Chapter 19
THE RINGING OF THE PHONE awakened Anita from a dream that fled her mind instantly. She sat up, disoriented, trying to figure out why it was still dark. The clock radio next to her bed said it was only five thirty in the morning. So that’s why it was dark, but who was calling?
She scrambled to get out of bed to answer the phone before its ringing awakened Carly.
“Hello?” she said, her voice a scratch.
“Anita,” the man said on the other end of the line, “I’m glad I caught you. I know it’s early, but—”
Every word of Bobby’s was like an ice cube down her back. “Don’t you dare cancel on Carly,” she broke in.
“Look,” he said on a heavy sigh, “I don’t have a choice. It’s a work thing, but I’ll be back in a few days. So I’ll call you up and put together another time.”
Anita’s grip tightened on the receiver. She could try to believe the man, but her knotted stomach told her she’d be lying to herself. “Bobby, if you don’t show up tonight, then don’t show up at all.”
“Hey, that’s not fair,” he said, his tone defensive. “We’re turning over a new leaf, remember? Things happen, and we have to adjust—”
“You’re getting back together with Gloria, aren’t you?”
“Well . . . we’ve been talking.”
Anita closed her eyes, hating this, hating everything right now. “One more day,” she ground out. “You can delay one more day. Do it for your daughter. Or don’t you care at all? Were all those words in the grocery store just platitudes?”
“Anita, I’ll be back in a few days. Next week at the latest. I’ll call Carly after school. Explain everything. It will be peachy, you’ll see.”
She wanted to throw something. Anything. She knew by experience that begging, pleading, or even yelling wouldn’t change Bobby’s mind. “Fine. Whatever.” She hung up.
Either he’d call or he wouldn’t. There was nothing she could do about it except try to soften the blow for Carly. But first, she needed to get out of the house, out of these four walls, before she combusted.
Anita stepped into the backyard in the predawn light. The moist fragrance of the plants and soil surrounded her, bringing a measure of calm. She walked the dim paths of her garden, letting her disappointment and anger seep out of her. Breathing measured breaths helped to slow her racing heart. As she reached one edge of the garden, she glanced over at Phyllis’s house. Strangely, all of her lights were on.
Was that normal for this early in the morning? Anita tried to think of a time when she’d been up this early and outside to notice the lights at Phyllis’s. Surely, it had happened, but she had never seen all the lights on. Not even at night.
Her stomach tightened. What if something was wrong? What if there was a medical emergency? Phyllis wasn’t a young woman, no matter how healthy she might seem with all of her strict diet fads.
Anita moved toward the gate that led to the front yard. Her steps moved faster until she reached Phyllis’s front door. Maybe the lights had been left on from the night before, and she was sound asleep in her bed—oblivious. But from her position, she could see that the bedroom light was on too. Hopefully if she was overreacting, Phyllis would find humor and forgiveness.
Anita knocked on the door, loudly. As she waited for an answer, her heart rate climbed. The phone call from Bobby had been a crappy setback, but it didn’t compare to Phyllis having some sort of emergency.
She knocked again and rang the doorbell for good measure. Then she called out, “Phyllis? Are you home?” It was a silly question because her car was nestled beneath the carport. Maybe she’d gone somewhere overnight with her son’s family and forgot to turn off the lights?
“Phyllis?” Still there was no answer. Anita couldn’t just stand here on the porch, yelling in the near-darkness. “Please be all right,” she mumbled as she reached for the doorknob and turned. She fully expected to find it locked, but the door opened.
And that’s when she smelled smoke.
“Phyllis!” she yelled, hurrying inside, looking wildly about. Was there a fire, and if so, where was the smoke? She couldn’t see anything, but the scent was unmistakable. Her eyes watered as she shouted again.
“Phyllis!”
She hurried into the kitchen to find all the lights on and a scorched pan on the linoleum. None of the stove’s elements were on, but whatever had been in the pot was charred beyond recognition.
Anita felt a small measure of relief. There wasn’t a fire, it was just a burnt pot. But where was her neighbor?
“Phyllis? Where are you?” she called out as she headed down the hallway.
The bathroom lights were on, but it was empty. The first bedroom lights were on, but Phyllis wasn’t in there. It looked like a guest bedroom anyway. The second bedroom lights were on as well.
She stopped in the doorway and gasped. Phyllis was on the bed, curled up on her side, clutching the receiver of her phone. Anita hurried toward her. “Phyllis? What’s wrong?”
Phyllis opened her eyes, but said nothing. She seemed to be breathing all right.
“Phyllis, what happened?” she asked, taking the phone receiver.
Phyllis released it easily. Anita put the receiver to her ear. “Hello?” she said in case there was someone on the line. Who had she been trying to call?
Heart thumping, Anita pushed down the switch hook, then dialed 9-1-1. She gave the operator the address, then waited for the ambulance to arrive.
“I’ve called the ambulance,” she told Phyllis as they waited. “Everything will be all right. You’ll see.” She grasped the woman’s hand, holding on, wishing that she knew what had happened.
Her mind raced through scenarios as they waited, and she wondered how to track down Phyllis’s son. His name was Cameron, but that’s all she really knew.
When the paramedics arrived, Anita answered as many questions as she could. Then she watched as Phyllis was loaded onto a gurney, then into the ambulance. It was an eerie feeling watching her being driven away, leaving her house and neighborhood behind. A few neighbors came out of their houses, and Anita could only tell them the basics.
“Mom?”
Anita heard Carly’s voice and turned. She’d come out of the house, wearing a robe, her eyes as wide as saucers. “What’s going on?”
Anita hurried over to her. “Phyllis has had a stroke or something. I found her in her house and called the ambulance.”
“Will she be okay?” Carly asked in a small voice.
She wrapped her arms about her daughter. “I think so. Her vitals were good, so we just have to wait and see what the doctors say.”
Carly nodded against her shoulder. “The ambulance woke me up, and I was worried.”
Anita exhaled. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Things happened really fast. Come on, I need to find her son’s phone number and call him.”
They went into Phyllis’s house, and Anita rummaged through the kitchen to find an address book. With relief, she found Cameron’s number and called it while standing in the middle of Phyllis’s kitchen.
Carly sat at the small kitchen table, looking as dazed as Anita felt.
“Cameron,” she said when he answered. “This is Anita Gifford, your mother’s neighbor. She had a medical incident and was just taken to the hospital.”
After the phone call with Cameron, she looked about the kitchen.
“It’s weird being here without Phyllis,” Carly said.
“It is,” she agreed.
“How did you know to come over? Did she call you?”
“No...” Anita told Carly about seeing all the lights on, but she didn’t bring up the early morning phone call from Bobby yet. “It looks like she burned whatever she was cooking.” She picked up the burnt pot from the floor and set it in the sink. “Let’s turn off the lights.”
Once they’d turned out the lights throughout the house, they headed back home.
“Can we go visit her in the hospital?” Carly asked.
“I think so,” Anita said. “Unless they restrict it to family members.” She looked over at her daughter and her worried expression. “If you want to skip school today, we can go over in a couple of hours. See if they’ll let us visit.”
“All right.” Carly stepped into the house. “Can we make hot chocolate? I’m not really hungry, but I’m cold.”
Anita understood perfectly. Once they had their hot chocolate made, Carly decided to go back to bed.
So Anita found herself alone once again in her kitchen, which felt strange in its familiarity. Perhaps her adrenaline was finally wearing off, but tears started as the house became silent again.
She stood for a long moment, looking out the back windows to the garden that was beginning to come to life with the first hints of dawn. The deep lavender of the sky gradually lightened, promising to be a beautiful day. A day of uncertainty, though, for Phyllis. How was she doing? What had the medical staff discovered?
Anita reached for the phone and settled in a kitchen chair with the phone book. She looked up the hospital number and called, hoping to find out any updates. But the person who answered wouldn’t give out any information to a non-family member.
She sighed and hung up the phone. Dropping her head into her hands, she closed her eyes. The argument with Bobby flooded her mind, and she pushed it aside. He could be dealt with later. Phyllis’s life was more important.
Anita stood from the table and paced the kitchen, folding her arms against her torso as the kitchen gradually lightened with the sunrise. At least Carly had gone back to sleep, and she could wake her in a couple of hours. She thought through the times when she’d been impatient with her neighbor, and now guilt slammed her in the chest. Phyllis was a sweet woman—nosy, yes, but that was probably a good thing in a neighbor. A neighbor who cared.
Anita moved back to the phone and called another number.
When Wyatt answered, she felt another rise of emotion in her chest. “Hi, Wyatt, I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Not exactly,” he said. “I just returned from my run.” His voice did sound a little breathless.
“Is everything okay, Anita?” he asked.
She realized she hadn’t said anything for a moment. “My neighbor Phyllis was just taken to the hospital. You remember her from my backyard?”
“I remember,” Wyatt said. “What happened? Will she be all right?”
“I don’t know.” Anita’s voice cracked. She dragged in a breath, then told Wyatt all that had happened.
“It does sound like a stroke or maybe a heart attack,” he said. “I’m glad you were able to get ahold of her son.”
“Me too.” She paused. “I’m happy I didn’t wake you.”
“I’m glad you called,” Wyatt reassured her. “Do you want me to come to the hospital later with you?”
“Oh no, that’s fine,” she said. “I don’t want to take up your day, more than I already have.”
His laugh was gentle. “Anita, you can take up my day. There are more important things than meetings and accounts.”
She exhaled and closed her eyes. “Thanks for listening.”
“Anytime,” Wyatt said, “and I mean it.”
“I know you do.” And she did. She could hear the sincerity in his tone. She could feel it.
“So...if I’m not going with you to the hospital, can you keep me updated? I’ll give you my office phone number.”
Anita agreed, and a few minutes later when she hung up with Wyatt, she felt much better. Just sharing what had happened with him made everything feel more manageable. Phyllis was getting the care she needed, and she had aided in that. She had to let herself be relieved and happy about that.
When the phone rang, cutting through the silence, Anita startled. She picked it up, wondering if Wyatt was calling back. Or even Bobby.
“Ms. Gifford?” the man on the other end said. “It’s Cameron. I’m at the hospital with my mom, and she told me to call you.”
“She’s talking?” Relief rushed through her.
“She’s talking a little,” Cameron said. “She’s had a stroke, and the doctors are still running tests to figure out the severity of the damage. She can’t move much of her left side right now. Her speech is slow, but understandable.”
Anita gripped the receiver tighter. “That’s good she can communicate at least.”
“Yes,” Cameron said, relief in his own tone. “She keeps telling me to tell Anita thank you.”
She closed her eyes, the tears starting. “Does she understand what happened?”
“I’m not sure how fully she understands, but she remembers you finding her and calling the ambulance.”
Anita nodded to herself. The more time passed, the more of a miracle it seemed that she saw the lights on at Phyllis’s house. If Bobby hadn’t called...not that she wanted to give him any credit, but there it was.
“What do the doctors say about her recovery?” she asked.
“It’s too early for answers right now,” Cameron said. “There will definitely be some big changes, though. Probably physical therapy for a while. Maybe a home health nurse. Or we’ll bring her to live with us.”
Those would all be big changes, indeed.
“Is it okay for me and my daughter to come visit today?”
“I think she’d love that,” Cameron said. “I can’t thank you enough for finding her and getting her help.”
Anita’s throat tightened. “I’m grateful it all worked out. She’s been a dear neighbor.” And it was true, she realized as she thought of Phyllis in a hospital bed, trapped by her body’s frailties. The tears were coming back. “Thanks for the update.”
After hanging up, Anita rose from the table. The sun had peeked over the horizon finally. With the golden light casting its web over the garden, she headed outside. She’d begin a new canvas this morning. One that she wouldn’t ever be paid for, but one that would represent Phyllis. She picked up a basket to collect petals and leaves and began to walk through her garden.