Organized to Death (15 page)

Finally he finished. “Looks as if you’re right,” he admitted grudgingly.

She nodded, took the laminated paper from him, and went to sit with her mother and Princess.

“Any word?”

“No. And he didn’t wake up in the ambulance. I hope it’s nothing serious, but it can’t be good if he’s unconscious.”

“Let’s hope for the best,” Tina said. When she looked up, she was surprised to see Hank striding toward them.

“Mrs. Shaw, Tina, Princess. I heard, so I came to see if I can be of any help.”

“How’d you hear?” Tina asked.
Stupid
, she thought. What did it matter?

“Does it matter?” Hank cocked his right eyebrow at her.

Tina sighed. “I guess not. Maybe you could find out what’s going on. I almost had to punch out the head nurse because he didn’t want to let Princess in.”

Hank looked amused. “You been practicing punching people out?”

“No, but maybe I should. Could start with you. You wanna practice with me?”

“Not today.” He grinned. “I’ll go check on Uncle Bob.”

“Thanks.”

Princess tried to follow Hank, but Laura held her back.

“Why do you always bait Hank?” her mother asked.

“I don’t know. Because it’s so easy?”

“Really, Tina.”

“Why do you care? You don’t think Hank is a suitable man. Especially for me. Do you?”

“Brandon is a much better choice. I don’t understand why you don’t want to marry him. I’m sure he’s asked you, several times.”

Tina began to feel uncomfortable. Since she couldn’t explain to herself fully why she wouldn’t marry Brandon, she didn’t want to talk to her mother about it.

“Let’s not talk about it now, okay?”

“All right. You’re right. This is neither the time nor the place.”

Thank you, God
, Tina thought and then she prayed for Uncle Bob.

About ten minutes later, Hank returned. “They’re doing tests. He’s coming around. They’re thinking maybe ulcers—internal bleeding.”

“Ulcers? Uncle Bob?” Laura asked. “What does he have to be stressed about?”

Hank sat down next to Tina and reached over to pat Princess on the head. “I’ve read that having a hearing loss can be quite stressful. Always straining to understand. Sounds in the environment, and you don’t know what they are. You or I hear the phone ring, we know it’s the phone. Princess here alerts Uncle Bob, but he doesn’t know if it’s the phone, the door, or the smoke alarm. When he goes out, he has to be extra careful in traffic when walking, especially in parking lots. Every conversation with a stranger is a struggle. And so on.”

“I never thought about that,” Laura admitted. “And he has isolated himself, especially as the loss got worse.”

“I’ve read that’s a common reaction. But anyway, most ulcers nowadays aren’t caused by stress but by a very small bacteria in the gut. They just discovered this a few years ago because it’s so tiny. They have drugs that can get rid of it rather quickly. The trick is the person has to go to the doctor and get the medicine before they get worse and bleed. Apparently Uncle Bob didn’t do that.”

“He’s had trouble with his stomach for years. But he always thought it was something he ate.”

“Maybe so—maybe something he ate is what introduced the bacteria in the first place. Didn’t he ever go to the doctor?”

“Years and years ago. They couldn’t find any cause, so brushed him off.”

“So he never went back, not thinking that something new may have come to light in the medical profession,” Hank said.

“Exactly.” Laura sighed. “Men.” Her gaze lingered on Hank.

He laughed. “Yeah, we’re incorrigible.”

“But this means they can fix him?” Tina asked.

“Ah, the gal who always goes to the heart of the matter.” Hank smiled at her. “It appears so.”

Tina and Laura both breathed a sigh of relief. Princess seemed to sense the change in mood, and she relaxed a bit under Tina’s hand.

A doctor came out to the waiting room. “O’Neal?” he asked.

They all stood up. He looked at Princess, bemused, for a moment, then must have read the writing on the vest. “Is this Mr. O’Neal’s service dog?”

“Yes.”

“Good you brought her. He’s going to have to stay for a day or two, but he should be fine. A bit anemic, and we think some medicine should stop the internal bleeding so we won’t have to operate. He’s got several large ulcers. Too bad he didn’t see a doctor sooner.”

Laura nodded. “Hank was just explaining it all to us.”

“Good. We’re moving him up to a room right now. Three oh four. You can go up. It wouldn’t hurt for one of you to spend the night. We’ve put him in by himself so it’ll be calmer for him. Must be tough not to hear what’s going on around you all the time, and with another patient in the room, it would be hard on him. Right now he needs lots of rest, lots of protein, and, I imagine, his dog.”

“Thank you so much, Doctor,” Laura said.

“Not every nurse has dealt with someone with such a severe hearing loss. I’m sure they’ll try, but having a family member there to advocate for him would be good.”

“We understand,” Tina said. “Mom, you want to go first? I have something to do this afternoon, after I see Uncle Bob, of course.” She glanced at Hank, who seemed surprised she remembered her date with him and Mitzi.

Laura nodded and thanked the doctor, getting his business card before he rushed away.

“I’ll come see Uncle Bob tomorrow when he’s more rested,” Hank said. “I’m glad it’s nothing more serious.”

“Thanks for coming, Hank,” Laura said rather formally. She tugged on Princess’s leash.

“Thanks, Hank,” Tina whispered. “I’ll call you in a while.” Then she followed her mother to the elevators, forcing herself not to look back.

They found Uncle Bob awake, and when he saw Princess, his eyes lit up. Princess gave a little whine and pulled on her leash, tail wagging furiously. Tina noticed his hearing aids were still in place, and an IV line went into his arm. He was a bit pale, but otherwise looked rather well.

First Laura, then Tina bent over to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Sorry for causing such a kerfuffle,” he said, and they both smiled at him.

“You’re in deep trouble.” Laura sat down in the only visitor’s chair.

Tina took Princess’s leash, undid it for a moment so she could loop it through a bed rail close to Uncle Bob’s hand, and put it back on the dog, who stood licking her master’s fingers. Uncle Bob stroked her between licks.

“We’ll figure out how to get you back for the scare when you’re home and feeling better,” Tina said, grinning. “Really, we’re so glad you’re going to be okay. Did you understand everything they told you about what it’s all about?”

“Pretty much. That doctor was really good about facing me and making sure I understood. I think he’s dealt with deaf people before. Or has one in his family.”

“At least he was clean-shaven,” Tina said. “It looked to me as if he’d be easy to lip-read.”

Uncle Bob nodded. “Even gave me a room to myself. That’s a relief.”

“I’m surprised,” Laura said, “after what Tina went through with the nurse down in emergency.”

“She give you trouble about Princess?” Uncle Bob asked.

“
He
wanted to throw us both out. Threatened to call security. When I asked him who was in charge today, he informed me he was.”

Uncle Bob began to laugh, holding his stomach. “You give him hell?”

“Well, I tried. Mom saved the day because she had a copy of the ADA section about service animals.”

“I guess we need to get one for you,” Laura said.

“Looks that way, if Uncle Bob is going to continue to give us all this trouble.”

He held up one hand like a traffic cop. “I promise to be good. Regular checkups from now on. This doctor impressed me. If I can continue to see him, I will. I promise.”

“Good!” Tina said. “I need to go. I promised Hank I’d go see Mitzi this afternoon. He thinks maybe having some attention from a young woman might help.”

The color drained from Laura’s face. “You can’t do that,” she said faintly.

Tina and Uncle Bob stared at her. “Why not?” Tina asked.

Laura seemed to come back to them from a distance, almost shaking herself. “What? Oh.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Don’t mind me. I was thinking of something else.” She looked searchingly at Tina, sighed hugely, and waggled her fingers. “Go on. Come back around eight to spend the night.”

“There’s no need of that!” Uncle Bob said.

“Maybe not, but you’re deaf, and someone should be here. She can rest on the other bed and act as interpreter if needed.”

Tina bent down to kiss Uncle Bob’s cheek. “It’s all right. I don’t mind at all. You just rest.”

“Okay.”

Tina left, a sinking feeling in her own stomach. Uncle Bob seemed suddenly frailer, and older.

When she got into her car, she called Hank on her cell. “I’m on my way. You want to meet me at your mother’s, or do you want me to come to your place and we’ll go together?”

“Come on over here. When we’re done, we can have dinner and talk about things before you go back to the hospital.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Tina tried to make her tone light. Too much heavy stuff going on lately.

Hank was waiting for her in his Jaguar when she drove up. He got out and held the passenger door for her. She brushed against him entering, and a fission of she wasn’t sure what went through her, making her shiver. He drove to the house he’d grown up in, only a few blocks from her own. It too was an old Victorian, but on the gloomy side. Dark gray clapboard outside and dark paneling throughout inside. Heavy velvet drapes, thick Persian carpets that had darkened with age.

It also smelled old, stale. It hadn’t changed since Tina first walked in the door to play with Sally, almost twenty-five years ago. She and Sally had been good friends when young, but they grew apart during their junior year in high school when Sally became a wild child, rebelling against her stifling home life. It fell to Hank then to take care of Mitzi more and more.

And here they were. Hank opened the front door, calling Mitzi’s name. “I always try to let her know I’m here so I don’t startle her,” he said to Tina in a low voice.

There was no answer.

Hank glanced into the living room, then walked through the dining room to the kitchen. There they found Mitzi, sitting at a huge round oak table in one corner of the room, drinking whisky from an elegant wine glass. Tina knew it was whisky because the bottle stood, half empty, on the table.

Mitzi looked a lot worse than she had when Tina had seen her in the shop. Her hair stood out in strange places, her jaw was slack, and she wore a filthy bathrobe which gaped open in the front, showing her tiny breasts.

“Mother,” Hank said sharply. Tina had never heard him call Mitzi that before. He strode over to the small woman and jerked the front of her robe closed. “What the hell are you doing?”

Mitzi looked at them with bleary eyes. “Sally?” She squinted at Tina.

“No, I’m Tina. You remember me?” Tina sat down opposite Mitzi and took the hand that wasn’t holding the wine glass.

“Tina. You’re Laura’s daughter. Laura takes good care of you, doesn’t she? Laura was always strong. Laura always knows what to do. Laura wouldn’t have to self-medicate.” Mitzi laughed, a horrible sound, like a saw on wood. “That’s the new term, you know. What the doctors give me doesn’t work, so I decided to see if this would.” She held up her glass. “Doesn’t work any better than the last time.” She threw the glass across the room.

Tina heard Hank groan behind her.

“What happened the last time?” Tina gave Mitzi’s hand a gentle squeeze.

“I got sick the next morning and poor Hank had to take care of me. And I didn’t feel any better. I wish I could find something to make me feel better.”

“When did you start to feel so bad?” Tina asked.

“Oh, when I was a young girl. Young girls are supposed to be happy, aren’t they?” She looked at Tina as if she didn’t know who she was any longer.

“Yes, of course,” Tina said. “What made you unhappy back then?”

“My mother was a drunk.” She looked at the bottle and picked it up. As she brought her arm back to throw it, Hank grabbed it away from her.

“You don’t want me to have to clean that up, too, do you, Mitzi?” he asked.

“He’s too good to me, you know. He should have left me years ago, left me to rot. I don’t deserve such a son.”

“Why do you say that?” Tina asked. “You brought him into the world, didn’t you, raised him?”

“Bringing him into the world doesn’t count for anything. And I fell apart after Jasper died. You remember Sally?”

“Of course I do.”

“Poor Sally. Her grandmother was a drunk, and her mother was crazy. She probably figured she’d end up one or the other.”

Tina was trying to remember Sally’s grandmother, but only recalled meeting her one time at a Fourth of July picnic. She’d seemed nice, if a bit vague.

“But Sally didn’t live long enough to become either a drunk or crazy, did she?” Mitzi said. Then she began to cry.

“It’s okay,” Tina said. “You miss her, but think about her—she’s not in any pain. She’s in a better place.”

Mitzi looked at Tina. “You think so?” She wiped her face with her forearm, making the sleeve of her robe damp.

“I’m positive,” Tina said. “And you still have Hank. He loves you. You should think about Hank. When you hurt like this, he hurts, too.”

Tina felt Hank shift behind her.

“What do you do all day?” Tina remembered wondering what Rachel did all day. She was positive both women were deeply depressed.

“Watch television. Go shopping if I feel like it. What is there to do?”

In Newport, Rhode Island
?
Dozens of things
.

“You don’t play golf? Bridge?”

“No. Never liked either very much.”

“You like to sail? Does Hank take you sailing?”

“Boring.”

“Volunteer work. At the hospital, the library, the schools.”

“Bunch of snooty women.”

Tina doubted that, but she wasn’t going to argue.

“Collect something—stamps, coins, books, art.”

“Never had any interest in any of those things.”