Earthquake
“but I want you to know that we’re doing everything we can.” There was a pause before she continued. She leaned over the old woman, smiled lightly in that way that all nurses smile over their patients whom they don’t really know or understand, and brushed the crisp hair off her face. How different the hair was from her own soft, full, young hair. How she never wanted to get to where the old woman was now. “You really are getting the best of care here.”
That should do it, she thought. The patient was asleep by now, and probably hadn’t heard anything she’d just said. She checked the pulse one more time, and finding all the vitals as they should have been, left the room. The door closed silently behind her, as it and the other doors in the building were programmed to do. An older woman looked up at her from the staff desk and smiled.
“She asleep now?” the woman asked, making no effort to form proper sentences. That was just how she learned to talk: short and to the point, with no regard to the actual rules of the language she was speaking.
“Yes. She’ll be good for the night, I think.” She waited for any indication that her coworker would say something, but the woman just stared blankly, possibly waiting for the same thing of her. “Well, I guess that’s my cue to get out of here. It’s been a long day.”
Her jacket was among the other personal items in the staff’s back room, and while she was rummaging through her purse she didn’t hear the man enter behind her. He stood and regarded her for a few brief moments, then let out a long, loud sigh. She jumped and turned.
“Oh, Thomas, it’s you! You startled me. What are you doing sneaking around here? Shouldn’t you be sick or something?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t want to see me. Actin’ like you weren’t disappointed when I called in.”
She glared, then went back to her purse. Where was that damn cell phone? She could feel him approaching her, getting closer, could sense that his breath might have been touching her skin. It was tension that she didn’t want at work, and she’d had to tell him to back off several times since he became part of the team.
“Oh, fuck it,” she said under her breath, hoping that he wouldn’t hear and make innuendo about her language, then shoved her way past him and out the door. Her feet sloshed against the tiled floor; her mother never could get her to take larger steps. The break room door opened and closed behind her, but she didn’t want to look back to see if he was following, or even if he was just watching her go. What she imagined, however, was impossible in their setting. He couldn’t have been slouching against the wall, one hand half in his pocket and the other holding a cigarette to his lips. His eyes would have had a demeaning stare that revealed all that he thought of her. She wasn’t sure why she had these thoughts of him, and was even less sure as to why they excited her.
“Good night, Martha! I’ll see you on Tuesday.” She waved a friendly good-bye as she approached the large revolving doors.
“Andi, wait!” Andi sighed with relief that it was Martha who had called. She flipped around and bit her lip. “You forgot something.” She was holding up the missing cell phone, which apparently found its way to the desk. “I won’t ask how it got here,” she winked.
Andi gave her thanks and exited, thinking of how awful it would be to find her death somehow while trying to fight a crowd through the intimidating doors. There was no other way out or into the building, except through a handicapped entrance which she tried to avoid for fear of getting in the way of a wheel chair.
***
Kerry sat in the backseat of the car and watched the wet, murky landscape fly by. Broken-down houses and shops slipped from view to make way for dirty hillsides and leafless trees. The clouds gave no hint of a sky above them; the grey left one with feelings of undefined regret. She sighed and shifted her position in anticipation of the next five minutes when she will have to switch her position again. She felt restless while her driver and passenger were quiet, no longer bickering over directions or historical facts. They were in love. Kerry had the odd sensation that she should have sat this one out, but riding in a car was less expensive than driving your own, and they had a long way to go.
The sound of her yawn filled the vehicle and she detected a slight snear from her sister who may have interpreted the yawn as a signal of her own inability to entertain. Kerry smiled at the thought that her boredom could have inadvertantly annoyed her older sibling. That was entertainment enough.
She laid her head back against a pillow and dreamt her usual odd dreams. This time, she was visiting a foreign video store while riding an elephant, demanding that she get all her rentals for one American dollar, or else she’d buy instead from the competition. The only other video store in the town offered videos at a higher price than the one where she currently was, so the store owner couldn’t figure out why she’d threaten to go there instead. They had less selection, but Kerry wanted her $1 videos from this video store. She told the man it was vitally important to the continual of her life that he offer her this deal. He conceded.
An earthquake woke her up, or so it seemed like an earthquake. She had the sensation that her dream self and all the other dream persons were being rocked against walls inside her head, that suddenly their world was unstable and gravity was no longer constant. She opened her eyes to find her older sister shaking her violently.
“Wake up!” she whined, obviously frustrated. Her newlywed husband stood behind the car with a surprisingly serene look across his face. Kerry knew that they had fought the entire trip there and that he was probably in some kind of indeterminable trouble which could only be appealed by a random act of romance that pleased Jennifer at the particular moment when the act was being performed. In other words, it was up in the air when he would be forgiven, and he probably wasn’t even sure what he did.
“All right, all right,” Kerry mumbled; she smiled brightly at her sister who was not receptive to such sarcasm, and yawned once more. Her stretches were so involved that Jennifer promptly exited the car in a huff, obviously ready to drop Kerry at the next McDonald’s and leave her there to fend for herself.
Christmastime was always interesting in their family, but Kerry never imagined the family would decide to hold Christmas dinner at Jen’s house. It was even more surprising when Kerry volunteered to accompany Jen and the new husband to the hospital the day after Christmas, though their promise to give her a ride home may have partially influenced her. The hospital was more than halfway home and she didn’t want to spend another night with Jennifer’s dog slobbering all over the pillow she was trying to use.
She hopped out of the car and pulled up her pants. With her arms stretched as far as they could go in front of her, she wiggled and shook to release any tension that may have built up while she was asleep and then, for effect, pulled up her pants once more. They weren’t sagging but they had a tendency to slump more than what was comfortable. Though her shirts always covered her butt sufficiently, she knew that no one wanted to see the moon during daylight hours.
Her brother in law watched her show amusedly but tried to hide his smile, probably from fear of Jennifer’s wrath. She would certainly be annoyed that he found any of this acceptable.
The trio made their way through the parking lot, Jennifer walking a few paces ahead of Kerry with the husband trailing a few feet behind. Kerry wondered if he felt awkward visiting someone he’d never met in a hospital, but supposed it was part of the duty of being a husband. Maybe he’d complained about it, and that was why Jennifer only gave him irritated glances and never smiled. They found the doors to enter the building large and unforgiving, and Kerry strained to push the revolving glass in her triangle while noticing that Jennifer hadn’t laid a finger on the thing.
Jen was already up to the receptionist desk before her husband had even entered the building, and by the look on her face, Kerry could tell that she was annoyed at the slowness of her companions. Hell, she was annoyed at everything.
“Second floor? Thank you so much!” Jen piped in the most grateful and airy voice she could muster, and headed towards the elevator. Kerry passed an understanding smile to the dark-haired woman giving an incredulous look at her sister. “She’s adopted,” she whispered and smirked, secretly hoping that the woman believed her.
Once finding their footing on the second floor, Jen led them straight to the room as if she’d been there several times and knew exactly what she was doing. Kerry sloshed her way to the door, hoping that they were not bothering the routines of the hospital. She looked around the two of them and realized that their third had disappeared. He’s better off that way, Kerry thought, probably hidden in some crevice somewhere praying that Jennifer doesn’t notice he’s gone.
“Darren!” Jennifer suddenly exclaimed hysterically, as if she’d just gotten news that the end of the world was approaching and the only way to stop it would be for him to be by her side. Unlucky bastard.
“Shut it!” Kerry whispered as loudly as she could without actually making any audible noise. The door was still closed with a sign that noted sleeping hours. The lights were dim and they were the only souls present in the visible area. Jennifer whipped her head around and glared at Kerry, who could have sworn that at that very moment the devil had crept into her sister’s soul and was now protruding out of her eyes. She backed away a few steps and had the inclination that she should have been looking for an escape path.
Jennifer rushed out into the hallway leaving Kerry to herself in peace.
The room was in a pod of rooms. There were two entrances to the pod, each protected by double-doors and two of which were open. Outside the pod the hospital shown a dim glow of life and expectancy which filtered into the dull light inside the pod and stopped at her grandmother’s door. It was as though light was not allowed any further into the pod; the next room over had no light on it and from what Kerry could tell, no light in it either. If light was life, Kerry was glad her grandmother’s room was lit up.
She snuck out quietly to sit in a waiting room. Jennifer and Darren had all but disappeared entirely; she couldn’t even hear the shrill complaints or grunts of consent.
A male nurse approached the waiting room, his face buried in the details of a clipboard. He paused at the entryway, shook his head, then walked back towards the direction from which he came, briskly, as though he’d just realized some emergency that needed to be taken care of right away. Kerry was oddly curious; she didn’t usually much care for other people’s affairs and certainly not in a death-ridden place like this. She’d hate to walk in on someone’s last breath. With that in mind, she stayed put and instead tried to think of nothing.
The fear crept over her. It was the kind of self-conscious degradation that Kerry rarely felt; it was an emotion that almost brought her to tears but at the same time frightened her so wholly. She probably wouldn’t have felt it if Jennifer had stayed with her, so in that moment she resented her sister not for being, but for not being there. It was the first time in a very long time that Kerry could remember wishing for her presence.
I can do this, I can go in alone, she said to herself. It’s sleeping hours, but who would stop a loving granddaughter from seeing her sickly grandmother? I can read to her or just rub her forehead. But the thought of approaching the door turned away her ambitions: No, I really can’t do this. She felt like she needed someone else to initiate for her, let her stand in the corner and watch. She’d visited her grandmother alone in the hospital several times; in fact, she used to visit once a week. However, conditions got worse and now the poor old woman was so close to death the family could almost smell it.
Kerry closed her eyes and the world disappeared. Her pride wouldn’t allow her to be found tearing up over the thought of not being able to go in and see her grandmother alone. This woman bore and raised the most treasured man in her life, and after the loss of her father, Kerry became very close to his mother. They had lunch together nearly every day for a year and when hospital visits became necessary, Kerry visited her more often than she could afford. Now, however, she couldn’t even gather enough inner strength to stand next to her door, much less go in and visit her. It was too much, and she wouldn’t let anyone see her that way. She opened her eyes determined to be as indifferent as she possibly could.
“Who would expect you to be otherwise?” Jennifer said rounding the corner of the waiting room. She plopped down next to Kerry and sighed. “I guess they’re having naptime or something. We can go in in twenty minutes, they said.” Kerry rolled her eyes. Jennifer talked as if the discovery was her own and Kerry was making such a racket.
Darren stood, no doubt planning his sly exit as soon as they could enter the bedroom. Only two people were allowed in at once, it was so small, and since he’d never met her, he wouldn’t be expected to shove either of the sisters away from her chance. Now that it came down to it, Kerry wished that he would go in with her. She imagined a dramatic display of hope, tears, and shame from Jennifer as soon as she entered the room, and Kerry didn’t want to be there to witness it.
She started to devise a plan to get out of visiting at the same time when the male nurse returned to the waiting room. He looked at each person individually; it seemed he was trying to assess which one to talk to first. None of them had met him except when Kerry saw him earlier, so they didn’t pay a lick of attention to the concerned look on his face. He cleared his throat and Kerry looked in his general direction, but Jennifer continued picking at her fingernails and Darren was still eyeing the hallway curiously.
He cleared his throat once more and then began to speak. His stammering interested Kerry who wondered why he was speaking to them at all, but she dutifully paid attention as though he were addressing her specifically. “I’m sorry that - Well, I’ve got to tell you - I just want to say - Your gr- Your loved one has passed on.”
Six eyes darted directly to him and he was clearly blown back by this sudden attention. Kerry sized him up and found that he had a package of cigarettes in his uniform’s pocket; she was pretty sure that was probably illegal, or at least against the rules. He wanted to have one at that moment, she could bet, but she wasn’t going to give him that pleasure. How could he be so blunt about it?
“I’m s-sorry,” he stuttered and made to leave, as if that was enough of an explanation.
“Wait!” Jennifer said loud enough for someone to assume he was already halfway down the hall. He hadn’t even turned yet. “What do you mean?”
“Um, I was s-sent to tell you that y-your loved one has p-passed on.”
It was clearly an effort for him to talk at all, but Kerry sensed it was out of nervousness more than a speech affliction. He didn’t want to break the news to any of them; perhaps he’d just happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time, and the doctor turned around and told him to tell the kids in the waiting room that their grandmother - their “loved one” - is dead.
She was trying to keep herself from crying. Jennifer had already broken down into tears and Darren showed such care that Kerry wondered if all their bickering had been a dream. She stood up alone next to them and looked directly at the nurse.
“I want to see her.”
“You can’t” was his immediate reply, but then he had a double-take. “Her?”
“Yes, her; I want to see my grandmother.”
“I-” he started, then stopped. He was struck dumb. His embarassment filled the room so fully that even Jennifer stopped crying. “I’ve made a mistake,” he said quickly, and just as quickly left the room.
“What is that about?” Jennifer asked between sobs, whining still, and obviously unwilling to move. Kerry left the room to find the nurse, who hadn’t gotten far. He was leaning forward against the wall just a few feet from the entrance cursing himself.
“Um,” Kerry began, “excuse me?” He looked up at her and winced; she noticed he was fingering the pack of ciagrettes in his pocket. She simply stood in the middle of the hallway and looked at him expectantly.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t your g-grandmother. It was a man. I, shit, I got the wrong waiting room.” His head might have rolled off if his hand hadn’t held it against the wall. He continued cursing himself.
Kerry burst out laughing. He shuddered but didn’t move, and she was aware that perhaps it was rude of her to laugh so loud at him. “No, I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you,” she said in between breaths. She tried to stop, but couldn’t; such was the joy of knowing her grandmother was not actually gone. Kerry found her way back into the waiting room, which was only a few feet away. Jennifer had no doubt heard her laughing and could see the smile lines now as she entered. Her natural scowl returned to her face and Kerry suddenly wasn’t afraid anymore.
“Grams isn’t gone, he made a mistake.” It was all Kerry could say before she started laughing again. Jennifer clearly disapproved, but that didn’t matter anymore.
“Honestly! The incompetence of these people!” Jennifer went on about the awful choices of staffing in hospitals. Darren tried to defend the honest mistake, but it was fruitless and eventually, predictably, the discussion became a personal attack on him because he apparently always refused to side with his wife.
Kerry tried to distract herself by studying the clock when she realized it’d been almost thirty minutes already. They could have avoided the whole mess by leaving the waiting room ten minutes ago. She started walking towards the pod in which her grandmother was, but nodded to Darren on the way out. It was her way of saying “I’m going in; you could probably get her to come in too if you could calm her down.”
Kerry’s eyes didn’t find her immediately. She was small and weak with her head perpetually turned to the left; she looked so uncomfortable. It left her with a picture forever engraved in her mind, and it’s not like the movies. She’s fragile and her face is set inward, as if all the fluids escaped out of the tubes that variously came from her body. When Jennifer rubbed her shoulder, Kerry saw the structure; she saw that she was so thin, that anything could easily snap her into a hundred little pieces.
Her grandmother looked into Kerry’s eyes and it was ghostly. Whoever wants to describe her grandmother as “ghostly”? But that it was - those round, grey, glazed things looking up through the sockets that barely seemed to hold them. Maybe she would have smiled, but it was clear from the way her bottom lip hugged her tongue that it would have been near impossible.
When she tried to speak, they couldn’t understand her. Jennifer just pet her forehead, bringing her silvery hair back onto the pillow and said, “I’m sorry Grams, I’m sorry.” When she made the effort again, it was clearly of some urgence, some imprtant thing she wanted to say to her granddaughters but couldn’t. Kerry saw the frustration wash across her face, and finally she gave up. Kerry’s heart ached for those words, even if they were as trivial as “nice to see you again.”
Her forhead was warm when Kerry touched it; it was sticky like warm plastic unmelted. She didn’t want to keep touching her. She didn’t wat to admit any of it, circling herself in the unfeeling ditch that she ridicules her paternal side for. Up to that point, Kerry was ready to be open and full of the emotions she really felt, but when she entered that room, she lost all motivation and let her father’s way of dealing with difficult times collapse onto her.
Jennifer’s care stunned her. She didn’t make the scene that Kerry expected; she was a different person entirely, it seemed. Suddenly, Jennifer was doing everything Kerry wish she’d had the strength to do. She rubbed their grandmother’s forehead longer than just a few moments, looked into her eyes, spoke to her in silent whispers telling her about Christmas and how much everyone missed her. She offered to read and did for a while - The Awakening by Kate Chopin, as if that would change anything about the state of the woman lying before them. Kerry stood in the corner and held one arm with the other hand, and just stared at her grandmother’s feet. She couldn’t bare to look any further.
***
Andi came into work a few days early. She was only supposed to be there twice a week, but at times she couldn’t stay away from the patients. They were friends in a way that no one else could be her friend; they told her their stories and claimed her as one of their own. Her grandparents had died long ago and she regretted that she never could have known them. It wasn’t her fault for being so young, of course, but this was why she started to work where she did. It was the stories.
“Careful, Child,” Martha said hurredly as they passed in the hall. “That boy is here.” Andi shuddered but thanked her for the warning. The last thing she wanted was to run into him today while she had such wonderful things to say to her patients. This job was temporary and she always told them about her dreams. Now one of them was coming true.
She visited Zadie first, an elderly woman who had been in the hospital for extensive stay on and off throughout the past five years. She had no husband to take care of her, but her children were very determined to fight over who got to take her home. Though they were prone to incessant bickering, Zadie was proud of them and told Andi so every time she came to visit. Zadie was so happy to hear about Andi’s new job and, as always, encouraged her to reach as high as she could for her life goals.
Next, and always next, Andi visited Zadie’s best friend in the pod, Julia. Julia was such a sweet woman, but Andi found her sometimes in fits of jealousy if she had been visited after anyone except Zadie. Julia had had a son once but he’d died in a car accident just at the prime of his life. She kept in touch with his former fiancee who visited often with her husband and their children. Andi always admired her acceptance of the girl into her heart, even though she’d never had the chance to marry Julia’s son.
Her next stop was usually Mr. Adkins, but he had died earlier in the day. He wasn’t much fun to visit; he was indirectly disrespectful to her and the rest of the staff. He hit on the females constantly and claimed that everyone had it out for him - his TV didn’t work, his food tasted funny, they brought him books that he had already read. Of course, it was the same complaint all the time, and he rarely remembered names. Heart failure killed him, but it was Alzheimer’s that annoyed everyone else. Andi visited him, but she could never stay for long.
Her final visit came after Marie. Marie had been a school teacher when she met her husband, and between the two of them, they raised several fine sons. She was awake now, having just been visited by her two granddaughters. Andi smiled as she entered the room and thought about how precious Marie must have been while she was up and active. She couldn’t talk about her life and thus rarely did; Andi only knew about her sons because they visited sometimes. Not enough. This poor woman was the closest to passing than any of them, save Mr. Adkins who had obviously already met the man. She had no hope left for herself, but Andi could see now that inside she was smiling.
She readjusted her pillow and brushed the hair away from her forehead. A copy of Canterbury Tales sat at her bedside table, either just finished or not yet started, as there was no bookmarker. Andi began talking about her opportunity at the library and how much she had wanted this job when she was younger. She was just going to be a clerk, directing people every which way and helping kids with research, but it was all she ever wanted. She would be able to learn so much about people, their desires, wants, and needs, and she would finally be in a position to help.
Marie made to say something, but gave up. “I know,” Andi said, “I know.” The truth was that she didn’t know. She might have been able to guess what Zadie would have said if she couldn’t (Zadie never stopped talking), but Marie was always a complete mystery.
She started to get up to visit her last patient before returning home to call her best friend, but something in Marie’s eyes stopped her. She was searching, it seemed, yearning for something. Andi knew she couldn’t provide whatever it was, but she sat down and scooted close anyway. The woman struggled to breathe as she struggled to talk. Andi wanted to shake her head and tell her not to try, but it’s never good to shut up the sick.
In a rough, discorded, sorry voice, Andi thought she might have said she was scared. It was indeterminable. She apologized for not being able to understand, and after a few more tries, the woman gave up. It took too much out of her. She drifted into sleep.
