Tides of Truth [02] Higher Hope (25 page)

I ran upstairs, taking two steps at a time. I grabbed the phone. When I opened it, a picture of Flip appeared. I hit the Menu button and found the listing for “Christine’s Cell.” I hit the Send button and sighed with relief as I heard it ring. Mrs. Bartlett answered.

“Are you at the hospital?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. I’m still at the house. I found the cell phone.”

“Where’s Mother!” Mrs. Bartlett screamed. “What’s wrong with you? I told you to call 911!”

“I did,” I managed in a shaky voice. “The ambulance is taking her to St. Joseph’s/Candler. Her vital signs were stable except for shallow breathing. Do you want me to stay at the house or come to the hospital?”

“I thought you would be with her! I don’t care what you do!”

“I didn’t think to ask if I could—”

The phone clicked off. I slowly left the bedroom and walked down-stairs. Partway down the stairs, I stopped, ran my fingers through my hair, and looked up at the ceiling.

I could have called Mrs. Bartlett from the phone in the kitchen. There was no need to panic over locating the cell phone. When Mrs. Bartlett calmed down enough to think straight, she would conclude I was an idiot, totally incapable of caring for her mother. I released Flip from confinement. He raced up the stairs and began searching the house for Mrs. Fairmont. In a few minutes, he returned to the den.

“She’ll be back,” I said with more confidence in my voice than I felt in my heart.

I held the little dog in my lap to comfort him but realized I needed it more than he did. After a few minutes, he jumped down and curled up in his dog bed. I knew I could pray for Mrs. Fairmont at her house as well as I could at the hospital, but I wanted to be closer to her. Calling Mrs. Bartlett to obtain permission to drive Mrs. Fairmont’s car wasn’t an option.

But I could ask Zach to take me.

Everything that happened in Mr. Callahan’s kitchen flooded my mind. Zach could ask God to touch Mrs. Fairmont, and we’d watch her get up and walk out of the hospital. I grabbed the phone in the kitchen, then realized I didn’t know Zach’s number. I opened the Savannah phone book, but there wasn’t a Zach Mays listed. Maybe Julie knew it. I ran downstairs and got my address book where I’d written Julie’s cell number and called her.

“I’m sorry,” she said when I told her about Mrs. Fairmont. “Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”

“Thanks, but I was trying to get in touch with Zach and don’t have his number.”

“It’s on the law firm contact sheet Gerry Patrick gave us the first day of work.”

My usually reliable memory had deserted me when Mrs. Fairmont left on the stretcher. I was acting like the person with multi-infarct dementia.

“Of course.”

“Will you be at work tomorrow?”

“It depends. If she doesn’t make it—” It was such a horrible thought that I didn’t want to let my mind go there. “I’ll let you know.”

I called the number listed as Zach’s residence. I didn’t want to face this crisis alone, especially if Mrs. Bartlett was hysterical. The phone rang until Zach’s answering message came on.

“It’s Tami,” I said quickly. “Mrs. Fairmont has gone to the hospital. Please call me as soon as possible.”

Beneath his residence number was his cell-phone number. I called it and nervously tapped my foot while it rang five times before the away message played. I left the same message. After I hung up, I paced back and forth across the kitchen. The second hand of the old-fashioned clock on the wall crawled across the face of the dial. I didn’t know where Zach might be or when he might receive my messages. I picked up the sheet and looked at the names. There were a lot of people who worked at Braddock, Appleby, and Carpenter I didn’t know. Then I stopped at Vince’s name. He answered on the second ring.

“It’s Tami,” I said.

“Hey, how are you?”

“In a panic. Mrs. Fairmont went to the hospital in an ambulance a few minutes ago, and I was hoping you could take me there. Her daughter is driving in from her house on the marsh.”

“I’m on my way.”

Vince lived a few minutes away from the office. While I waited, I sat in the blue parlor with Flip in my arms and scratched the little dog in the places he loved behind his pointed ears. Flip growled before the doorbell chimed. Vince was on the front step.

“Thanks,” I said when I opened the door.

While we walked hurriedly down the steps to Vince’s car, I ex-plained what had happened.

“Do you know how to get to the hospital?” I asked as I sat in the car.

“Yes. I went there with Mr. Braddock to meet a client who was recovering from surgery.”

We parked near the emergency room. The ER was crowded with the poor and the rich. Sickness has a way of equalizing people. I didn’t see Mrs. Bartlett. There were two staff members at the admission desk.

“Have you admitted a Mrs. Margaret Fairmont?” I asked. “She would have come in by ambulance within the past hour.”

The woman checked a computer screen.

“Are you a family member?”

“No, I’m her in-home caregiver.”

The phone beside the woman rang. She picked it up and started talking. It was a personal conversation about where she was going after getting off work. I had a sudden impulse to grab the phone from her hand and slam it down on the receiver. I looked at Vince, who shrugged his shoulders. Finally she hung up.

“Let’s see, did you say Fairchild?” she asked.

“No, Fairmont,” I said through clenched teeth.

She moved her computer mouse across a pad with the hospital’s logo on it.

“I don’t see her in the system,” she said.

My heart sank. “Does that mean she’s dead?”

18

“NOT NECESSARILY,” THE WOMAN REPLIED, GIVING ME A STRANGE look. “It means she hasn’t been admitted. She may be with one of the triage nurses.”

“How can I find out?”

The woman continued searching.

“Here she is. It just popped up on the screen. She’s being processed into ICU.”

“Which floor?”

She told me and pointed down a hallway that led to the elevators. I took several steps before looking back to see if Vince was following.

“Sorry,” I said. “I feel responsible.”

“Responsible for what?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that it happened while I was at the house.”

“Which is why you’re there. At least you know she’s alive. What would have happened if you hadn’t been there to call 911?”

Vince’s words always had a calming effect on me. We found the waiting room for the ICU. The atmosphere of the room was a sharp contrast to the frantic activity in the ER. About ten people were doing what the sign over the door declared—waiting. Mrs. Bartlett wasn’t among them.

“Her daughter should have been here by now,” I said.

As soon as the words left my lips, Mrs. Bartlett and her husband, Ken, came into the room from the patient area. I barely recognized her without her makeup. She saw me and slightly raised her hand. I came over to her.

“How is she?” I asked anxiously.

“Stable for the moment,” Mrs. Bartlett replied. “They’ll have to run tests to determine the extent of the damage.”

I introduced them to Vince.

“Mother mentioned you the other day,” Mrs. Bartlett said to Vince. “Are you the one who brought by the flowers she put in the blue parlor?”

“Yes.”

“Mother loves fresh flowers.”

“I’m sorry I was so disorganized when I talked to you on the phone,” I said.

“I was disappointed,” Mrs. Bartlett replied, staring directly into my eyes. “I thought you had more experience dealing with medical emergencies.”

I couldn’t remember ever telling her that I had emergency medical experience.

“She called 911,” her husband said.

“After I told her to do it,” Mrs. Bartlett answered crisply. “You can spend the night at the house, but I’ll review the situation tomorrow. If Mother has an extended stay in the hospital or goes to a nursing home, there won’t be any need for you to be there.”

My head jerked back. I thought about myself, but also Mrs. Fairmont’s Chihuahua.

“Uh, what about Flip?”

“That dog has controlled Mother’s life. He won’t do the same to mine.”

I didn’t get a chance to ask about me. Mrs. Bartlett walked past and left the room. Her husband trailed after her.

“Wow,” Vince said. “Did she just kick you out?”

“I think so.”

“Why is she so upset with you?”

I slumped down in the nearest chair and told him. I left out some of the specific words Mrs. Bartlett used when yelling at me over the phone.

“What am I going to do?”

Vince’s answer was as focused as one of his legal memos at work.

“Find another place to live,” he said. “There’s a vacancy in my complex. Yesterday I saw a sign on the bulletin board in the laundry room that a student at the college wants to sublease his apartment for the rest of the summer. It’s the one directly below mine.”

The thought of leaving Mrs. Fairmont’s beautiful home and moving into a male college student’s apartment for the next few weeks was depressing. I could imagine the way it was furnished.

“Do they allow pets?”

“With a five-hundred-dollar nonrefundable deposit.”

That was about a hundred dollars per pound for Flip. Then I remembered Mrs. Fairmont.

“I don’t need to be worrying about myself or Flip,” I said. “We’re here to pray for Mrs. Fairmont.”

There was a phone beside the restricted entrance to the patient rooms. I walked over and picked it up.

“May I help you?” a female voice asked on the other end.

“I’d like to see Margaret Fairmont,” I said.

“Are you a relative?”

“No, but I’ve been caring for her at her home. I was with her tonight when the ambulance came to get her.”

“One of the doctors is examining her. Call back in about fifteen minutes.”

I replaced the phone and told Vince. We sat down. I stared straight ahead without speaking. Vince cleared his throat a couple of times, then picked up a newspaper and began to read. Initially I closed my eyes and prayed silently. I heard Vince rustle the paper. He’d helped me see that I wasn’t responsible for Mrs. Fairmont’s emergency, but at the moment I needed Zach’s spiritual strength. After fifteen minutes passed, I phoned the ICU.

“You can come back now,” the woman said.

I motioned to Vince.

“Me, too?” he asked.

“Yes.”

We entered an ICU area that consisted of a row of rooms on either side of a central nursing station. Mrs. Fairmont was lying motionless on her back with an oxygen tube in her nose, a blood pressure cuff on her arm, and an IV bag on a rack beside her bed. I gently touched her hand that no longer glistened with the diamond rings she usually wore. She didn’t stir. Vince stood at my shoulder. Not trusting myself to say anything without bursting into tears, I glanced back at him.

“Will you pray for her?”

Vince nodded. I closed my eyes and waited. After a few moments of silence, Vince began quoting the Twenty-third Psalm. He had a deep, clear voice, and the words filled the room. When he finished, I opened my eyes. But before I could say anything he continued, this time quoting Psalm 91. When he reached the concluding verse about God’s promise of long life and salvation, chill bumps raced across my arms. I opened my eyes again, half hoping, half expecting to find Mrs. Fairmont alert and asking for something to eat. The elderly woman remained in dignified unconsciousness. I carefully searched her face for change but saw nothing.

“That was beautiful,” I said to Vince, hiding my disappointment.

“I hope God touched her.”

“What did you say?” I asked sharply.

“That I hope God touched her.”

I glanced back at Mrs. Fairmont again. Unlike Oscar Callahan, she showed no signs of shouting hallelujah and clapping her hands.

“We should probably leave,” I said.

We didn’t encounter Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett on the way out of the hospital. I wasn’t surprised. I doubted she would spend the night in the ICU waiting area just so she could see her mother for a few minutes every hour. I stared out the window as Vince drove me home.

“Thanks again,” I said as the car came to a stop in front of Mrs. Fairmont’s house. “It meant a lot for me to see her.”

“I’m sorry for the way her daughter is acting. Maybe she’ll cool down in the morning and let you stay. I don’t think her husband agreed with her.”

“Unfortunately he’s not the boss in the family, and when it comes to her mother, Mrs. Bartlett’s only competition comes from Mrs. Fairmont.”

FLIP SLEPT IN BED with me. He whimpered and refused to settle down until I went upstairs and got one of Mrs. Fairmont’s sweaters. Then he nestled against the sweater and dozed off. Once in the night he barked. I sat bolt upright in bed but saw nothing through the faint light coming in from the garden. It was only a dog dream.

I left a note in the morning for Gracie, letting her know what had happened to Mrs. Fairmont. Mrs. Bartlett would surely call her, but I didn’t want to take a chance. Gracie had worked for Mrs. Fairmont for over twenty years. The house would need cleaning and dusting, even if no one lived there.

Flip was a more troubling dilemma. He could fend for himself if I left dry dog food in a dish and water in a bowl. But the idea that Mrs. Bartlett might take him away while I was at work was more than I could bear. Mrs. Fairmont would want me to stand up for the little dog. He had no other champion. I skipped my morning run and took Flip out for a walk instead. As we approached the house, I was startled by a car horn blaring beside me. It was Zach. He stopped and I got in.

“Sorry about Mrs. Fairmont,” he said. “I tried to call, but I guess you were at the hospital.”

“Yes, Vince took me.”

“How is she?”

“I don’t know. There’s no news since last night and I didn’t find out much then.”

We stopped in front of the house. I explained what had happened with Mrs. Bartlett.

“Do you have any plans?” he asked.

“There may be a place to sublease in the complex where Vince lives, but I haven’t seen it and don’t know what to do about Flip.”

“That dog means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”