Carry The Light

“Is this Mrs. Charlene Butler?”

A deep sigh. “Yes, I’m Charlene Butler, but I can assure you that I am definitely not interested in buying anything you might be selling. As a matter of fact—”

“Mrs. Butler, this is the emergency room at Tilton General Hospital. Your aunt, Dorothy Gibbs, asked that we call you. She arrived here about twenty minutes ago and—”

Charlene’s heart pounded hard against the wall of her chest, and her mind raced with questions that she hurled at the caller. “Aunt Dorothy? Are you sure? I was just with her. She was fine. What’s wrong?”

“The doctor is with her now. She appears stable at the moment, but she’s asking for you. We couldn’t reach you until she found the paper she had written your cell number on. Can I tell her that you’ll be coming to be with her?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Of course I will,” Charlene cried, blinking back tears as she looked for a place to turn around. “Tell her I’m on my way. It’ll take me an hour. Just tell her I’m coming,” she directed, praying that the good Lord would continue to keep watch over Aunt Dorothy.

Chapter Two

C harlene pulled into a parking space in the visitors’ lot across the street from Tilton General Hospital just after nine o’clock—well ahead of her husband, who was on his way from the bowling alley to meet her. She slammed the car into Park, grabbed her purse and locked up with a quick click of the remote.

She practically jogged toward the emergency room on the east side of the hospital, where she could see the steady pulse of the flashing red lights on the ambulance parked at the entrance. Her purse, which hung from her shoulder, swung in a short arc with each pounding step, mirroring the emotional pendulum that dragged her from fear that Aunt Dorothy might be seriously ill to the hope she had just had another one of her little “spells.”

When Charlene finally reached the entrance, she paused to whisper a prayer before passing through the automatic double doors. Inside, a security guard seated behind a desk cocked a brow, and she shifted the strap of her purse. “My aunt…Dorothy Gibbs…They brought her here…I need to see her,” she stammered.

His gaze softened when he handed her a visitor’s pass. “Information desk is straight ahead. Then take a number. Take a seat.”

She swallowed hard and glanced around the emergency room to get her bearings. Like most people, she supposed, she was not fond of hospitals. She had been fortunate to have raised two active children without ever needing to visit an emergency room.

As she might have expected, the air was heavy with anxiety and suffering, but also held a peculiar sense of boredom or, perhaps, a sense of resignation that she found disturbing.

Straight ahead, a bank of signs hung from the ceiling over a long, low counter in front of a series of five small, semi-partitioned areas. One sign read Information. Three were labeled Patient Registration. One read Intake. Non-medical personnel in business attire toiled with computers and paperwork at their stations, serving visitors and patients at the counter.

Charlene got in the information line behind two women and looked around. Through an opaque wall behind the security guard, she could see a good two dozen people seated in a stark, gray-painted waiting room, but Aunt Dorothy was not among them. Several children were lying on the floor, coloring or reading, while other youngsters raced back and forth between the restrooms and the water fountain.

The gray plastic chairs along the walls were nearly all filled with patients and their loved ones. An elderly woman sat alone in a wheelchair in the corner. Another woman lay on a gurney, her face to the wall. Everyone was waiting for medical attention. Charlene didn’t know if Aunt Dorothy had had to wait, too, or if she had arrived by ambulance. Either way, Charlene’s heart trembled with regret that she had not been by her aunt’s side.

At that moment, a pair of metal doors swung open on Charlene’s right, revealing the very heart of the busy emergency room, where she caught a glimpse of medical personnel hustling to care for patients behind curtained treatment rooms.

“Next.”

With her visitor’s pass in hand, she stepped up to the counter, where a middle-aged woman with frizzy orange hair sat filing a broken fingernail. Her name tag read Joy Wohl, but her bored expression was certainly joyless. “My name is Charlene Butler. I got a call from the emergency room saying my aunt had been brought here and that I needed to come right away. Dorothy Gibbs. Her name is Dorothy Gibbs,” she explained, anxious to see her aunt as quickly as possible.

Without making eye contact, the woman slowly turned and pressed a few keys on the computer with the tip of her emery board. She sighed, put down the emery board and handed Charlene another visitor’s pass, this one blue.

“Press the button to open the double doors. Once you’re inside, there’s a small waiting area to your left. Wait there until someone comes for you. You’ll need to keep this pass visible at all times,” the woman explained as she picked up the emery board again and resumed filing her nail.

Charlene nodded, peeled the backing from the blue pass and pressed it on her coat. She proceeded exactly as she had been told.

Too anxious to sit down in the waiting area, Charlene remained standing at the entrance, watching medical personnel hurry from a central station in and out of the treatment rooms. After waiting for five long minutes without any offer of help, she approached the central station. Not one of the three women behind the counter stopped working to acknowledge her; instead, an older woman dressed casually in khaki pants and a matching sweater approached, wearing a gentle smile. “You look like you need some help. I’m Kathryn Campbell. I’m a volunteer with the hospital’s spiritual-care team.”

“I’m trying to find my aunt, Dorothy Gibbs.”

The woman’s smile broadened. “Then you must be Charlene. Your aunt’s been asking for you.”

Charlene sighed with relief. “Then she’s fine. Will I be able to take her home?”

Kathryn Campbell’s smile deepened. “She’s in the emergency room, so I’m not sure I’d say she was fine, but she is resting comfortably. You’ll have to speak to the doctors about her medical condition. I’ve been checking in on her while she was waiting for you. She’s alert and oriented, and she’s feeling much better. She had a bit of an ordeal, but I’ll let her tell you all about that. To be honest, I think she’s still pretty frightened. If you’ll follow me, I can take you to her. She’s right down the hall.”

Charlene followed the volunteer down the hall to the third room, where the woman peeked in and then motioned for Charlene to enter. “She’s in the first cubicle. The curtains have been pulled to give her privacy, although she’s the only patient in the room at the moment. While you visit, I’ll see if I can find Dr. McDougal. She’s been treating your aunt. One of the nurses will probably be in to check on her shortly, and I’ll stop back later, too.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Charlene murmured. Unsure of what to expect when she saw Aunt Dorothy, she caught her breath and entered the room. An off-white curtain framed the far side of the hospital bed where her aunt lay, eyes closed, clutching her battered purse to her breast. The cubicle, like all of the emergency room, reeked of alcohol and medicines.

Aunt Dorothy appeared paler and smaller than usual, and uncharacteristically frail. Charlene approached the bedside slowly, and smiled when she caught the scent of her aunt’s perfume mingled with the pungent smells of antiseptics and medications. Relieved to see the gentle rise and fall of her aunt’s chest, Charlene ignored the monitors at the head of the bed, since she couldn’t make sense of them, anyway.

She slipped off her coat and placed it and her purse on top of the plastic chair beside the bed, trying not to make a sound. When she turned back to the bed, a pair of hazel eyes, dulled by fatigue, greeted her. Charlene stroked her aunt’s head, damp with perspiration. “I was trying not to wake you up.”

“I wasn’t asleep. Just resting,” her aunt said, and smiled weakly. “I’m sorry. It looks like you might have to wait awhile for those caramel brownies I promised you. I don’t think I’ll be up to making them by tomorrow.”

Charlene returned the smile. “Don’t worry about the brownies or anything else right now.”

Aunt Dorothy closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry to be such a bother. After your long day, the last thing you needed was to drive all the way back here.” Her hands trembled as she shoved her purse toward Charlene. “Take this for me, will you, dear?”

“You’re not a bother,” Charlene insisted as she laid the purse near her own. “What happened? Why didn’t you call me earlier if you felt ill? I would have brought you to the hospital. Makes a girl worry, like maybe you had somebody else you liked better,” she teased.

Aunt Dorothy kept her eyes closed, but smiled again. “I really didn’t think I needed to come to the hospital. Not at first. I was visiting Annie, just like I told you earlier. We’d just been sitting around after dinner, talking, when I started feeling woozy. Then I had one of my little spells.”

Aunt Dorothy opened her eyes and blinked away a few tears. “Poor Annie. She didn’t quite know what to do. I started coughing and coughing, and I just couldn’t stop. Then I started sweating and I couldn’t catch my breath and my heart just started racing faster and faster. That’s when I got scared, too, so Annie called nine-one-one. The next thing I knew, I was in the ambulance. Let me tell you, riding in one of those things is not much fun. I never realized they were so bumpy,” she grumbled, but managed a lopsided smile. “The emergency medical technicians were a nice bunch of young fellas, though.”

Charlene chuckled. “You didn’t flirt with them, did you?”

Aunt Dorothy attempted another grin, but didn’t quite succeed. She looked out of energy. “Only a little. They were a tad on the young side, but they were awfully strong. They got me to that ambulance easily enough, and they took good care of me all the way here—all except for going over all those bumps.” She pointed to a basin of water and some cloths on the table by her bed. “I’m still feeling a little pasty. Could you wipe my face for me, dear?”

“What does the doctor have to say about your spell?” Charlene asked as she moistened a cloth.

“Not much yet. They did some tests, but I haven’t heard back on them yet.”

Charlene gently wiped her aunt’s face, looking tenderly at the aged features that were so dear to her. “Did you take your insulin today?”

Aunt Dorothy’s eyes flashed. “I never forget my insulin. You know that. Between the trip and going to Annie’s for dinner, I probably just overdid it today. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Yes, you will,” Charlene murmured, and set down the washcloth.

A nurse entered the room with a cup of ice, looked from Aunt Dorothy to Charlene, and smiled. “You must be Dorothy’s niece. I’m Sandy. I’m helping to take care of your aunt,” she explained before turning her attention to her patient. She scanned the monitors and checked Aunt Dorothy’s IV. “Feeling better?”

“Better, but I’m not feeling like myself at all. I don’t think I’m up to going home tonight,” Aunt Dorothy replied, surprisingly admitting to a frailty when she was usually so unwilling to be anything less than independent.

“Whether or not you go home tonight is up to Dr. McDougal. She’ll be here to see you again in a bit. In the meantime, I’ve brought you those ice chips you wanted.”

Aunt Dorothy took the cup of ice chips. When she tried to sip at some, her hand shook so hard she spilled a few onto her chest. “Look at the mess I’m making.”

The nurse scooped up the spilled chips and tossed them into a trash can. “No problem. The mess is gone. Do you want some help?”

“Charlene can help me,” Aunt Dorothy informed her.

Under the nurse’s watchful gaze, Charlene held the cup steady while her aunt took some ice chips, sucked them away and then took some more.

“Is there a preliminary diagnosis to explain my aunt’s spell?” Charlene asked.

The nurse looked at Aunt Dorothy. “Is it all right to discuss the diagnosis or test results with your niece?”

Aunt Dorothy swallowed the ice in her mouth. “Of course.”

“We’re still waiting for test results, so we can’t be sure,” the nurse began. “We’re concerned about her lungs, of course. They’re congested, which is why we’re limiting fluids for the moment, at least until we get the results of her chest X-ray. And we’re concerned about her heart. The symptoms she’s exhibiting are all consistent with CHF, but they may or may not indicate she’s had a heart attack. The electrocardiogram was inconclusive, but we’ll know from the blood test whether or not she actually suffered one.”

Charlene furrowed her brow. “CHF?”

“Congestive heart failure. According to what we’ve learned so far from her primary physician, your aunt was diagnosed with CHF over two years ago. We have some brochures about it that you can read, if you like, and Dr. McDougal will be glad to answer all of your questions once there’s a final diagnosis.”

Charlene looked at her aunt. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Aunt Dot shrugged. “They’ve got fancy names for everything these days. All that CHF means is that my heart is slowing down and doesn’t pump as good as it did when I was younger. I’m eighty-one years old. Everything is supposed to slow down. For all the money they charge, the doctors should tell me something I don’t know.”

Charlene shook her head, but directed her attention to the nurse. “I’ll take one of those brochures, and I’d like to speak to Dr. McDougal as well. Do you think they’ll be admitting my aunt, or will I be taking her home tonight?”

The nurse patted her arm. “I wouldn’t plan on taking her home tonight. We’re hoping to transfer her to a regular room, as soon as one becomes available. We’ll know more when we have all the test results, which won’t be until morning. If you’ll excuse me, I need to check on another patient. Just buzz if you need me to come back,” she instructed before leaving the room.

“Honestly, I don’t mind staying. They’re taking good care of me,” Aunt Dorothy admitted. “I’m sorry you had to drive all the way back here, but I wanted to talk to you about my papers and such. Just in case.”

Charlene cocked her head. “Just in case?”

Aunt Dorothy sighed and patted the side of her bed. “Sit with me. I need to tell you where I keep my important papers, just in case I don’t get to go back home at all. And I need you to stop at the bank first thing in the morning, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“I have money, but I shouldn’t think that you’d be needing any,” Charlene said.

“No, but I do need my living will,” her aunt whispered, and closed her eyes.

Chapter Three

I n less than a week, every aspect of Ellie’s existence had been flipped upside down and twisted inside out. Organizing the chaos in her life was her most urgent priority, and she had only today to do it.

She closed and locked the door to her office late Wednesday afternoon at the end of her first day back at work. She was carrying a briefcase full of student papers that the substitute teacher had collected for her to grade, along with a list of parents who needed to be called because she had missed parent conferences for the first time in her career.

She tried to be content, knowing that the substitute teacher was fully certified in language arts and was hoping to be hired for the upcoming year if there was an opening, so Ellie’s students had been left in very capable hands. She also tried to resist the sense that she’d let down her colleagues—she’d done her best to handle the overflowing papers in her mailbox and on her desk by relegating them into stacks labeled: To Do, To Distribute and To File.

The only thing not overflowing when she had returned had been her voice mail. The entire system had been shut down now for three days, much to the amusement of the faculty and staff, who watched the failed attempts to repair the system by the novice technicians the district had employed instead of calling in seasoned professionals.

Ellie hurried down the empty school corridor to the parking lot and carefully avoided the mini piles of dirt and dust left by the custodians as they swept their way from classroom to classroom. At her car, she stuck her briefcase in the trunk next to a small suitcase packed with comfortable clothes for her mother to wear home from the hospital tomorrow, and then plopped into the driver’s seat. The afternoon was so warm she was tempted to put down the top on her convertible, but since she would only have to put it right back up again at the hospital, she decided against it…for all of two seconds.

Grinning to herself, she put the top down anyway. After all, what good was having a convertible if you didn’t use it when you could?

She headed out of the parking lot and turned toward the avenue. At a red light, she kept time with the sound of her blinker by tapping her left foot as her mind raced back over the past few days and ahead to the next few weeks. Starting tomorrow, her routine would change. Drastically.

With the diagnosis of a mild heart attack confirmed, Ellie’s mother would be released from the hospital in the morning. Tests had also confirmed that she had coronary artery disease, CAD, and given her advanced age, the doctors had agreed against an aggressive course of action, deciding to treat her condition with only medication, a change in diet and a mild exercise program. If all went well, after recuperating for a few weeks, her mother would be living back in her own home again, although none of the doctors would speculate on how much time she might have left.

In the meantime, Rose Hutchinson was moving in with Ellie, which was a bit like inviting the wolf to move into the chicken coop and expecting the chickens to celebrate.

Ellie accelerated the instant the light turned green, hung a left and headed south toward the hospital. Before tomorrow morning, she had to turn the small den on the first floor of her stately old Victorian into a bedroom for her mother, put fresh linens in the downstairs bathroom and clean the house. She also had to stock the pantry with appropriate foods for a woman with heart disease, which meant a trip to the grocery store.

Somehow, she had to find time as well to stop at her mother’s house for more clothing and toiletries. Grading papers and preparing next week’s lesson plans would simply have to wait until the weekend.

Feeling overwhelmed and definitely in need of a friend who might help her face the challenges ahead, she eased into the visitors’ parking lot at Tilton General, took a ticket from the automated machine and found the last open parking spot at the far end of the lot. Then she turned off the ignition, pulled out the key and bent forward to rest her forehead on the steering wheel.

Reorganizing her life at home and at work would only mean her days would be temporarily more hectic. Coming face-to-face with the fact that her mother’s illness was progressive and ultimately terminal only increased her anxiety. She had called both of her sons twice to inform them about their grandmother’s condition. Alex and Richard had each promised to keep in closer touch by telephone and to come home soon. In the meantime, Ellie knew that if she hoped to establish a loving relationship with her mother, the time was now.

After praying for the gift of the time she and her mother needed together, Ellie put the convertible top up again, locked her car, grabbed the suitcase out of the trunk and headed across the asphalt parking lot.

Inside the hospital, she followed the now-familiar route to the visitors’ desk for a pass, took the elevator to the fifth floor cardiac unit and went directly to her mother’s private room.

She tapped on the half-open door. “Mother, it’s me, Ellie,” she said as she nudged the door open.

Straight ahead, wearing the aqua dress she had worn to the doctor’s office, her mother sat in a wheelchair with her hands clutching her handbag and her lips set in a forlorn frown. A large plastic bag sat on the floor at the foot of the freshly made bed. The heavy smell of disinfectant filled the air.

Her mother’s bottom lip quivered. “You took your sweet time getting here. I was afraid you’d changed your mind and decided to send me to a nursing home.”

Ellie put the suitcase on the floor, laid her purse and the visitor’s pass on the overbed table, and moved a chair to sit down next to her mother. “I told you that I had to go into work today, but that I’d be here by five o’clock. Why are you dressed to go home? The doctor said you wouldn’t be discharged until tomorrow, and I took the day off to bring you home with me,” she said gently, concerned that her mother seemed to be getting more forgetful.

“I got discharged right after breakfast this morning,” her mother countered. She opened her purse and pulled out a wad of papers. “See for yourself. I’ve been cleared to go home for hours and hours, but I guess you were too busy at work to leave. I would have called Phyllis’s daughter, but she took her mother to New York City today to see a Broadway show. The nurses were awfully nice to me, though. They gave me lunch and dinner, even though I wasn’t supposed to be here.”

Ellie skimmed the paperwork and sighed with frustration. “No one called me. Why didn’t anyone call to tell me you’d been discharged early?” she asked, more upset with the hospital than with her mother.

“They probably left a message for you at school. You just never called them back, which doesn’t surprise me. You never seem to call me back before I leave five or six messages.”

Ellie gritted her teeth. “I gave the hospital my cell phone number so I could be reached immediately,” she argued. “Can I take you home with me now, or am I supposed to let someone know you’re leaving?” she asked as she skimmed through the discharge orders, the diet plan her mother had to follow, more prescriptions than Ellie had ever seen at one time and a stapled set of papers that included information about the nurse who would be coming to the house.

“I think you’re supposed to tell someone. I don’t think you’re allowed to take me downstairs by yourself,” her mother said. “But do hurry. I’m getting sore from sitting in one spot all day.”

Ellie handed the papers back to her mother. “Keep these for now. I’ll check about what to do, and be right back.” She retraced her steps to the nurses’ station. Not recognizing either of the two nurses on duty, she kept her anger in check. “My name is Ellie Waters. My mother is Rose Hutchinson, in room four seventeen. I understand she’s been discharged, and I can take her home now. Is that correct?”

The younger nurse, who looked like she might have skipped high school and graduated from nursing school yesterday, at age sixteen, wore a badge that read, Cindy Morgan, R.N. Without speaking, she pulled out a chart and bounced over to the counter where Ellie was standing. “Your mother was discharged hours ago,” she said, frowning, “It’s too bad she had to wait all this time for you to pick her up, but at least you’re here now. Unless you’d like to go over her discharge instructions or her new prescriptions, all I need to do is call an aide to take your mother downstairs and wait with her while you get your car.”

Ellie drew in a long, deep breath. “I can look the papers over when I get home, but I would have come to the hospital immediately if I’d known she’d been released. Is there any reason I wasn’t called?”

The nurse flipped open the chart again and skimmed the paperwork. “I see they tried to reach you three times this morning. I tried once when I came on shift a few hours ago, but no one answered.”

Ellie let out a sigh. “Our phone system is down, but I specifically asked to be called on my cell phone. Do you see that listed anywhere?” she asked, using her assertive teacher voice, which kept all but the most defiant students in line.