Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Somewhere along the line it had begun raining. Heavy gray clouds turned the sky dark, even though it wasn’t even five in the afternoon and it would be light until nearly ten. Something about being so far north or time zones or both, I don’t know. But the last few days had been insanely bright.
When I opened the back door, Reilly was whimpering. “Do you have to go outie?” I asked the dog. Yes, I spoke baby talk to my dog, as though I thought by doing so he’d eventually pick up the language. He hadn’t and he wouldn’t.
I opened the back door for him, but he didn’t budge.
“Okay.” I turned my back and he whimpered again. Except it wasn’t him. He wasn’t the one whimpering. My first thought was ‘Oh God!’
Then I called out, “Nana?”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I walked down the short hallway to the bathroom. It was between the kitchen and my grandmother’s bedroom.
“Nana, are you okay?”
I knocked on the bathroom door and then pushed it open. There she was lying on the floor in a fetal position. There was foamy vomit on the floor and on her chin. Obviously, she’d had another stroke.
My stomach clenched. Oh my God, she was going to die! And that was terrible! I’d just started to almost, maybe, like her! Of course, looking on the bright side, it was not my fault this time.
“Nana can you hear me?”
“Will? Will is that you? I’m sorry. I was bad. I shouldn’t have—I lost the baby, Will. Can you forgive me? Can you ever forgive me?”
I bent over and she clutched at me as though she’d never let me go. Clearly, she had no idea who I was.
“Nana? It’s me, Henry. Your grandson. I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“Where is Will? I want Will. Why won’t he come? Did you make him go away?”
“Don’t try to get up. Just stay there.”
The smell was terrible. She hadn’t only thrown up on the floor, she’d also vomited into the toilet. I flushed it. Back in the kitchen, I used the wall phone to call 911.
As I gave the operator our address, I could hear my grandmother vomiting again. This was different from her first stroke. That time she hadn’t vomited at all. Maybe this was affecting a different part of her brain? Maybe that meant it wouldn’t be as bad. Maybe it meant she wouldn’t die.
I was told the ambulance would be there in about ten minutes. I was also told to stay on the line, but I said I needed to go back into the bathroom to be with my grandmother. I didn’t want to leave her alone. Then I hung up.
Back in the bathroom, I said, “The ambulance is coming, Nana.”
“What ambulance, Will? You can take me to the hospital. I’m not hurt bad. Honest. I don’t want you making a fuss. I love you. I love you so much.”
This was embarrassing.
“It’s Henry, Nana. Your grandson.”
“What?”
“I’m Henry.”
“Yes, I know that. You look just like your grandfather.”
It felt like she meant Will, the man she’d mistaken me for, so I said, “My grandfather was Samuel.”
“Why are you telling me that? I know who your grandfather was.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
This couldn’t be as serious as the first stroke since she could still talk to me clearly. Right?
“How’s your head? Do you have a headache?”
“No. Why would I have a headache?”
“Because you’re having another stroke. Remember, you had a bad headache the first time you had a stroke.”
I could tell I was confusing her. It was like suddenly she couldn’t remember that she’d had a stroke. I could hear the siren as the ambulance turned down our long driveway. They’d arrived quickly.
“I’m going to let them in.”
As I opened the door to the paramedics, I blurted out that my grandmother was having another stroke.
“Another?”
That left me explaining her recent medical history, even as I led them to the bathroom. Quickly, they put in an IV. They asked her a few questions, and then one of them said, “She seems pretty cognoscente.”
“Yeah, a few minutes ago she thought I was her first husband.”
“I did not,” she said, clearly offended. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Then she puked again, moaning even as she retched. One of the paramedics said, “We’ll be transporting her in a few minutes. Do you want to ride with her in the ambulance?”
“No, I’ll bring the car.” That way I had a way to get home. I also wouldn’t have to watch her throw up, which was making my stomach turn.
I followed the ambulance along the rain-slicked roads to the hospital in Bellflower.
Part of me worried that I was losing her, while another part wondered what that would mean.
My mother would get the farm, of course, and she’d immediately sell it, also of course.
If I asked nicely enough—and by nicely, I mean begged—she might give me some money to help get me back on my feet and set up back home in Los Angeles.
Thinking that made me feel bad. My grandmother wasn’t dead. Yet. So I shouldn’t be thinking about how well that might work out for me. Though it did seem like it could work out very well… I mean, it would be better if she just left me some money directly, but that certainly wouldn’t happen.
And then, randomly, I started thinking about how much she’d hate the farm being sold.
Was that why she’d talked about her family and how many—oh my God.
She wanted me to talk my mother out of selling it when she died.
Hmmm. That was not a conversation I had any interest in.
Nor one I expected would be successful. My mother had always done exactly as she damn well pleased. No matter how it affected me.
Anyway, Midland Hospital (formerly Morley Medical Center, formerly St. Anne’s) was not especially busy, so it wasn’t that hard to find a parking spot near the emergency room and hurry over to join my grandmother before she got all the way inside.
I suppose I should have wondered if Edward was working, but I hadn’t, so it was a surprise when he walked into the examining area they’d settled us in. I immediately turned into a five-foot-eight stick of melting butter.
“Hi,” I gurgled foolishly. “I think my grandmother has had another stroke.”
“I have not,” she said from the narrow bed beside me.
“It’s probably a mild one,” I said, explaining the fact that she was speaking coherently. “She was vomiting and disoriented.”
“Hello, Emma, do you remember me?”
“No.”
“I’m Dr. Stewart. We met about two months ago when you had your stroke.”
“Oh. Okay.” She looked flustered. I suspected she was having the same reaction to his good looks that I had. The tree doesn’t fall very far from the apple, as it were.
“Do you remember what happened?”
“I heated up some lasagna for my lunch. A while later I began to feel sick.”
“What’s a while?”
“I don’t know. It might have only been a half an hour.”
“Did the lasagna have sausage in it?”
“No. It was spinach.”
I was tempted to add “Bluch.”
“We’ll need to run some tests. I don’t think you’ve had another stroke, though.”
“She hasn’t? Well, what’s wrong with her?”
“I’m not sure. That’s what the tests are for. How do you feel now, Emma?”
“Queasy.”
“I’ll have the nurse bring you something to settle your stomach.”
And with that, he was gone. The light seemed to have left the curtained room. I said to my grandmother, “I thought you wanted the lasagna for dinner?”
“I changed my mind.”
“Did it taste all right? It didn’t taste like it had turned, did it?” I asked. Given Edward’s questions it was obvious he was leaning toward food poisoning.
“It tasted fine. Maybe a little bitter. I don’t know. I was hungry.”
I suppose it didn’t matter when she ate the lasagna. Given that I can’t stand spinach I wouldn’t have touched it.
“He’s a very attractive young man.”
“Mmmm-hmmm.”
“I wonder if he’s single?”
“He’s too young for you,” I told her.
“Not for me. For a young girl who goes to our church.”
“A young girl?”
“Well, young to me. I think she’s almost forty.”
“Dr. Stewart is only thirty-one.”
“How do you know how old he is?”
“He looks thirty-one.”
“I wonder if he’d go out with her?”
“I doubt it.” This was an uncomfortable topic, so I attempted to move her off it. “You should focus on getting better. You can pimp out your fellow congregants later on.”
“I’m not a pimp—that’s a disgusting thing to say.”
“Well, what do you think is going to happen? You set them up on a date, then what?”
“If they like each other they’ll go on another date.”
“And if they keep liking each other they’ll end up doing it.” Of course, I knew this wouldn’t happen with Edward. I was just pretending it might to annoy my grandmother.
“They could get married,” she said.
“And that would make you a really, really good pimp.”
“Oh shush,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
That’s when the nurse came in. She was an attractive young woman of about twenty-five. Exactly the kind of girl my grandmother would enjoy pimping out—to me.
First, she gave Nana Cole a quick shot of something to help with the nausea. Then, she poked at my grandmother’s arm—the one that didn’t have an IV in it—until she found a vein and took a few vials of blood. Then she scurried out of the room.
“She was pretty,” Nana Cole said.
“Maybe she’d like to go out with Ed—Dr. Stewart.”
She squinted her eyes at me, and then asked, “Did you have fun?”
“Watching the nurse draw your blood?”
“No. I sent you out to have some fun. Did you have any?”
“I guess.”
“What did you do?”
“I went to Drip. It’s a coffee—”
“I know what it is. Did you see anyone?”
“I ran into that girl Opal. And Carl, Ivy’s son.”
“They’re a sweet couple.”
“They’re not—” I started and then decided it might be better to let her think whatever she wanted to think. “Yes, they’re a sweet couple.”
I waited for her to ask if Opal had any friends for me or if there were any pretty girls at the coffee shop.
Remarkably, she did not. She grew quiet and there was a heavy frown on her face.
I imagined she was contemplating her mortality.
Given the situation it seemed likely. But then she asked, “Do you think Carl killed Reverend Hessel?”
That sort of put a damper on Opal and Carl being a sweet couple thing.
“He has an alibi. He was with Opal. His mother was in a bar. It’s possible she slipped—”
“But Ivy had no reason to kill her husband, did she?”
“None that I know of,” I bald-faced lied. If she’d learned about his drug-addiction and his possible, probable addiction to PNP—well, if she’d found out, that would be a motive, a big one.
“Just because we don’t know doesn’t mean she didn’t have a motive.”
“I’m sure the police will figure it out,” I said.
We waited quietly for a bit. A long bit. Eventually, I asked, “Should I call my mother?”
“I’m not dying.”
“So that’s the bar? I should only call her if you’re dying?”
“There’s nothing she can do. I’ll call her tomorrow, I promise.”
That really annoyed me. My mother had completely dis-engaged from my grandmother’s care. Dumping it all on me. It wasn’t particularly fair—nor wise. On a good day, I was better than nothing. And that, I’m afraid, is the best you can say about me.
Not that my mother would be an improvement. Mainly I wanted her to take care of her mother so I didn’t have to.
And then, after what seemed an eternity, Edward walked through the curtains.
“Henry, you didn’t eat any of the lasagna, did you?”
“God no. I don’t care what Popeye says, spinach is the work of the devil.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, so I asked, “You think it’s food poisoning?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Oh.”
That was odd. Why did he ask if I’d had some of the lasagna if he didn’t think it was food poisoning?
He turned to Nana Cole and smiled. “Well, you’re dehydrated, certainly. But the IV should take care of that fairly quickly. Your liver panel is slightly elevated.”
“There’s something wrong with my liver?”
Edward flipped through my grandmother’s file, which obviously included her most recent stay since it was pretty thick. After a moment he said, “I’m not seeing a chronic problem with your liver. I think the elevation may be temporary. I’m afraid you may have been exposed to a toxin.”
“So, it is food poisoning,” I said.
“No. I don’t think so. Emma, what else did you have to eat or drink today?”
“Oatmeal,” she said, obviously hoping that was the culprit. “Banana. Tea.”
“We should take a look at the lasagna. It could contain some kind of toxin.”
I asked, “When you say toxin, you mean…”
“Poison.”