The two women embraced. But this was not the usual strong bear-hug squeeze that Vicky used to give. It was feeble and strained, and Allison felt as if she was trying to hold onto some cumbersome object that was slipping out of her grasp. Vicky’s body felt frail and cold; a coldness that emanated, even through her clothes.
“From now on you have to live somewhere with at least one window, no more cardboard boxes under the bridge or old abandoned warehouses. Promise?” Allison said as she held onto Vicky.
“Don’t you worry about me. My next house is going to be a mansion,” Vicky said and the embrace concluded with a somewhat cautious squeeze on Allison’s part, lest she injure Vicky.
“Sit down, sit down. Take a load off. Can you stay a while?”
“Actually yes, I’ve got the afternoon off.”
“Can I get you some coffee or a Coke?” Allison declined Vicky’s offer, thinking even if she was dying for something she wouldn’t send Vicky on another trek up and down the stairs again just to fetch a drink. They resumed their seats on the small twin bed facing the wall with the window and the cross.
“Thanks again for the gift, Al. What made you think of it?”
“Well, you know I am your godmother. I’m supposed to help you along in your Christian faith even though I think you’re more advanced in that area than I am.” Vicky was silent as if she knew this was just a surface answer and there was still more; something Allison didn’t even know, at least not consciously. Only in that moment of silence was Allison able to remember. She looked up at the stained glass cross as it caught a stream of sunlight and cast a violet colored spot on the wall.
“I had this weird experience while you were in the ICU. It was the first time I went to see you and I’m sitting there by your bedside not really sure what to do.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I’m glad. I said some pretty hateful things. I was angry because, you know…”
“The accident.”
“Yeah, that and just all of our history. So I lost my cool and I really let you have it.”
“I don’t remember much but I do kinda remember you being mad at me.”
“Yeah, well, if anything would’ve snapped you out of your coma it would’ve been that. So anyhow, afterward I realized that was a pretty low-down thing to do–to tell off somebody as sick as you were, and I’m thinking, I can’t in good conscience just leave like this. I’m thinking of something I can say to smooth it all over and while I’m thinking about it, my eyes land on this crucifix that was hanging on the wall. My eyes are just drawn to it, maybe because there wasn’t anything else to look at besides heart monitors, and tubes, and catheter bags. Maybe because it was just too difficult to look at you. But anyway my eyes kind of fixed on this crucifix and it’s like I’m in a daze.”
“Kinda like when you’re tired and you get the stares?”
“Yeah, exactly. So I start remembering how you used to be and how we were such good friends, and then something happened. I found myself looking at this cross; I mean really looking at it, thinking about it…” Allison couldn’t find words to go on.
“And then what?” Vicky asked
“I can’t say exactly except that something inside of me just melted. Like a dam inside me broke and the next thing I know I’m on my knees praying and crying and wondering if maybe, just maybe it’s all really true. I don’t know. It started something.”
“Go on,” Vicky said.
“Something changed…in my mind, in my heart. I’m not sure how to describe it. But I felt hopeful. I guess non-believers would call it wishful thinking.”
“Believers call it faith.”
“Yes, faith. Weak faith. Faith the size of a mustard seed. I don’t know. I still don’t have any answers.”
“Neither do I.”
“Well, I guess we’ll just stumble around in the darkness together.”
“I can’t think of anybody else I’d rather stumble around with,” Vicky said and Allison noticed again just how pale Vicky was.
“How’s Francis?” Vicky asked.
“Not bad. We’ve actually been getting along.”
“Really?”
“Don’t get too excited! I only mean we’re behaving civilly toward one another. I think I’m finally letting go, cutting Frank a little slack, just giving him the freedom to be who he is. Even if it means he doesn’t behave exactly like how I think he should. Even if it means he falls in love with someone else. I can honestly say I want what’s best for him… and the kids.”
Allison looked at Vicky. Her eyes were glassy. She touched her hand. It was cold.
“Vicky, are you all right?”
“I’m just real tired. Maybe if I lay down for a second. Would you mind?”
“Not at all. I probably should get going anyway.”
“No, please stay. I just need to lie down. I feel a little weak.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Oh, yeah! I think I might be catching that virus that’s going around.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“Just help me scoot up so I can get my head on the pillow,” Vicky said, and Allison realized she was too weak to even do that without assistance. Allison pulled the covers back and helped Vicky get into bed.
“Let me get you some water,” Allison said noticing her lips were dry.
“Oh, that would be nice. I’m so thirsty.”
Allison went downstairs and into the kitchen without feeling at all uncomfortable or intrusive. One of the women followed her and asked if she could help. She got a glass out of one of the cabinets and when Allison told her who it was for, she seemed concerned.
Allison thanked the woman for her help and headed back upstairs with the water.
“You’re so sweet to fetch that for me,” Vicky said as Allison helped prop her up in bed and handed her the glass of water. “Ain’t much of a hostess am I? I should be serving you.”
“Shhh, don’t trouble yourself. Just rest”
“That water hits the spot,” Vicky said with a gasp of relief after two large gulps of water. She leaned back on the pillows and said with a smile, “I feel better already.” And indeed, the color was returning to her cheeks.
“Can I get you some more water?”
“No, just sit here with me.” Allison sat down on the twin bed. There was near silence for a while with only the dull din of the television downstairs and the sound of a bird chirping just outside her window.
“I love the way the light comes through it,” she said, and Allison realized Vicky was looking at the cross which she was just propped up enough to see from her bed. “Thank you.” The words came out somewhat muffled as she expelled them in the midst of a deep throaty sounding cough.
“It does sound like you might be catching that virus,” Allison said and Vicky coughed again, this time more forcefully.
“Let me get you some more water,” Allison said standing up. Vicky didn’t respond. She was staring ahead, somewhat blankly, at the stained glass cross that hung from the window.
“I wonder if he coughed,” Vicky said.
“Who?” Allison asked a little bewildered.
Vicky coughed again and again, so hard it sounded like it hurt.
“Are you all right?” Allison asked, a cold sense of dread beginning to stir in her.
Again she coughed hard, followed by a gagging noise. She tried to sit up as she vomited into her hands. There was bright red blood on the white pillowcase and more on her hands and face with each painful retching noise.
Allison threw open the bedroom door and yelled downstairs for help. “Oh my God!” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed 9-1-1.
Allison was dreaming–a dream she’d had so many times before. She discovered a new room inside her house, two new rooms, three new rooms. How wonderful! What a surprise! She would put a long dining room table in the largest room and she would invite everyone she knew for Christmas. Why didn’t she kno
w those rooms were there before? Then she heard the sound of hammering. Was there construction going on? She went into the next room to see if she could locate the source of the hammering. Did someone add on these rooms? Was someone building? She saw a ladder outside the window. Was someone working on the roof?
Suddenly, without any realization of how she got there, Allison was outside. Vicky was on the ladder, about half-way up and she appeared to be stuck. People were mulling around on the roof. They must’ve been working on it but she couldn’t see who was hammering. She hollered to Vicky to get off that ladder before she hurt herself. “I can’t get down. I’m stuck. I have to go up,” she said.
She recognized three people on the roof: Vicky’s dad, mom and grandmother. Yes, it was them. Allison recognized them from pictures she had seen. They were trying to help her get up, coaxing her, reaching their hands out toward her. Allison thought how nice it was that Vicky’s dad seemed to have changed. He seemed concerned. He was encouraging her, telling her she could do it, just like how a dad should do, just like how her dad did sometimes but never often enough. Her mother was telling her she found the silver mines their family had been searching for and she could show them to her too, all bright and sparkling, if Vicky could just get up to where she was.
The three were talking about how to get Vicky off that ladder and onto the roof. All the while, Allison’s just hollering as loud as she can for Vicky to come back down. They all ignored her. Vicky’s grandmother commenced to make an announcement, an important proclamation of some kind and everyone had to stand at attention.
“We gotta get the big man to help,” she said pointing back over her shoulder with her thumb, as if whoever this big man was he was standing just behind her. Everyone laughed at this remark. It was funny. Of course it was funny–in the strange way things are funny in dreams. The Big Man. It had to be Jesus. Suddenly Allison felt afraid, or was it awe, unworthiness perhaps; some emotion that caused her to shield her face because she knew she just couldn’t look at Jesus. She turned away and kept asking if it was safe to look. Asking who? She wasn’t sure. But somehow she knew when it was safe to look. The ladder was still there but Vicky was gone. The roof was obstructed from view by fog–no–clouds. Heavenly clouds. Allison knew they were heavenly clouds from the pinkish-violet hue that shone around them. She called for Vicky. She called for her again. And then she was trembling, shaking. No, that wasn’t it–she wasn’t shaking. It was the ground underneath her. She wondered in her dreamy state if it was an earthquake. No, maybe it was just her shaking, like an uncontrollable seizure. Whatever was causing her to shake, it was annoying and she wished it would stop. She was resisting it with all her might. And all the while the sound of hammering–another annoyance, another variable contributing to her unrest. And then she was aware of someone’s voice calling her name. It was a man’s voice. A familiar voice. It was Frank and he was shaking her.
“Allison, wake up! You’re dreaming. Al, wake up.”
Allison opened her eyes. It took her a while to get her bearings. She was laying on a small couch, her legs all cramped up, her back aching, in the waiting room of the Intensive Care Unit. She was back again, and the renovations that had begun at the hospital the last time Vicky was a patient, were still going on. The sound of hammering floated down the hallway from a nearby ward with its unnervingly persistent and rhythmic pound. She wondered how the poor patients in that ward got any rest at all. But then no one really rests in the hospital, she thought.
Frank was leaning over her, sitting on the edge of the couch. “You must’ve been having one heck of a dream. You were talking in you sleep, you know.”
“I was? What did I say?”
“Something about, ‘get down from there’. The rest was just incoherent mumbling.”
“You seem amused,” Allison said in response to the familiar wry smile and slight chuckle in his voice that was so characteristic of Frank.
“I always got a kick out of watching you sleep.”
“Oh, yeah, I never knew that. So what’s so funny about watching me sleep?”
“I suppose because you’re so un-Allison like when you’re asleep.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, let’s see: you drool, you snore,”
“I do not.”
“You do. You mutter and moan and say odd things. You laugh and cry. Maybe not so much un-Allison as the real Allison. Allison unveiled.”
“Allison not in control, you mean. No wonder you think it’s so funny.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, I said that, and it’s all right, you don’t have to walk on egg shells around me,” Allison said finally sitting up. “After all, I did call you and ask you to come. I’m trying to be good.”
“Why did you call me?”
“I suppose because there had to be somebody from the old Camelot days here. And I didn’t want Sally, you know, she’s not the most comforting person in a crisis.”
“So you think I’m comforting.”
“Not exactly. It’s just that your type of hysteria is more familiar to me.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Well, you know, it is a very familiar scenario–meeting you in the emergency room because one of the kids is sick or injured.”
“Usually Alex,” they both said in unison and Frank cast his eyes downwards with a sad little chuckle and a bittersweet smile.
“So, it’s like Pavlov’s dog–mad rush to the emergency room, better call Frank.”
“Exactement. Pavlov’s dog,” Allison agreed.
She could see it in his eyes; he wanted her to say it was because she needed him, because she missed him. A part of her did. A part of her just wanted to throw her arms around him and say how ridiculous this whole divorce thing was and couldn’t they just find some common ground on which to stand and try again. But it was only because she was feeling tired and vulnerable. Can’t put the spoiled milk back in the refrigerator and expect it to get better, she remembered Frank’s analogy in speaking about the stupidity of divorced couples trying to get back together. But then again, the divorce wasn’t final yet. Maybe the milk wasn’t spoiled yet and they were throwing something perfectly good away. Who knows?
“How long was I asleep?” Allison asked.
“An hour, hour and a half.”
“You’re kidding! Have you talked to the kids?”
“Just got off the phone with Alex ten minutes ago. They’re fine. Don’t worry.”
“Who said I was worried?”
“You don’t have to say it. I can tell by that crease in your brow.”
“What did they say?”
“Alex asked about Vicky. And Kristy said to tell you she loves you.”
“Thanks for checking on them. How long do you plan on staying?”
“As long as you need me too.”
“Thanks,” Allison said. She really meant it. She squeezed his hand as the only way she knew to convey her sincerity. Then quickly, as she realized what she was doing, she pulled her hand away.
“By the way, thanks for bringing the change of clothes,” Allison said, sticking her hands in the pockets of the sweat suit Frank had brought her.
“Well, I wasn’t going to let you sit around in blood stained clothes. I gotta say I was pretty shook up when I saw you. You looked like you’d been shot. It was pretty gruesome.”
“I had to help her as best I could.”
“I’m glad you were there for her. You always managed to keep your head in emergencies.”
“Well, I’ve certainly had experience with Alex. Where’s Chief Bobby?”
“He’s back on the unit visiting her. He and the chaplain, Father… what’s his name?”
“Mudd. Father Mudd.”
“He seems like a good man. He seems to take a real personal interest in Vicky.”
“He’s the one who baptized her.”
“Oh, yeah, Alex told me about that.”
“He di
d?”
“Yeah, I think it must’ve really had some kind of impact on him.”
The conversation was interrupted by the appearance of a doctor entering the waiting room from the big double doors of the unit. Whenever a doctor entered the waiting room, everyone became suddenly alert. Heads bobbed up from deep sleep, eyes looked up from reading material, and turned away from the ever-present flash of the TV screen. People sat up straight as the shadow of either hope or dread spread across faces.
The doctor looked tired and his voice was hoarse and strained with fatigue as he called out: “Vicky Dooley. Family of Vicky Dooley,” he said wearily looking around. Allison and Frank rose and quickly made their way over to him.
“Come with me,” the doctor said with an expressionless face as he led the way to a small room just off the unit. Father Mudd was waiting in the room for them. It was a simple room consisting of a couch, a couple chairs, an end table upon which sat a box of Kleenex and a bible, a small waste basket, a painting of a soothing springtime landscape scene, and of course, a crucifix. The small room was closed off, no window on the door, very private. In her limited experience with the ICU, Allison had only seen families leave that room crying. The door closed.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” Allison began crying.
The doctor nodded and put his hand on Allison’s shoulder. “We did all we could to stop the hemorrhaging. She lost too much blood too quickly.”
“What caused the hemorrhaging?” Frank asked this medical question of the doctor as he stood stiff and stoic; a pose which he often struck at the initial hearing of something unpleasant.
“A condition called esophageal varices. It’s a complication from liver disease. As the blood flow in the liver decreases it begins to build up in the blood vessels of the esophageal wall. Eventually these blood vessels become so dilated that they rupture. It may not have been her first bleeding incident.”
ODD NUMBERS Page 72
