Sweet Jiminy (15 page)

“I was worried about Lyn,” Jiminy said softly. “We're all upset, but she seemed to just switch herself off and go blank.”

Bo nodded. Jiminy finally looked at him and he could see anguish in her eyes. He turned away and walked to the other side of the room, where he sunk into a chair next to his great-aunt, feeling more related to her than ever before; neither of them could be comforted.

Jiminy resumed staring at the ground. She longed to be next to Bo. If it were up to her, she'd still be with him, but it wasn't. He'd ended their relationship, and she'd been forced to accept that. As unhappy as she was about it.

“Did you hear back from your mom?” Carlos asked.

She shook her head.

“I left word with the cruise ship company. And gave them the emergency room number to pass along to her.”

“I haven't done anything about the interviews we had set up for today,” Carlos said quietly. “But I can postpone them till tomorrow. Or even later.”

“No, you go,” Jiminy answered. “Too much time has been wasted already, and we don't know how much we've got left.”

Her grandmother had reminded them of that. As the clock ticked on, who knew who else they might lose?

Carlos nodded.

“I'll come back when they're through,” he said, placing a steady hand on Jiminy's shoulder.

“You want your shirt back?” she asked.

Carlos shook his head.

“You'll be cold in this AC, you keep it.”

Carlos squeezed her shoulder, offering a snatch of added warmth, then pulled away. Out of the corner of his eye, Bo watched him leave.

A Latina in orderly scrubs pushed through the doors that separated the waiting room from the rest of Fayeville Hospital, and Jiminy sat up straighter, expecting an update. But the woman avoided eye contact as she set about rearranging the magazines and picking up trash from the floor. Jiminy slumped back into her chair, despondent once more.

Across from her, Jean had gotten a new round of quiet sobs under control. She stood up, gripped her loose tunic at its hem, and tugged downward to smooth it over her slacks. The motion seemed to give her confidence, which she used for forward momentum.

“I just need to use the ladies' room,” Jean said to Walton, and whoever else might be listening.

Near Jiminy's chair, she stumbled and nearly fell. Jiminy leapt up and caught her shoulder. Jean was embarrassed.

“I don't do well without sleep,” she explained. “I'm feeling so drained.”

“Let me help you,” Jiminy replied.

Jean leaned against her, and the two of them made their way to the restroom door.

Inside, Jiminy heard Jean sobbing in her stall and worked to hold back her own tears. She felt raw and fragile, worried ragged.

The toilet flushed and Jean emerged, red-eyed and sniffling.

“This is just too much for her, you know,” she said.

There was accusation in her voice. Jiminy braced herself.

“She told me on the phone,” Jean continued. “She could barely speak, but she said to me, ‘I'm not strong enough for this. I'm just too tired now. I don't want to disappoint her, but I'm just too tired.' ”

Jiminy stayed quiet, watching Jean's trembling lips.

“She couldn't take the stress of what you're bringing down on us. Maybe if it was five or ten years ago, maybe then. But she's exhausted now, and you're forcing her to relive the worst experience of her life. You're forcing all of us to do that. Why? Is it really worth it?”

Jean flung these questions through the air like so many quivering daggers. Before Jiminy could address them, or raise her shield, there was a knock on the door.

“The nurse wants to see you,” Walton called.

 

It felt strange to Walton to be back in the hospital he'd presided over for fifty-plus years. He was surprised at how many young people were now in positions of authority. He'd begun when he was in his twenties, but now that he was aware of how little he'd really known during those years, he was alarmed that the world was still letting youngsters take it over. It made everything feel very unstable. It made him feel unsafe.

Sitting in the waiting room comforting Jean was not where Walton wanted to be. He'd have prefered to be in the operating room, with his medical coat and surgical tools, making life-or-death decisions. His strongest memories of the waiting room were all about telling people bad news. He'd also given people good news here, but good news in an emergency room was relative. It was good news that your loved one was going to live, but more than likely, just a short while before, it hadn't crossed your mind that there was any alternative. This room was about sudden accidents and bad luck. Walton didn't care to linger here.

Remembering his doctoring days did afford him a uniquely clinical frame of mind, which came in handy amid all the emotions running wild. He felt he could analyze the situation better than his companions, and he put this talent to use as he checked in on how they were all faring.

He found it a little peculiar that Lyn was still waiting. He wondered if it was out of a sense of obligation, or paralyzing concern, or simply inertia. She'd spent most of her life waiting on Willa in some form or another. Perhaps she couldn't see her way out of the pattern.

He didn't question that she was genuinely worried. He understood there was real affection between Willa and Lyn, and he knew Lyn's life would be seriously impacted should Willa pass on. But Walton wondered whether it wouldn't also be a release of some sort. He wondered whether or not Lyn was quietly struggling to keep from acknowledging a dark wish for the worst, as she sat silent and frozen in her corner of the room, where she was still gripping her great-nephew's arm.

The young man really did look uncannily like Edward. He was lighter skinned, but otherwise a spitting image. Supposedly, he was studying to be a doctor.

Walton hadn't recognized the nurse who strode through the doorway, but he'd recognized the look of purpose on her face. She'd come to tell them something. Walton had crossed to the bathroom door and knocked.

 

As Jiminy was led to see her grandmother, she glanced sidelong at the doctor whom Walton had mistaken for a nurse. She was only a few years older than Jiminy, but she appeared considerably more weathered and drawn. And more accomplished, clearly. Her name tag read “Dr. Connors,” which made Jiminy wonder if she was any relation to Suze. Everyone in Fayeville tended to be related one way or another. The doctor opened the door to Willa's room.

“We need to monitor your grandmother very closely for the next forty-eight hours. She's sedated, so she probably won't wake up, but you can talk to her. She can hear you.”

Visitors liked being told that patients could hear them, even when this wasn't necessarily true. The doctor had no problem comforting people with harmless fiction. So often, she had to hurt them with unavoidable, cruel facts.

Jiminy nodded and crossed the cramped room to the bed, breathing carefully to control the panic she felt at seeing tubes snaking in and out of her grandmother's body. The doctor lingered for a moment to check Willa's heartbeat before leaving grandmother and granddaughter alone.

“Hi,” Jiminy said softly, taking Willa's hand in her own.

They both had small hands. Willa's felt thin and papery, like a breeze might blow it away. It reminded Jiminy of the onionskin transcript Carlos had found. She traced the lines of her grandmother's palm with her finger, trying to remember what they represented. One was her lifeline, she knew. The other was for love. And the number of children could be divined, or so people claimed. All of Willa's lines were short, deep creases. Jiminy covered them with her palm.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, keeping her voice soft and hopefully soothing. “I know we haven't been particularly close, but I love you. And I'm sorry if I did this to you. I didn't mean to. I really didn't.”

Jiminy bowed her head and let her tears have their way.

 

Half an hour later, Willa fluttered her fingers. Jiminy looked up, startled.

Willa's eyes were closed, her lips parted. She had oxygen tubes inserted in her nostrils to help her breathe, but Jiminy saw that she was inhaling and exhaling through her mouth, reclaiming her life on her own terms.

“It's not your fault,” Willa said.

Jiminy felt relieved and humbled. In Willa's state, fighting to come back, she was still attempting to comfort another.

“You were doing it for Jiminy, I know.”

It was a quick trip from relieved and humbled to confused and concerned.

“I'm Jiminy, Grandma,” Jiminy said.

Willa kept her eyes closed but squeezed her hand.

“No, no, dear, Jiminy died. I'm sorry. You were so young, you didn't understand. I know you loved her. There was so much you couldn't understand.”

Before Jiminy could argue or investigate further, the doctor entered the room.

“She woke up?” she asked.

“I don't know,” Jiminy replied. “Sort of. She hasn't opened her eyes but she's talking and moving a little.”

The doctor examined Willa and checked the machines to which she was hooked.

“Miz Hunt?” she said loudly and clearly. “Miz Hunt, can you hear me?”

Willa didn't stir. She again appeared to be sleeping.

“She wasn't making any sense,” Jiminy replied. “I think she may have thought I was my mother.”

The doctor frowned.

“She had multiple strokes. We won't know the full damage till I do some more tests. Even if she comes out of this completely fine, it would be very normal to have disorientation after a trauma like this. It happens in people a fraction of her age, so I would certainly expect it to happen to her. Excuse me a moment.”

The doctor glanced down at her pager then back up.

“If she moves or speaks again, will you press that button?” she asked Jiminy, as she hurried from the room.

That was something Jiminy felt sure she could do. Pushing people's buttons had become a specialty.

 

When Roy Tomlins pulled into the driveway of Brayer Plantation, he was surprised by the activity on the sprawling front lawn. Travis Brayer's son Bobby, the state senator and candidate for governor, formed the epicenter of a mini-tornado of action. Roy saw cameras, cords, boom microphones, sunglasses, clipboards, water bottles, and large shiny discs that a man and a woman were angling and adjusting in different directions. Bobby appeared unfazed by it all, cool as usual in blue jeans and a button-down shirt tucked snug by a large American flag belt buckle. He was talking into the camera, until the noise from Roy's truck proved too distracting.

“Cut!” a man with a bullhorn exclaimed with exasperation. “Who is this? What's going on?”

He was glaring at his crew, who were all shaking their heads that they didn't know. Whoever had failed to stop this intruder at the gate and instruct him to wait for the all-clear sign between takes was clearly in trouble.

If the director had targeted his accusatory questions toward Travis's perch on the veranda, Travis would've been happy to tell him that the truck belonged to his friend Roy, who was coming to visit him at exactly the time Travis had instructed, smack in the middle of the shoot.

Travis was pleased to watch the cloud of dust from Roy's truck descend on the group surrounding his son. It was the first break in a bad mood that had been worsening ever since he'd been rolled out onto the veranda earlier that morning.

“How ya doin', Dad?” Bobby had called back then, in his booming, good-natured, people-are-observing-me voice.

Travis had nodded at him, wishing he didn't have a blanket on his lap. Only the old or infirm needed blankets on warm days. Travis knew he was both, but he preferred not to dress the part if he could help it. The nurse had put the blanket there, and he'd forgotten. But of course then all the people on the lawn had turned to look at him, and he had recognized the indulgent condescension in their eyes. It was the same look his wife had given the mentally challenged bird feeder salesman that used to come around—so encouraging of someone from whom she expected so little. To these people, Travis was sweetly pathetic. Their simpering smiles disgusted him.

“He's adorable,” the makeup lady had exclaimed.

Travis had heard this distinctly. His ears were two of the only body parts that had yet to betray him.

So Travis was now pleased to have these people's work disrupted by Roy's arrival. Roy continued driving straight up to him, aware that the dust and noise made by his truck were sending the bullhorn blowhard into paroxysms. He even drove a little faster than he needed to and gave a couple honks for good measure. The chairs in the back of his truck were strapped down tight enough, and the smile on Travis's face made it all worth it.

“Mornin', Trav,” Roy called as he climbed out of his truck.

“Morning, Roy. You got the chairs?”

“You bet.”

Roy was thrilled to be there. He and Travis had been friends for seventy years, but they'd never been equals. Roy was more sycophant than confidant, which suited Travis just fine. He valued deference in his companions.

Travis could see his son striding across the lawn. This walk wasn't for the cameras, which were being reset for another take. Bobby was headed for them.

“Mr. Tomlins, I thought that was you,” he said to Roy as he took the porch steps two at a time.

He was taller than Travis by several inches, and he'd inherited his mother's untapped athleticism. He moved well, Travis admitted, aware that he should take some pride in this.

“Well, hi there, Bobby,” Roy said, shaking hands with Travis's son. “You sure got yourself into something these days.”

Bobby laughed deeply and turned to a short man with curly brown hair and glasses who'd been trailing him.

“David, I'd like you to meet one of my dad's oldest friends, someone who's known me since I was a baby,” Bobby said to the curly-haired man.