork is in order, including emergency contacts.”

  “Emergency contacts?” Daisy repeated.

  “Ms. Lee, you’re having surgery. It’s a serious matter. We need to know who to talk with in case there’s a problem.”

  “Oh my,” Daisy fretted. “I really don’t have anyone. My family is back east and we’ve lost touch.”

  “No children?”

  “No,” Daisy confirmed.

  “Friends. You have friends?”

  “Well, I did, but . . .” and Daisy stammered unable to complete the sentence. She was suddenly very tired.

  The doctor bit his lower lip. Daisy wondered if he’d encountered her situation before. An older person admitted to the ER with no available next of kin. How many other seemingly alert, independent seniors found themselves alone during a health crisis?

  He stood up. “Okay then. We’ll have a social worker stop by. Don’t worry about it,” he said, leaning over and squeezing her hand.

  It was a kind gesture. Daisy appreciated the change in his manner. If only she could remember his name. He must have told her, but then it seemed rude to ask again. Instead, she accepted his warmth and was grateful. Whatever his name, at least there was a heart behind that tough clinical exterior.

  * * *

  “Isn’t this nice?” Charlie said, taking a deep breath and enjoying the fresh air. “We’re sitting outside and eating lunch. The sun is shining, the sky is blue. It’s not too warm. You can even see Camelback Mountain from here. It’s Shangri-La.”

  The hour in the apartment had made Dave tense; now Charlie was trying to get him to relax, but it was difficult.

  Dave nodded grudgingly. “It is wonderful.”

  “And after we eat and go to the grocery store, maybe we’ll take a nap.” Charlie lifted an eyebrow provocatively.

  “We’ll see,” Dave answered. He looked down at the brunch menu. “Do you know what you’re having? What looks good?”

  “I think I do,” Charlie said, his voice throaty. He leaned forward and winked.

  “Okay, okay, I get it, Mr. Subtle,” Dave answered. “How about we order before we make plans for the rest of the day?”

  “Sex will relax you,” Charlie coaxed.

  “Don’t feel like it,” Dave said. “Not when I’m upset.”

  Charlie placed his menu on the table. “A little backrub and you’ll be fine.”

  But Dave was not to be persuaded. “It’s best to leave me alone when I’m in a mood.”

  Charlie said nothing.

  “Did you hear me?” Dave asked.

  “Okay . . . okay . . . I hear you,” Charlie acknowledged. “Just trying to help.”

  A tow truck passed by. A red Honda Fit was hoisted high in the air, the passenger side punched in. Charlie nodded in the truck’s direction. “Check that out. Someone’s really having a bad day.” Dave turned to see the damaged vehicle. “See . . . we have everything going for us,” Charlie continued. “You’ve got a new job. We’re healthy. The weather is terrific. We’re so lucky.”

  Dave nodded, hesitantly.

  “We have a great life,” Charlie continued.

  Dave had to agree.

  “You should be more mindful of that,” Charlie counseled. “And appreciative, instead of getting yourself all worked up and stressed out. A wrecked car . . . that’s a problem.”

  Dave’s appetite improved. “Okay, I’m going to get the Greek salad with chicken,” he said, more positively. “That sounds good. And an order of hummus. We can split it.”

  “Okay.” Charlie brightened. He waited for Dave to put his menu down before signaling for the waitress.

  “And maybe I’ll have a Diet Coke,” Dave added.

  “How about just water?” Charlie suggested. “We’re in the desert. You should be drinking plenty of water,” he said, knowing from experience that carbonation and sex didn’t mix.

  “Okay,” Dave acquiesced.

  Charlie assumed a Cheshire smile as the waitress approached. Putty in my hands, he thought. He’s just putty in my hands.

  2

  * * *

  When Daisy awoke, she had no idea whether it was day or night. A bright white curtain created a makeshift space that separated her from the rest of the world. Beside her, an electronic monitor seemed to repeatedly hum, hello there hello there hello there.

  She felt small, fragile, and very alone.

  She inhaled and exhaled in a series of slow, deep breaths. She’d learned in yoga about the importance of the breath to ease anxiety, but now, she was unable to achieve any sense of calm. She was too scared about what might happen next.

  Tears came to her eyes as her mind drifted back to the day when she’d begun her journey to this place in the desert.

  It was August 12, 1952.

  She was eighteen years old, standing on the platform at Grand Central Station in an inexpensive blue traveling suit and matching navy beret, white gloves, and holding a straw purse, all purchased from Gimbel’s bargain basement. She’d wanted to go to California but could barely afford the fare to Phoenix. With both parents long gone, she was on her own. Still, it had been a heart-wrenching decision to leave New York City. She adored her older brother Jacob, but her sister-in-law Rose had made it clear that Daisy had to leave.

  How different my life would have been if I hadn’t . . .

  The thought stopped midstream. Buried pain was best left in the past. And yet she couldn’t resist a final memory. The beautiful eyes searching her face; tiny hands peeking out from a blue blanket; the smell of talcum powder on his warm, little body.

  She held her breath as she remembered.

  When Daisy arrived in Phoenix, America was in the midst of a post-war industrial boom. Jobs were plentiful. Phoenix was a sleepy town of mostly one-story buildings. Outside the city perimeter, it was still cowboy country—sunburned men with hats and chaps, horses, corrals, and trails across the desert. Daisy landed her first job as a barmaid at the San Carlos Hotel. For most women of her generation, marriage came before work, and yet marriage eluded her. Men came and went, none staying too long. Daisy adjusted. She bore her disappointments quietly. Life taught her that nothing was guaranteed. If she wanted to survive, she’d have to learn to take care of herself. She’d have to be strong. It had been a hard lesson.

  A nurse appeared from behind the curtain.

  “Ms. Lee, we’re just about ready. How are you doing?”

  Daisy was too upset to answer and tried, instead, to smile. The young woman stroked Daisy’s arm as she checked the IV, then slipped a pair of socks on her feet. The pain from her hip was gone. The nurse pushed aside the curtain and maneuvered the gurney down a short hallway and into a room with a bright white light. A drug was administered as she was instructed to count backward from ten. Somewhere between nine and eight Daisy found a peaceful freedom from thought . . . a total immersion into the unconscious.

  * * *

  Dave stifled a yawn. He’d arrived at 7:30 a.m. for his first day on the new job. After grabbing a glazed donut and a cup of coffee, he found an aisle seat in the crowded auditorium where new hires from across the regional market were going through a communal orientation. At the front of the room, there was a large screen. Projected in large white letters against a dark-blue background . . . The Mission of Bremer Health. On the stage, a young woman in her late twenties, a manager in human resources, repeatedly checked her watch as Dave took the first bite of his donut. Dear God, he thought,
savoring the sugary goodness. When was the last time I had a donut? He licked his lips and sipped the coffee; the combination, pure pleasure.

  As the other new hires settled into their seats, Dave spotted Phyllis, his boss’s secretary, entering the front of the auditorium through a side door marked Exit. It had been weeks since they’d last seen each other at his final interview. She scanned the auditorium, eyeglasses perched atop her luxurious blond mane, wearing a blue knit dress that seemed a bit too tight for her curvaceous figure. Phyllis appeared stressed as she looked about. Dave wondered what could possibly be wrong. He stifled a second yawn as Phyllis slipped on her eyeglasses, squinted, and then nodded in his direction. She hurried over. “Mr. Greenway?” she asked, kneeling next to his chair.

  “Yes,” he answered, suddenly aware she wasn’t quite sure. Up close, he could see the dark circles gathered under her lovely eyes. He guessed she was in her late thirties.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, “but it’s been crazy around here. I just processed four job offers last week for new executives. I’m having trouble keeping the names and faces straight.”

  Dave smiled. That seemed like a lot of new positions. He hoped Bremer was expanding. More jobs, more opportunity.

  “Mr. Allman wants you to join the executive team meeting,” she said. “You’d better bring your things along. These meetings can run long.”

  Dave grabbed his briefcase and followed Phyllis out of the auditorium, struggling to keep up as she rushed down the hallway toward the executive boardroom.

  “Every Monday morning the executive team meets,” she called back to him, miraculously balancing the shifting weight of her ample backside on a pair of six-inch black heels. “The meeting will always be on your calendar for 8:00 a.m. and Mr. Allman expects everyone to be prompt.” She touched the knob to the boardroom and then stepped back, nodding to Dave to open the door and go inside.

  All eyes turned as Dave entered. He was motioned to a chair at the end of a large conference table. Daniel Allman, Chief Operating Officer of Bremer Health, sat at the head. Daniel made the brief introduction. “Ladies and Gentleman, this is Dave Greenway, our newest vice president.”

  Heads bobbed and turned. Dave recognized a few of the faces from the organizational chart which had arrived with his relocation packet. The seats at the conference table were filled by hospital CEOs and their medical and nursing leadership. Lesser executives, directors and managers, sat in chairs scattered about the room. Dave had never seen so much high-priced talent gathered in one place for a weekly meeting. He’d researched the market and knew many of the executives had journeyed for hours to be in attendance.

  Daniel returned the group’s focus to the agenda. As Daniel spoke about financial targets, Dave remembered the first time they’d met. He’d been impressed by Daniel’s sheer size. He stood six foot four with the build of a retired basketball player who had filled out after a few years off the court. His huge mitts clasped Dave’s hand with an energy that had caught Dave totally off guard.

  “I’ll be frank,” Daniel had said, “I need your expertise to help run this place. Sometimes, I think I’m surrounded by idiots. Right now the corporate office is all over my tail. But I don’t give a rat’s ass about them. Only the Chairman of the Board has the power to hire and fire me. The corporate office is just so much background noise.”

  Dave had been charmed by Daniel. He appreciated his honesty. He appreciated his informal manner. But now, Dave wondered how Daniel ran his empire, as he refocused back on the meeting.

  “I’m going to ask again,” Daniel said, glancing about the room, “who shared this month’s financials with the corporate office?”

  The tension in the room was palpable as Dave coyly looked about, trying to put faces together with the photos and bios he’d been given. He’d have to know the players if he expected to hit the floor running.

  Craig De Coy was the first to speak.

  Dave recognized Craig from his brush cut. He was a first-time CEO who had held lesser positions in small, rural, community hospitals.

  Craig leaned forward, breaking the line of straight-backed executives who had turned to face Daniel. “Corporate tells us to send the information directly to them. What else can we do?”

  “You call me,” Daniel said sharply. “I’ve told you that I’ll handle all communications with corporate.”

  “But they leave us no option,” Craig insisted. “They expect immediate turnaround.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Daniel said, his voice booming. “How many times are we going to have this conversation? How many times do I have to repeat myself?”

  Daniel looked about as if he actually expected someone to answer the question. There was total silence.

  He continued. “If the people in this room are unable to put off corporate, maybe you shouldn’t be in the C-suite.”

  “That’s not fair,” Craig responded, his face bright red, sounding like a third-grader objecting to a homework assignment.

  Daniel scanned the room. His dark eyes defying anyone to speak. “Who else doesn’t think it’s fair?”

  Barely a breath was taken.

  “It appears you’re alone in that opinion, Craig. Perhaps if you ran your operation as well as you answer to corporate, you’d have hit your budget targets this month.”

  Craig clenched his jaw. The muscles in his cheeks visibly flexed. Dave wondered how long Craig planned to stay in his job. His future with the company seemed bleak.

  Daniel’s tone shifted. “How do you think I feel when corporate asks me to explain financials I haven’t yet seen? All they want to do is catch me off-guard. Make me sweat.” He was now playing the martyr. “Those people don’t know how to run a business. They’re bean counters. I’m the one holding this ship together. So remember, the next time the corporate office calls, it’s the regional office that pays your salary. You do what I tell you,” he insisted. “I hired you, and by God, I’ll fire you! Is everybody clear on that?”

  Dave couldn’t believe his ears. Is this how the company conducted its meetings? Like an over-the-top Telemundo drama?

  Daniel next held up a packet of handouts. Colored pie charts graphed each hospital’s performance according to Medicare’s quality standards. Green indicated success; yellow, the need for improvement. Nearly every page was dominated by red.

  Daniel focused on Craig. “Your hospital’s performance is especially dismal,” he bristled.

  Craig glanced at his chief nursing officer. A middle-aged, attractive brunette, nervously recounted the steps that the hospital was taking to turn the subpar performance. Dave watched Daniel’s face as he listened to the woman. It was quiet, impassive. After three minutes had passed, Daniel suddenly pounded the conference table with a closed fist. The force was so great, that the modem at the center leapt from its position. “Bullshit,” Daniel shouted. “This is all bullshit.”

  The poor woman sat slack-jawed, unable to continue.

  Daniel stood up. He held the offending data above his head and glared about the room, like an angry giant reaching for the heavens. “I’ve had it with these excuses, people. Get ready to change jobs because I won’t tolerate this kind of performance.”

  Executives shifted nervously in their chairs as Daniel headed to the door. Before leaving, he slammed the offending packet into the waste can with such force, that it crashed loudly onto its side and rolled over. The sound, a veritable bomb going off, reverberated throughout the room.

  After Daniel’s exit, the people in the room gathered up their belongings. Empty pads slid into cases, and unused pens dropped into satchels. One-by-one they rose. Defeated children.

  Dave’s heart sank. Bullying to achieve results. What have I done? This isn’t the work environment I signed up for.

  “Buck up,” Charlie said later that evening. “It was probably a once-in-a-blue-moon meeting. Executives don’t behave like that.”

  “I don’t know,” Dave said. “There was so much negati
ve energy.”

  “Dave, you’re exaggerating.”

  “I wish I was. I just hope he doesn’t go off on me.”

  “He won’t,” Charlie insisted. “You’re the fair-haired child. He paid a lot of money to recruit you.”

  “Something tells me he takes no prisoners,” Dave worried. “This guy doesn’t play well with others.”

  * * *

  While Daisy’s surgeon described the operation as a success, she wasn’t quite so sure. The total hip replacement had left her in severe pain, and for the first time in Daisy’s life, she welcomed medication. Lots of medication. So much medication, she lost the ability to stay in the moment. One day blended into the next. People came in and out of her hospital room. If strangers introduced themselves, Daisy was too groggy to remember who they were or why they were there.

  The nurses insisted Daisy get up and walk. That was the first rule following surgery. She tried. But despite the objections of the nursing staff, the pain from the incision and the dizziness from all the medication forced her back to bed. She wanted to rest. She had to rest.

  But resting in a hospital is impossible.

  Daisy lingered the maximum number of days allowed by Medicare before a young woman in a white coat visited. She told Daisy arrangements had been made to transfer her to a rehabilitation facility. Daisy couldn’t remember the details of the conversation, how the decision was made, or who actually made it, but there was no turning back. The young woman toting the documents had made that very clear. They needed to free up the bed.

  Luis, a nurse’s aide, showed up the next morning.

  A large Hispanic man with a sweet disposition, Luis helped Daisy to sit up. “Pardon me,” he said, slipping his huge hands under Daisy’s armpits, before pulling her close. She could smell his Paco Rabanne. He gently lifted her, and in one smooth motion, shifted her into the wheelchair he’d placed bedside.

  The soreness in her hip was a potent clarifier of the day’s activities. It effectively cut through the confusion of the pain medication. She was once again alert to her surroundings.