And home was no better. He had married a girl a few years older than he was who had been intent on getting pregnant as soon as possible. He had wanted to wait but she had been determined, and now, thanks to all the new fertility methods, he had two small children, one three, the other two, and now according to the sonogram she’d had last week there were twins on the way. Home was already a too-small house, with two screaming kids under the age of three, and a wife who was also so tired and busy she hardly had time for herself, much less for him. Between work and home he couldn’t remember when he had had more than thirty minutes of uninterrupted sleep, much less a good meal. He ate on the run, drank coffee and Mountain Dew, and ate energy bars to keep himself going. Was it any wonder he’d made a mistake? Maybe if he hadn’t been so tired he might have paid more attention, not been quite so quick to give up. But doctors are not allowed to make bad judgment calls, make mistakes. He had hoped it had not been his mistake.
He sat waiting after the incident while they had brought in technicians to check and recheck the machines, but when the two men came out and reported that they were in perfect working order, he felt his life and career going down the tube. Why had it happened? Granted, he was exhausted, but he had been tired before. Could it have been the fact that the patient was so old? Could he have somehow unconsciously, for the slightest second, thought that her death was not as important as a younger patient’s? There was always a somewhat higher sense of urgency if the patient was young, a little more of an effort. But why? Who was he to judge how important a life was, and yet he may have done that and almost killed a patient because of it. Just the slightest turn of events, the fact that he had agreed to wait a few hours for the Warrens’ daughter to arrive, had saved her life. If they hadn’t waited, Mrs. Shimfissle might have wound up shoved into a drawer down in the morgue, or worse yet, somebody could have started an autopsy. Even if he didn’t lose his job, he could never forgive himself. As far as he was concerned his career was over, no matter what the machines said. He should have tried harder, worked on her longer, not given up so soon. All the years of sacrifice, all the years of study, working, all for nothing.
After he had changed from his scrubs and before he left for the night, Dr. Henson walked down to Elner’s room.
“Hey, Mrs. Shimfissle. How are you doing?”
“Just fine, thank you, and how are you?”
It was clear she did not know who he was, and he explained, “Mrs. Shimfissle, I’m the doctor who was in charge of ER when you came in this morning.”
“Oh, I didn’t recognize you without your shower hat.”
“May I sit down?”
“Sure.”
He struggled to find the right words. “Mrs. Shimfissle, I just think you should know that I’m the one who pronounced you dead, and I want you to know that I am so sorry.”
“Well, don’t be sorry on my account,” Elner said. “It scared my niece and them a little, but I’m certainly none the worse for wear.”
“No, you don’t understand, it was my fault. You could have died because of me.”
She looked at him. “But I didn’t. Look, I’m fit as a fiddle and guess what, I don’t need my hearing aid anymore. When I woke up, I could hear as plain as day. What do you think about that?”
“That’s great, but I wanted you to know that I’m thinking about leaving medicine.”
“Why?”
“Because…I almost killed you,” he said, fighting back the tears.
“Oh now, listen here, you didn’t have a thing to do with it. Besides, everything that happens, happens for a reason. So don’t you be talking about leaving medicine, that’s just silly.”
“I may be forced to, Mrs. Shimfissle, your niece is probably going to sue me and the hospital, and at this point I wouldn’t blame her.”
Elner looked at him, surprised. “Norma? Why, Norma Warren is the sweetest girl in the world, she’s not going to sue anybody, for heaven’s sake, you just get that out of your mind right now.”
After the doctor left, the nurse came into Elner’s room to give her a pill. “You get some good sleep now, Mrs. Shimfissle,” she said. “I’ll be right outside if you need anything…just push your call button.”
“All right. Hey, where is my call button, anyway? In case I do want to call somebody.”
“It’s right here on the side of your bed, just push this little white button and your room number lights up down at the nurses’ station.”
“Well, good night.” After the nurse left, Elner picked up her call button and looked at it. She liked the idea of having a call button. It pleased her no end. She thought it was almost like having one of those beeper things they advertised on television, on that “Help, help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercial. Then an old song popped into her head and she lay there singing, “When I’m calling you ooh ooh oh ooo, Will you answer too oh oh ohooo,” and then she drifted off to sleep. She was tired. It had been a big day, and she had been looked at, poked at, and stuck with needles up until an hour ago.
Driving back home that night, Macky said, “When I was in the room with her before, I could have sworn she was dead, and then when we went in and she started talking, it scared the hell out of me.”
Linda said, “Scared me so bad, I almost wet my pants.”
“This has certainly been a day, hasn’t it?” said Norma. “Do you believe what all we have been through in the last twelve hours? I fainted twice, and that poor little nurse, I’ve never heard anybody scream like that in my life.”
Linda suddenly started laughing. “You should have seen Susie Hill’s face when she saw Aunt Elner roll by. Her eyes almost popped out of her head, she jumped back, and went whooooo!!” Then, more out of relief than anything else, all three of them started to laugh uncontrollably until tears rolled down their faces. By the time they reached the house, they were exhausted. Norma said, “I don’t think I’ve cried and laughed so much in one day in all my life!”
As Norma drifted off to sleep that night, she thought at least one good thing had come out of such a disaster. When the orderly had handed her a white plastic bag containing Aunt Elner’s personal effects, Norma had quietly walked over and thrown it in the large garbage bag by the door.
She had finally been able to get rid of that hideous brown plaid robe once and for all!
The Quiz
6:45 AM
Dr. Brian Lang had been called at home the night before and asked to examine a patient first thing in the morning. As he read over the chart they had e-mailed him, he was amazed at the fact that the patient had managed to survive a fall like that. Her CAT scan showed absolutely no signs of anything, all her vitals were good, but he was being brought in as a safety measure, to check on any short-term or long-term memory loss before they released her. He was an expert on brain injuries and had his own set of questions, which were set up to catch even the slightest damage they may have missed.
When he walked into her room early that Tuesday, he said, “Good morning, Mrs. Shimfissle, I’m Dr. Lang.” She looked up and said, “Good morning,” then added with caution, “You’re not here to take me someplace for another test, are you?”
“Oh no, Mrs. Shimfissle,” he said as he pulled a chair to the side of her bed. “I just want us to have a little chat right here, if that’s all right with you.”
“Sure, I’d love to chat with you as long as you’re not going to stick me with something. Have a seat. I’d offer you something to drink, but I can’t find my call button. They’ll bring me anything I ask for.”
“No, I’m fine,” he said as he sat down and got out his papers.
“Look at this,” she said, pushing the control on her bed and starting to sit straight up. “Isn’t that something?”
“Yes, it is. Now, Mrs. Shimfissle, have you experienced any headaches in the past twenty-four hours?”
“No, not a one,” she said, letting herself back down again. “It’s a good thing I don’t have a bed like
this at home or I’d never get up.”
“And how is your vision…any spots, fuzziness, or changes in vision?”
“Nope. Like I told my eye man, I can see fine, all the way to the moon and back.”
He could see for himself that her eyes were bright and clear, that was good.
“Mrs. Shimfissle, can you tell me what today is?”
She looked at him strangely. “Well, honey, don’t you know?”
“Oh yes I know, but these are just questions I need to…”
He stopped talking, because he could see she was not listening and was now preoccupied with something underneath her covers. “Oh, here it is,” she said, pulling out her call button. “I was laying on it. What was it that you wanted to chat about?”
“Well, it’s not a chat in the pure sense of the word, I’m really here to ask you a few questions.”
She perked up. “Oh, is it a quiz?”
“Sort of, I suppose.”
“Oh, good. Fire away. But don’t make it too hard.”
“No, I’ll try not to. OK. Let’s start over. What day is it today?”
She looked at him. “Ahh…this is a trick question, I’ll bet. It’s somebody’s birthday? I know it’s not Thomas Edison’s, or George Washington’s…. Oh, shoot, I don’t know. I give up. What is today?”
“I’m just looking for the day of the week.”
“Ohhh,” she said. “That’s easy. I thought you were looking for something harder than that, it’s Tuesday.”
“Could you tell me what month it is?”
“It’s April the second; I would tell you what time it was, but I don’t have my watch.”
“I see. Your full name?”
“Elner Jane Shimfissle.”
“Maiden name?”
“Same first name. Last name, Knott.”
“Your mother’s maiden name?”
“Nuckle, and she married a man named Knott, so her full name was Mrs. Nancy Nuckle Knott. You try saying that five times in a row.”
“Mrs. Shimfissle, what is the first major event you can recall?”
“Well, when I was three, a duck pecked me on my big toe…. Wait a minute. Are you talking about family or nonfamily events?”
“Historical events.”
“Ahh, let’s see. Pearl Harbor, December seventh, 1941. Thomas Edison, born February eleventh, 1847; died…October eighteenth, 1931. FDR died 1945. Then the opening of Disneyland, July seventeenth, 1955. Do you want more?”
“No, just the last important date you remember.”
“September eleventh, 2001. That’s one I would like to forget.”
“Your birth date.”
“July twenty-eighth.”
“How old were you on your last birthday?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know the year you were born?”
“No, I sure don’t. I’m sorry.”
The doctor looked up. “You can’t remember the year?”
“No, I was too little to remember the exact year, and my sister Ida buried the family Bible, so I have no idea.”
He glanced down at his chart. “Your niece put down eighty-nine.”
“Oh, that was just a guess, sometimes she puts me older, sometimes younger. It all depends on her mood. How old are you?”
“Thirty-four.”
“I have a niece that’s thirty-four. Are you married?”
“No, but Mrs. Shimfissle, I have a few more questions….”
“She’s not married either, and she has a Chinese daughter. Got her in China. What do you think about that?”
“That’s just great. Now—”
“Her name is Linda. Linda Warren. She lives in St. Louis and has a good job too. With the telephone company, just like Mary Grace. You can’t beat the telephone company for benefits.”
“I’m sure,” he said. “Can you recall what you were doing right before your fall?”
“Picking figs. Her daughter’s name is Apple. Of course, Norma hated that name. She said, ‘Why would you want to name your daughter after a computer?’ But Linda said it was after the fruit not the computer…. What is this quiz for, anyway?”
“Just checking for any signs of short- or long-term memory loss.”
“Ahh, well that makes sense. Trying to see if I still have my wits about me.”
“That’s right.”
“Well…did I pass?”
He smiled and closed the chart. “Yes, you did. With flying colors, I might add.”
“Hey, listen, are you going to be around in another few hours?”
He looked at his watch. “Yes. I should still be here. Why?”
“I want you to come back and see me, OK?”
“I’ll try.”
As he left, he had to laugh. The old lady was as sharp as a tack. Hell, he didn’t remember half the dates she did. But then, how many people would remember Thomas Edison’s birth date?
Where’s Elner?
8:30 AM
Back in Elmwood Springs, the phone lines had been buzzing all morning with the news and latest reports about Elner. Out on the farm Elner’s good friend Louise Franks had been up all night worried and wondering how she was going to tell Polly, her retarded daughter, about Elner. Polly didn’t understand about death. How could she explain that Polly would never see Elner again? Louise burst into tears when Irene Goodnight called her and told her that Elner was alive. Tot and Ruby had been so busy answering questions and calling people that they totally forgot about feeding the cat, feeding the birds, or filling the birdbath, and Sonny the cat was not happy. He had just walked over to his dish and discovered that it was empty. This was a shock to him. His breakfast was always there at this time. He hunched down and stared at the dish for a while, then got up and wandered around the house. Then he came back to his dish and sat there thinking cat thoughts, wondering whether or not to take a nap or try to catch one of those birds that were flying all over the yard, also upset and wondering where their birdseed was. One old blue jay was squawking his head off, and three smaller birds sat in the birdbath looking for water to splash around in. Two squirrels sat in a tree nattering at each other. The old lady had always thrown a couple of biscuits out the back door for them by now. Something was not right. After a few minutes of debating the issue, Sonny opted to take a nap and went to his spot on the back of the sofa.
Meanwhile a red-eyed Luther Griggs was just pulling into a Flying J truck stop outside of Yuma, Arizona, and he had never felt so alone in his entire life. As he climbed into the back of the truck to get some shut-eye, he thought about what Elner had told him over and over. “Honey, you need to get married. I’m not going to live forever, and I want to think that you won’t be left all by yourself. As much as you don’t think it, you need to be with somebody. Women can handle it, but men don’t do well alone.” He had not wanted to get married, and as much as she’d said it, he never thought she would really die. But now that she had, he saw that she was right. He was so lonesome, and if Elner had liked Bobbie Jo Newberry, he figured she was the one. Miss Elner had always known what was right for him, so why fool around? And so before he drifted off, he made up his mind; when he got home, he’d go on over to the Dairy Queen where she worked and pop the question.
The Arrangements
8:31 AM
By the time the Warrens arrived back at the hospital the next morning, Elner’s room was filled with flowers. All the arrangements that had been ordered yesterday to be sent to the funeral home had been rerouted to her hospital room instead. Unfortunately, Neva down at the Rest Assured Funeral Home had not had time to change the cards, and most were still signed “With deepest sympathy” or “Our thoughts and our prayers are with you.” And the flowers from Elner’s friend Louise Franks said “Gone but not forgotten.”
When the Warrens walked into her room, she was sitting up in bed and happy to see them. “Look at all my flowers!” she said. “It looks like a funeral parlor in here, doesn’t it?” Then s
he laughed. “I never knew I was so popular till everybody thought I had croaked.” She then pointed to a large arrangement of orange gladiolus. “That’s from Bud and Jay, wasn’t that nice, those others are from the Missouri Power and Light Company. Beverly Cortwright sent me those white roses, you know that set her back a pretty penny.”
“Wow, Aunt Elner,” said Linda, “I’ve never seen so many flowers in my life.”
“I know! We had to put some in the bathroom. I feel kinda guilty people spent all this money on a false pretense. Merle and Verbena sent me an azalea that I can plant, but the rest of them are just money wasted.” She turned to Norma and said, “Norma, promise me that next time you will tell everybody, no flowers. They shouldn’t have to send them twice.”
After a while Dr. Brian Lang, true to his promise, stopped back by and knocked lightly on the door. “Hello.”
When Elner saw him, she waved. “Hey. Come on in, I want you to meet everybody. This is my head doctor…he examined my head.”
He walked in and said, “Hello, I’m Dr. Lang.”
Elner said, “This is my niece Linda I was telling you about, the one with the Chinese baby. This is my niece Norma, and her husband, Macky.”
They all said hello and shook hands. Dr. Lang quickly glanced at Linda again, and then said, “Mrs. Warren, may I speak to you for a moment?”
“Oh, of course.”
When they walked outside the door, he said, “Mrs. Warren, I just wanted to let you know, all her tests show that there was no brain damage, or long-term or short-term memory loss.”
“Oh, well, that is a relief,” said Norma. “She was out for a long time, and I was worried it might have done something.”