“He settin’ in there in the livin’ room.”
“Why, what in the world . . . ?” I turned and started out of the kitchen. “What’s he doing home in the middle of the day?”
I pushed through the door into the dining room and continued on into the living room where Sam was sitting on the sofa, pen in hand and a yellow legal pad propped on his knee. A stack of papers was on the lamp table beside him.
“Sam?” I said, hurrying toward him. “I’m so glad you’re here. Hazel Marie’s in the hospital and nobody knows what’s wrong with her.”
Sam looked up over his glasses and quickly put aside his pen and pad. “What happened, Julia? Is she all right?”
“I don’t know. Nobody does.” I sat down beside him as close as I could get. “I’m so worried about her I don’t know what to do.”
“Tell me,” he said, slipping his arm around my shoulders.
So I did, from start to finish, not leaving out one thing, even touching on female trouble in a delicate way and including especially my concern over that untried doctor. “We have to get her to somebody who’ll know what he’s doing, Sam. Why, that ponytailed doctor doesn’t even know enough to put on a pair of socks.”
“All right,” Sam said, “here’s what we do. Let’s let him run his tests, then we’ll see what he says. If he still doesn’t know, why, then we’ll take her to Bowman Gray or down to Duke. It could just be a touch of flu.”
“That’s what Dr. Hargrove would say. He wouldn’t make such a fuss about it and worry us half to death with thoughts of imminent, well, you know. Oh, Sam, Hazel Marie’s had such a hard life and now, just when things are easing off for her, this has to happen. It’s not fair.” I clutched at him. “For all we know, that child could end up an orphan.”
“Now, Julia, Lloyd’s not going to be an orphan anytime soon. Besides, he has you and he has me. And Pickens, too, for that matter. Which reminds me, does Pickens know about this?”
I shook my head, unable to speak for being so choked up. “I asked her if she wanted me to call him, but she was too far gone to answer.” I looked up at him. “But I guess we should, don’t you think?”
Sam unhanded me, reached for his papers to straighten them before putting them in a folder. “Why don’t you do that while I run this stuff back over to my house and tell James to go on home.”
“Well, that reminds me,” I said. “I was so glad to see you here that I didn’t think to ask why you’re home so early. I thought you’d still be working. Is anything wrong? Anything else, I mean?”
“Not really,” he said with a trace of a smile. “I’ve just had a few things on my mind, so I came home to think them over. Besides, James took a notion to clean out the garage, and he kept coming in to ask if he should keep one thing or throw out another.”
“James gets on everybody’s nerves when he starts talking,” I said, but was somewhat brought up short by realizing that I could possibly have been neglectful of Sam here lately. To think that he had something on his mind so worrisome that he needed peace and quiet to ponder it made me feel guilty for showing so little interest in his work. I rarely asked what he was doing, assuming that it filled his time, now that he was retired, in a productive way. “So what was on your mind? Anything interesting?”
“Oh, this and that.” He nodded toward the folder in his hand. “Trying to organize my thoughts. And some of the records I’ve found.”
Sam had been working on a legal history of Abbot County for some few years now, ever since he’d retired from the practice of law. He’d spent untold hours in the courthouse tracking down ancient records, deeds, and court cases, then putting the information into some kind of order in the office at his house—the house he’d moved out of when he came to live with me.
Legally
live with me, I might add. I was proud of him and completely supportive of his effort to write the definitive book on lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and some of the more nefarious cases tried in our county from the earliest times to the present. Just think how many people would buy a copy, if for no other reason than to see if their names were in it.
Putting aside my concern for Hazel Marie for the moment to concentrate on him, I asked, “How far along are you?”
“I’m well into the sixties now.”
“The sixties! Why, Sam, that’s remarkable. You’re really moving along.”
“I’d like to think so,” he said, “but I’m just getting to the time when there’s almost more material than I can manage.” He smiled somewhat ruefully. “We are a contentious people, Julia. That courthouse is bulging with records on paper, microfiche, and computer disks.”
“I thought the new courthouse was supposed to be able to handle everything. Don’t tell me we’re going to have to build another one.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s just that tracking these things down and putting them into some kind of order so I can tell exactly what went on is no easy task.”
“Well, I’m sure you can do it. There’s certainly no one else who could.”
Or who’d want to
, I thought but didn’t add. A good wife always encourages her husband in his interests. For one thing, they keep him occupied and out from under foot most of the day.
Then, satisfied that I’d exhibited the proper amount of interest in his affairs, I said, “Well, you better run on, but do hurry back. Lloyd’ll be home soon, and I know Mr. Pickens is going to be beside himself when he hears the news. We’re going to need you here.”
I walked Sam to the door, urging him again to hurry back, and went to the kitchen. “Lillian,” I said, “will you get out Hazel Marie’s gowns and whatever you think she’ll need? I’ll pack up her best ones to take over a little later on.”
“Yessum,” she said, wiping her eyes, “that’s what I was gonna do, anyway. An’ she prob’ly want all her beauty aids, too, if she able to use ’em.”
“Now, Lillian, we have to be optimistic about this. For one thing, I don’t want Lloyd to see us so concerned. He’s going to worry himself sick as it is.”
“Well, me, too,” she said as a fresh track of tears streamed down her face. “Lotsa folks go to the hospital an’ don’t never come home again.”
“Don’t say that! My word, Lillian, she can’t be that sick.” I had to hold onto the counter. “Can she? I don’t know what I’d do if. . . .” I took hold of myself but hardly knew what I was doing. “On second thought, I’ll go get her things together. It’ll give me something to do. Oh, and I have to call Mr. Pickens. I declare, I don’t know if I’m coming or going.”
I trudged upstairs to Hazel Marie’s room, but before collecting what she’d need in the hospital, I sat on her bed and reached for the telephone. Mr. Pickens had always been a good man to have around in a crisis, but I didn’t know how he’d handle this one. I knew he’d come flying over to sit by her bed, though, and be there to help me pin that flighty doctor down.
After placing the call, I hung up the phone, thinking that if any pinning was going to be done I’d have to do it. I’d learned, to my dismay, that Mr. Pickens was unavailable, out of town on a case and not expected back anytime soon. “This is an emergency,” I’d told the answering service woman. “I need to get in touch with him.” But she was no help at all. I didn’t believe her, for what private investigator goes out of town without leaving some notification of where he’d be or how he could be reached? But try as I might, I couldn’t budge her.
So I got out Hazel Marie’s overnight suitcase and began packing some gowns, a robe, and her bedroom slippers. That’s what you call being optimistic, I thought to myself, making preparations for her to be up and out of bed. At the sight of all her beauty products in the bathroom, though, I threw up my hands and decided to let Lillian determine which ones to take.
Hearing a slight commotion downstairs, my heart gave a lurch and I hurried out of the room. Lloyd was home, and I was faced with telling him the sad news. Then it would be up to me to comfort and reassure him when I, myself, had little comfort or reassurance to give.
Chapter 4
I hurried downstairs, stewing not only over Hazel Marie’s condition but also over Mr. Pickens’s thoughtlessness and my coming talk with Lloyd. Lord, that child would be overcome with worry when he heard about his mother.
I stopped for a minute in the dining room, collecting myself so I could talk to him in a reassuring fashion. I wanted him to know that people go to the hospital all the time and come home again in much better shape. I would present the situation to him calmly and with full confidence that Hazel Marie was in good hands and being well cared for.
So what did I see when I pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen? Lillian, her face streaming with tears, crushing the boy to her bosom.
“Oh, you pore little thing,” she crooned, sobbing between the words. “It gonna be all right, don’t you worry. She be well ’fore you know it, an’ be back home with us, singing’ an’ flittin’ ’round like she always do.”
Lloyd struggled out of her grasp, looking with alarm all around the room. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Lillian,” I said, “get hold of yourself. You’re scaring him to death.” The truth of it, though, was that she was scaring me, too. I’d never seen her break down in that way, and I feared she’d understood the situation better than I had. “Come sit down, Lloyd. Lillian’s just upset, as we all are, but things aren’t that bad. The doctor’s put your mother in the hospital and. . . .” At his gasp, I hurriedly went on. “Just for some tests, that’s all. She’s not been feeling well, and he wants to make sure that everything’s all right. It’s really nothing to be too worried about.”
“Mama’s sick?”
“To tell you the truth, Lloyd, I think it’s just a touch of flu. She has all the symptoms—a fever, loss of appetite, and so forth. It’s almost the season for it, you know. The summer kind, anyway, and every year we have some kind of Asiatic bug that makes a transatlantic or transpacific flight. One or the other.” I wasn’t telling him the unvarnished truth because I was still hoping that Hazel Marie’s malady had to do with female matters. But that wasn’t something to be discussed with a child on the verge of adolescence, the age when they know nothing and imagine a lot.
The boy’s face was so drained that his freckles stood out to an alarming degree. His hands shook and he looked as if he’d throw up any minute. So maybe Hazel Marie did have the flu and it had started to spread.
“Look at me, Lloyd,” I said, my voice calm and soft. “We have to stay strong so we can do all we can to help your mother. After supper, Sam and I’ll take you to the hospital to see her. When I left this afternoon, she was already feeling much better. Sleepy, but better. So pull yourself together and we’ll get through this all right.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said in a tremulous voice, “I will. But I think I’ll go upstairs and, maybe, pray a little.”
I watched him trudge out of the room, his thin little legs sticking out of his tennis shorts, and realized that I’d not reassured him in any way. I looked over at Lillian who was wiping her face with her apron. “I expect it’d be well for us to do the same,” I said and walked over to pat her shoulder. “Pray, that is. But we have to be strong, Lillian, and not frighten the child.”
“I know, Miss Julia,” she said, “an’ I’m tryin’. Maybe I better cook something, that always he’p me. I have us a early supper, ’cause I know you didn’t have no lunch and I know y’all goin’ over to the hospital again. An’ I know you didn’t finish packing ’cause you didn’t bring down her suitcase an’ prob’ly didn’t put in what she want anyway. I know she want her best gowns, ’specially that lacy one Mr. Pickens give her.”
“Lord, Lillian, not that one. She has a young doctor, and we wouldn’t want to distract him. He might never let her come home. Besides, I don’t need to be reminded of how inappropriate a gift that was. Victoria’s Secret, of all things. But, yes, an early supper would be fine so we can all go over to the hospital. Thank you for thinking of it.” I patted her again. “Are you all right now? I need you to help keep us on an even keel.”
She nodded, wiped her face again, then said, “I will. I jus’ have a little sinkin’ spell. I be all right in a minute soon’s I put something on the stove.”
I wandered out of the kitchen and through the house, starting twice to go upstairs to comfort Lloyd, but coming back down again. What could I tell him when I knew nothing myself? I certainly wasn’t going to mention parasites or an all-out infection to him. He was a worrier, just as I was, and smart enough to know that being suddenly put into a hospital didn’t bode well for anybody. For a doctor to run tests on a patient meant one of two things: Either he wanted to confirm something awful that he suspected or he didn’t have an idea in the world what was wrong and hoped the results would give him a clue. Either was disturbing and not easily discussed with a child.
I couldn’t stand it any longer. Maybe that doctor had come back in. Maybe the nurses could tell me something. Maybe Hazel Marie was, indeed, better. Or worse, and needed me.
I marched through the kitchen, telling Lillian I’d be back in thirty minutes, and went out into the drizzle and drove to the hospital. It would be well, I told myself, to check on her again before bringing Lloyd up to see her. It wouldn’t do him any good to walk in and see her in the active throes of whatever ailed her.
I hoped, of course, to catch Dr. McKay—pardon me, Rick—on his afternoon rounds. As I parked and walked into the hospital I realized that most of my anxiety was rising from being dependent on a young man barely old enough to shave. I mean, he didn’t know who we were. Here, he’d come to town, not knowing a soul, thinking he could dispense medical care to whoever showed up. Why, he probably thought that Hazel Marie and I had just walked in off the street. With Dr. Hargrove, I knew we’d get the best the profession had to offer, or I’d know the reason why. He’d known us for years and knew we wouldn’t stand for less than the best. Besides, he was a Presbyterian, too, and understood that he’d have to sit in church with us every Sunday that rolled around. That sort of fellowship with one’s physician can make him very particular in how he dispenses medical care.