by Deanna Chase
I was vaguely aware of the museum guards, appearing in their blue uniforms. They moved the curious onlookers away, redirected the crowd’s attention to the glinting treasures in the display cases. My cell phone Samaritan hovered nearby, looking at his watch, and then his phone, and his watch again. One of the guards spoke into her walkie-talkie, enunciating our location clearly and professionally.
There was a gurney, and two uniformed paramedics. They helped Gran onto the platform and eased her back. They elevated her head, to help her breathe. They slipped plastic tubing over her head, issuing instructions loudly, firmly. Gran tried to explain that she was fine, that she didn’t need their assistance, but they ignored her. They started the flow of oxygen, adjusted it, adjusted it again. They put a blanket over her, tucking it in beside her arms, her legs. She was smaller than I’d ever imagined she could be.
The EMTs raised up the gurney and started rolling it toward the elevator. I trotted beside Gran, babbling words that I meant to be soothing. She looked at me over the oxygen mask, and her eyes—my eyes—were wild and frightened. As the elevator door closed, I saw that Cell Phone Samaritan was hovering outside. I called out thanks, and he nodded. The doors closed.
I turned back to Gran, and I realized that Clara was beside me, closer to Gran’s head. The paramedics were going about their business, checking the flow of oxygen, taking Gran’s pulse, being professional.
An ambulance waited in the half-circle of driveway at the back of the museum. A crowd of tourists had gathered around, staring as if we were some sort of special historical re-enactment designed for their viewing pleasure.
The EMTs brought the gurney up to the back door of the ambulance. Like clockwork, the legs collapsed against the ambulance floor, and the crew eased the rolling surface into place. The nearest paramedic said, “Only one of you can come with us.” I looked at Clara. She looked at me.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Looked at Gran, whose eyes were shut.
“Go,” Clara said, and she put her hand in the small of my back. Tears exploded down my cheeks. Clara looked at the EMT. “Where are you taking her?”
“George Washington. 23rd and I.”
“I’ll meet you there.” Clara stepped back, already turning toward the street to hail one of D.C.’s ubiquitous cabs.
“Wait!” I cried, and the paramedic hesitated as he reached for the heavy ambulance door. “Do you have money?” I called out.
She nodded. “I’m fine. Don’t worry. I’ll see you at the hospital.”
The door closed, and the ambulance started, and the siren sang out, and the EMTs chanted to my grandmother that she would be fine, that she shouldn’t worry, that everything was going to be all right.
Chapter 20
By the time we reached the George Washington Hospital emergency room, I had a greater appreciation for Indy 500 drivers. I’d never thought about how much they accomplished as they were enveloped by teeth-shattering sound, taking tight corners with G forces that would make an ordinary human’s face stretch like a cartoon character’s. Or maybe it only seemed that way, in the back of the ambulance.
The EMTs handled the gurney professionally when we arrived at the hospital. They hopped down from the back of the ambulance as if they were performing some well-rehearsed ballet. I scrambled after with minimal regard for how ridiculous I looked. I followed the EMTs through the rubberized doors into the confusion of the emergency room.
One advantage of traveling by ambulance—we got priority treatment upon arrival. Gran was wheeled into an examining room, and a doctor called out the count as she was transferred to a bed. The EMTs folded the straps back onto their conveyance, snapped out some medical information to the treating physician, and then they were gone.
Before I could get their names. Before I could even thank them.
Clara joined us quickly; her cabdriver had made excellent time getting across town. We both worked to stay out of the doctor’s way as we craned our necks for a better view.
The doctor slipped off the oxygen apparatus and listened to Gran’s chest. She was already protesting that we were making a big deal out of nothing; she insisted that she was just a little tired, that she hadn’t slept well the night before. She said that she always had a cough, that she had allergies, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her, and that she was ready to go home right now.
The doctor agreed with everything she said, but he did not stop in his exam. He shone a light onto the back of her throat, and he peered into her nose and ears. He spent a lot of time applying the bell of his stethoscope to her back, and he repeatedly urged her to take deep breaths. Only the slightest of frowns told us that he was not pleased with what he heard.
He took Gran’s temperature, tested her reflexes, checked her blood pressure, and asked her any number of personal questions about her diet, elimination, and daily life in general.
Gran got increasingly snippy with the doctor, insisting that she was well. When he started to feel the glands under her neck, she announced that that was the last straw, and she started to jump down from the examining table. The half-breath that she took prior to jumping triggered something inside her lungs, though, and she was off and running on another coughing jag.
This one was every bit as bad as the last she’d suffered at the museum; however, the doctor did not seem surprised. He passed Gran a Kleenex and only nodded when it came away from her lips splotched with red. He made some cryptic scribbles on his clipboard and waited for the coughing spasm to pass before he told Gran that she would get to stay at the hospital for a few days.
Double pneumonia. Likely viral in origin. Given the tenderness on her left side, she had probably cracked a rib with her coughing. She needed Tylenol for her fever and an IV to combat her severe dehydration. X-rays would tell us more and confirm that she had nothing more dire—like the terrible word, cancer, that my mind kept spinning away from.
Actually, dehydration was causing the medical staff their greatest concern. A phlebotomist fussed over Gran’s bird-like arms, telling her that he could scarcely find a place to stick his needle. He hovered as he started administering fluids, chiding her as she explained that she just hadn’t been thirsty.
A nurse watched as Gran swallowed her Tylenol. Personally, I felt like crying with relief when I heard the drug of choice. Tylenol. Just like I could buy at the CVS. There was something tremendously comforting about that, about the fact that I could pronounce the name of the treatment Gran was given. It wasn’t mysterious or terrible or threatening.
The doctor convinced Gran to lean back and relax, and Clara and I stepped out to complete the admissions paperwork. That’s when things got a little, um, interesting.
The admissions nurse was a large African-American woman. She wore brightly colored hospital “greens”, those shapeless clothes that were designed for maximum comfort and easy cleaning. Around her neck hung an amber pendant; I could just make out flecks of Jurassic life suspended in the orange stone.
Clara gasped when she saw the jewelry. “When was the last time that you had that thing cleansed?”
The nurse blinked at her. “We’re allowed to wear jewelry, ma’am. Studies have shown that necklaces pose no threat to patient health. Now, if you could just complete these forms, indicating the patient’s name—”
“No!” Clara said. She was loud enough that several people in the waiting room looked up from their zombie states. “I don’t mean germs. Any idiot can take care of germs.” I winced. Surely under the circumstances, it wasn’t a good idea to call health-care providers idiots. Clara bulled forward: “I mean the negative energies that you’ve collected.”
Negative energies. I could see the nurse parsing the words. Her eyes narrowed, and I knew that she must wonder if Clara was some sort of raving loon. The nurse—R. N. Lampet, I saw from her nametag—started to vocalize three different retorts to Clara, but then she seemed to decide that she was better off addressing her comments to me. “If your grandmother has insurance other tha
n Medicare, we’ll need that information here—”
Clara was not willing to be put off that easily. “Your amber is exposed to some major negative energy here. All of the pain in this hospital. All of the fear. Listen to me—I am a trained vibrational consultant, and I’m telling you that you need to cleanse that thing, before it affects your entire body.”
“Trained vibrational consultant?” The disbelief in Nurse Lampet’s voice echoed across the waiting room. I heard two different people snicker. So wonderful that we were able to brighten the morning for other people here in the emergency room. How nice that we were able to ease their own fears and concerns, give them a moment of amusement.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the nurse, mortally embarrassed. “If you just give me the clipboard, I’ll see what I can do.”
R.N. Lampet nodded. “Just make sure you take her with you.”
Miserably, I dragged Clara to a pair of plastic chairs. “I’m not making this up, Jeanette. Jane!” She corrected herself as I uncapped the ball-point pen. “That woman needs to place her amber in the open air. Keep it free from human contact for at least a fortnight. Burying it in the earth would actually be best, especially if she can find some undyed, virgin wool to wrap it in. I’ve got some at home. I should bring it when we come back.”
“You do that, Clara.”
Something about my tone silenced her. I’m not quite sure what it was—the way I had to force my words through my clenched teeth? The way I barely restrained rolling my eyes?
Clara sat silently while I filled out sheet after sheet of information. Any known allergies. Any prior hospitalizations. Any prior surgeries. Any current medications. I knew all of the answers.
When I had reached the fourth page of the admission forms, Clara said, “You do know that I love her, don’t you?” Reflexively, I looked toward Nurse Lampet. “Not her! Your grandmother.”
I took my time signing my name at the bottom of the form, taking care to print my relationship to the patient in large, accusing letters. Granddaughter. There, in black and white. A concise declaration of Clara’s failure. Only then did I look up at my biological mother. “I know that you think that you do.”
Clara’s lips narrowed. “I fully admit that I made mistakes, Jeanette.”
“Jane.”
She ignored me. “I lost years, which I’ll never be able to get back again. I didn’t expect you to come running into my arms. I knew that you were an adult, that you’ve found your own way in the world. You make your own decisions. But I’d always believed that your grandmother would have taught you her greatest lesson: to keep an open mind.”
Low blow.
I pictured Gran in the examining room, surrounded by ominous medical paraphernalia. What would she think if she heard us squabbling out here? She certainly had not intended any of this to be the result of our morning visit to the Smithsonian.
Gran had forgiven Clara. Couldn’t I?
I sniffed and ran a hand down my face, as if I could scrape away the confusing mixture of emotions sparked by Clara’s words. “I need to give these forms back. And I have to make a phone call.”
“Tell that nurse that I’ll bring her my black tourmaline solution when I come back tomorrow. That won’t be a perfect fix, but it will extend the life of her amber by at least a few months.”
I shuffled across the room and dropped off the forms. Nurse Lampet looked at me with pity, shaking her head as she reviewed the paperwork. When everything was pronounced to be in order, I dug into my purse and found my cell phone.
I stepped outside the hospital doors to make my call, forcing myself to take a trio of calming breaths. I punched in Melissa’s number from speed dial. I could only hope that she had baked a batch of Triple Chocolate Madness that morning. Nothing else was going to get me through the rest of the day.
***
Melissa didn’t have any Triple Chocolate Madness, but she brought along the next best thing—an entire pan of Butterscotch Blessings. The creamy flavor of the butterscotch blended into the oatmeal base, and the chocolate drizzle over the top provided a perfect bittersweet balance.
I ate half a dozen of the things.
But anything eaten in a hospital doesn’t count, we all decided, as we kept Gran company in her room. Personally, I was just pleased that I had set aside the temptation to chew my fingernails to the quick. That Sephora nail polish really did work wonders.
Melissa passed around the pan of Blessings one more time before she leaned back in her chair. “So, ladies,” she said. “This whole hospital thing is not the worst thing that has happened this weekend.”
Clara’s eyes widened. “What could be worse?” she asked. She and I had fallen into a respectful, mutual silence. I needed to think about what she’d said. Not the part about the black tourmaline cleansing—that was total hogwash. But the rest of it would take some time for me to process.
Melissa grinned. “My date last night.”
I laughed out loud. For years, I had been regaled with Melissa’s tales of dating woe, but Gran and Clara were in for a treat. My best friend spread her hands out in front of her, as if she were presenting a tray of perfect drop cookies. “Last night was one for the record books.”
“He was a FranticDate?” I asked, but then I laughed at the confusion on Gran’s face.
Melissa nodded, taking a moment to clarify: “It’s a website, Mrs. Smythe. I filled out a questionnaire, and a bunch of guys filled out the same questionnaire, and a computer matches us up with our soul mate.”
Gran snorted. “A good square dance at the church did better for my husband and me. We didn’t need any computer.”
“Maybe I’ll add square dancing to my list,” Melissa said. Honest to God, I didn’t know if she was kidding.
“So?” I said. “What’s this guy like?”
“According to the computer, he’s a doctor.”
“Ohhhh,” we all said, as if we’d just excavated some sacred relic from an ancient civilization.
Clara asked, “What else did you know about this man before you met him?”
Melissa ticked points off on her fingers: “Doctor. Prefers city loft to mountain cabin. Prefers Chinese food to burgers and fries. Reads Popular Science, not People. Favorite color: Yellow.”
“Melissa…” I said. I thought I could see where this was going.
She shook her head and held up one more finger. “Oh. And he’s five feet, six inches tall.”
Melissa was five feet, six inches tall. In her stocking feet. Not that she was a stickler for height in a prospective mate, and not that she spent a lot of time walking around in stiletto heels, but all the same…
Clara asked, “So, how does this work? The computer spits out his name and you just call him up and invite him over for dinner?”
Melissa shook her head again. “Not quite. We exchanged email a few times, using anonymous email addresses that the computer set up for us. You know, in case he’s an axe murderer. Then we talked on the phone. He sounded like a nice guy—really interested in giving back to the community, energized by finishing up medical school. We agreed to have dinner down in Chinatown. At Eat First.”
Gran looked confused again. “It’s a Chinese restaurant,” I explained. “With a menu that goes on about a thousand pages.”
Clara said, “And? How was the charming doctor?”
But Melissa was not one to be rushed. “I got there first. Jane, you’ll appreciate this. I actually changed out of my work clothes. I had on a jersey skirt and a cable-knit sweater. I brushed my hair. I even put on lipstick.”
That told me more than Melissa would ever convey to Gran and Clara. She had put on makeup for this guy. She had liked him. A lot. I nodded, to let her know that I understood what she was telling me.
“I got to the restaurant first,” she repeated. “They seated me, and I started to look through the menu. I’d had a busy day at the bakery, and I hadn’t had a chance to eat lunch. I was starving.” In honor of Melissa’s
suffering, I helped myself to yet another one of the Blessings.
“Three different men came up to my table. Who knew that Eat First could be so popular for first dates? For first blind dates. The third guy seemed nice enough, and I almost decided to say that I was Penelope, and that I did, in fact, play the piano, and that I was—surprise, surprise!—waiting for George. But that wouldn’t have been right.”
We all shook our heads. It wouldn’t be right. Even if it was the perfect fodder for a sitcom.
“Then, Michael-the-doctor came in. He walked directly over to my table, and he sat down before he said hello. He held out his hand across the table, and he said it was a pleasure to meet me.”
“And?” I asked. I felt as if I were on a roller coaster, and the car had ratcheted its way up the steepest hill.
“If he was a half-inch over five feet, that was because he was wearing elevator shoes.”
“No!” Gran gasped.
“Cross my heart,” Melissa said. “His body was strange—sitting at the table, he was normal height, but standing up, he was just about eye-level with my, um, chest.”
Gran shook her head, determined to be the voice of wisdom in these things. “But surely you wouldn’t let a little thing like height get in the way of an otherwise perfect romance?”
“It wasn’t the height,” Melissa said. “It was the lying about it. And even if that wasn’t enough, the real fun started when we got ready to order. No beef, because he doesn’t eat red meat. No seafood, because you can’t trust any restaurant’s refrigeration. In fact, no meat at all, because it could be cross-contaminated—yes, that’s the word he used—contaminated.”
“Well,” Clara said. “There are lots of good vegetarian options in Chinese restaurants. I frequently enjoy Chinese because it helps me to keep my aura balanced. The harmonic—” She caught herself and swallowed hard. “So what did you order?”
“At first, I thought I’d try the General Tso’s Tofu. But I was informed that it would be a nightmare for my arteries. No, not just a nightmare. I was treated to an entire discourse on arterial plaques and the demon that is the American diet. That ruled out fried rice and lomein. And don’t even get me started on the Buddha’s Eight Treasures.”
