Things Remembered (36 page)

As soon as she was sure she could talk without breaking down, she called Tonya to tell her to fill all the promised special orders that she could and then close down the shop for the holidays.

The rain slowed after Karla left Paso Robles and took the cutoff to I-5. With little traffic to occupy her mind, she began counting the swipes of the windshield wipers to keep from thinking about the miles that separated her from Anna and what could happen in the time it took to travel those miles. When counting didn't work, she went through the alphabet, listing all the states in order. Next came the names of every teacher she'd had since kindergarten.

The teachers provided more of a challenge. She had to remember the year, where she had lived, and which school she'd attended. Between third and fifth grades, three moves had equaled five schools and as many teachers.

She stopped for fast food in Kettleman City and bought a book on tape at the service station. Her mind was back on Anna before the deep-voiced narrator had made it through the introduction.

Somehow, even after everything that had happened, the doctor's appointments, the estate planning, the signs that indicated Anna wasn't moving as quickly or breathing as deeply or staying up as long as she had the week before, Karla had still managed to convince herself they had time.

A part of her mind had refused to believe Anna was really dying. She'd compartmentalized the information for later. Even with intimate knowledge of how abruptly life could end, she'd allowed herself to become one of the people she'd always wondered about—the ones who attend funerals and grieve for words left unsaid, for love unexpressed, for questions unasked when the person who died did so slowly and painfully and alone.

Finally Karla stopped trying to distract herself and made a mental list of the things she would say to Anna if they were granted the time. She hadn't fulfilled her end of their bargain. There was so much more she could say about her mother—how she'd helped Heather catch fireflies on summer nights, how she'd taught Grace to swim before she was two, how she and Karla had wandered through the woods to pick blueberries and come home with poison ivy all over their arms.

And then there were the questions she wanted to ask. How did her mother come to love the mountains and Anna the ocean? She'd never asked Anna about her wedding day. Or if she'd gone on a honeymoon. The Depression was something Karla had read about in books, never thinking to ask Anna how she had made it through those years. Had she lost friends in World War II?

In the end, it was the memories, not the wealth or belongings, that marked the sum of a person. If Karla allowed those memories to die for lack of the right questions, she would be witness to two deaths.

When she saw the exit for Santa Nella she reached for the phone to call the hospital but flipped it closed before she had completed the call. No matter what anyone told her, the only thing she could do was what she was doing right then.

Anna had waited for nineteen years; Karla refused to believe she wouldn't wait just a little longer.

At two o'clock in the morning even businesses had turned out their Christmas lights. Karla spotted an occasional house still lit up from the freeway and assumed the owner had gone to bed and forgot to turn them off, but for the most part, the holiday was on hold for another six hours.

Not at the hospital, however. Here the trees and decorations were lit, the employees in the wide-awake time warp dictated by shift work. Exhausted to the point of numbness when she'd arrived, her pulse quickened and her mind focused sharply as she crossed the entrance to the reception desk. By the time she had received directions and was halfway down the long hallway to the Grove Region wing of the hospital, her hands were shaking.

She experienced a chill of apprehension when she saw a sign that instructed her to turn off her cell phone. Reality became a battering ram against the wall she'd built to protect herself. Anna wasn't just in the hospital, she was in the part of the hospital where death, not life, was the accepted outcome.

She picked up the receiver to the visitor's phone outside the locked door to the cardiac intensive care unit, identified herself, and waited for the buzzer. The nurses' station was to her right; to her left was an arc of private rooms with glass walls between the patients and their caregivers. The lights had been dimmed in the rooms but were bright in the hallway and at the station.

A woman in a multicolored nurse's uniform saw Karla peering into a room and asked, “Can I help you?”

“I'm looking for Anna Olsen.”

“She's in number five.”

“Thank you,” Karla said automatically.

When she found the room, she stood at the door, her gaze intently focused on the waiflike figure under the unnaturally smooth bedspread. An obscene tube protruded from Anna's mouth, connected to a machine that quietly hissed and thumped in rhythm to the movements of her chest. A bag of clear liquid hung suspended from a pole attached to the bed, its fluid dripping into a tube connected to the back of Anna's frail-looking hand.

Monitors filled the small space. Some she recognized from Heather's hospital room; others she'd seen on television. One flashed numbers, another heartbeats. Even those that were familiar scared the hell out of her because she didn't know if their readings were good or bad.

Karla slowly moved closer, a terrified gazelle ready to bolt. Anna looked insignificant and utterly defenseless in the generic mechanical bed. With her skin a translucent blue-white, her eyes closed, her face swollen and unanimated, it was almost as if her life weren't hers anymore but had been given over to the machines.

Karla stood perfectly still, her body rigid with shock. This was not the same woman she'd hugged good-bye less than twenty-four hours ago.

A figure rose from a chair in the corner of the room and came forward. Assuming it was Allen, she didn't look at him when she said, “She's going to die, isn't she?”

“Someday . . .” It wasn't Allen's voice. “But not now.”

Startled, Karla lifted her gaze from the bed to look at Mark. She didn't question his being there. She realized as soon as she saw him that somehow she'd known.

He opened his arms. She leaned into him, burying her face in his neck. When he pulled her closer, she felt a powerful, consoling release. She wasn't alone anymore. She didn't have to be strong, or pretend she wasn't afraid, or explain why she'd come that night instead of waiting for morning.

Mark understood.

She had no idea how she knew this either, only that she did.

Chapter

27

S
usan took over for Mark in the morning. Karla tried to talk her out of staying, but to her relief, she was ignored. The cardiologist came in at eight, a woman Karla had never met. She introduced herself as Elizabeth Faith and explained that she was covering for Dr. Michaels, who was on vacation.

Karla didn't believe in omens, but liked that Anna's new doctor was named Faith. When she was through reading the chart and examining Anna, she looked from Susan to Karla. “Which one of you is Mrs. Olsen's granddaughter?”

Karla held up her hand. “I arrived this morning.”

“So you weren't here when she was admitted.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of her blazer. “I don't know how much you've been told, but I'm sure the situation seems pretty frightening to you right now. Actually, I'm very optimistic about your grandmother's recovery. She's responding well to the medication and I hope to have her off the respirator by this afternoon.”

“Why was it necessary to put her on one in the first place?”

“There was an acute buildup of fluid in the lungs. We had to be sure she was getting the oxygen she needed while the Lasix did its work.”

“When will she be able to go home?”

She considered the question for several seconds. “A week, maybe a few days longer. I'm sure Dr. Michaels explained that she's not going to be as strong as she was before an episode like this. From now on, your grandmother will need to rest more than she did before and will tire more easily, but other than that, I think she'll do just fine.”

Karla had sworn she wouldn't ask what logically came next, but her need to know was stronger than her will to resist. “How long do you think she has?”

“Congestive heart failure isn't the automatic death sentence it used to be. I have several patients who are in a lot worse shape than Mrs. Olsen who've been through several episodes like the one she just had. There isn't any reason to think she won't do just as well and be around for several more years.”

“What about the heart attack?”

“That's a consequence of the disease. Luckily, there wasn't any major damage.”

The next was harder. “What about her quality of life?” When Anna signed her living will, she'd made it clear she did not want her life prolonged just because it could be. She'd given Karla the right to decide should she become incapacitated, but Karla was no longer sure she could handle the responsibility.

“She's not going to be running any marathons, but with medication, she can lead a comfortable and productive life.”

Karla had heard the words she needed to hear, the same ones she'd spoken to Heather and Grace and believed herself before Anna wound up in the hospital. “Thank you.”

She smiled and handed Karla her card. “You're going to have a hundred more questions for me in a couple of days. If I don't see you here, give me a call and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Karla held up okay until after the doctor was gone. Feeling as if her legs could no longer hold her, she lowered herself into a chair. Her hands were shaking, and the tears she'd managed to keep at bay for hours abruptly filled her eyes.

Susan came over and knelt down beside her. “Can I get you something?”

“I was so scared,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “I've been so stupid. I already let years go by as if we had an endless supply. And then I blithely went home two weeks ago ready to let it happen all over again. Somehow I've got to figure out a way for us to be together even if it means I hire more help and start commuting here for long weekends.”

“Now you know that you still have time. All of you do.” She took Karla's hand and smiled. “This will make a wonderful Christmas present for Heather—once we tell her that it happened at all, that is.”

Susan left at ten-thirty to take care of some work at school that needed to be done and came back at a quarter to twelve with coffee and a chicken sandwich from La Bou restaurant. The nurse was busy with Anna, so they got out of his way and went out to the lobby to eat, sitting on overstuffed chairs in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the main parking lot.

“I know it's not as good as yours,” Susan said about the coffee. “But it's the best we have around here.”

Karla took a sip. “It's wonderful. Reminds me of the Thanksgiving blend I made for the shop last year.”

“Is everything okay there?”

“No . . . not really.” She started to take a bite of the sandwich, but wasn't yet ready to put something solid in her stomach. “I had to have Tonya close down. She was out of too many things to stay open.”

“What about Jim? Have you thought about asking him to pinch-hit for you again?”

“I don't want to put him on the spot like that. If it were any other time I would, but not Christmas.”

“What's the harm in asking? He can always say no.”

She thought about it before answering. “It sure would take a big worry off my mind. Once people get it in their heads that they want special coffees for the holidays, they hate it when they can't have them. That Closed sign I told Tonya to put up is going to cause a lot of ill will.” She gave Susan a tired smile. “I've spent years convincing people they shouldn't have a party without my coffee, so I guess I have no right to complain when my words turn around and bite me in the rear.”

“Why don't you get out of here for a while? You could go to Anna's and take a nap or a shower or just splash some cold water on your face. I'll call the school and tell them not to expect me for a couple of hours.”

“The doctor said she might take Anna off the respirator this afternoon and I want to be here when that happens.”

“I tried Grace again while I was at school. Still no answer.”

“I tried her, too.” Karla watched a woman with a little boy cross the street from the parking lot. She was trying to keep them both dry under the same umbrella and was hunched so low she looked like a duck waddling from puddle to puddle. “If I haven't reached her by tonight, I'm going to ask her roommates if they know how to reach her.”

“What about Heather?”

“I reached Bill at the hospital and told him what happened and he agreed we should wait a couple of days before we tell Heather. He did have some good news. Heather's doctor says she can go home day after tomorrow.”