Читать книгу Abandoned - John Schlarbaum - Страница 5

As she hung up the phone, Genifer felt sick. The fact that her two children were running in the living room acting out an imaginary scene for the next Iron Man movie didn’t help.

“Tony Stark would be nothing without me, Miss Everhart, and you can quote me on that for your Vanity Fair article,” eleven-year-old Zoe declared loudly, stomping her left foot on the floor and placing her hands on her hips for emphasis.

Her younger sister of two years, Aleena, looked incredulous, not believing, or more likely understanding, the implication of such a bold statement. “I’ll ... ah ... quote whoever I feel like quoting, Pepper Potts! You don’t own me and ... and ... for your information, Tony only has eyes for me – not some silly girl who just hangs around his cool apartment!” Mimicking Zoe’s stance, Aleena raised her right hand and proclaimed, “One day I’ll be Mrs. Tony Stark and you’re only going to have a dog to keep you company!”

Zoe was unimpressed and turned to her father to be the tie-breaking opinion. “What do you think, Dad?”

Seated in his recliner a few feet away, Stan was oblivious to any activity, as his eyes were fixated on the television mounted on the far wall. His beloved Minnesota Vikings were on the verge of beating the loathed Detroit Lions with one second left on the clock. “Kick the damn ball already!” he implored, as the placekicker paced off distance from where the ball should land if the ball holder actually caught it from the snap – an action he’d failed to do on two earlier field goal attempts.

The Grant living room went silent as all eyes tilted upward when the football was sent into the hands of the placeholder, who mishandled it, then stood upright and began to run toward the goal line seven yards away ... only to trip over his feet, stumble onto the back of one of his blockers and fumble the football.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” Stan called out, exploding out of his chair, as a sure-handed Lions’ defender scooped the ball off the ground and started running in the opposite direction. “Why? Why? Why?”

“With no time left on the clock, 335-pound Malcolm Harris will win this game if he can survive the 93-yard sprint laid out in front of him,” the play-by-play announcer said excitedly. “If he does, this will be another heartbreaking loss for the Vikings.”

The screen went black as Stan hit the OFF button on the remote and walked out of the room, his face fire engine red with the added bonus of engorged blood vessels protruding from his temples.

“Is the game over, Dad? Did we win?” Aleena asked innocently, more a soccer fan than a football one, to her father’s chagrin. “Did that man score a touchdown?”

“Aleena!” Zoe snapped at her. “Don’t you know anything?”

Stan gave a grunt and was out the back door, stomping his way across the lawn to their detached garage, where his beer fridge was waiting to offer him sanctuary from a world gone mad.

“Will Dad be okay, Mom?” Zoe asked.

Genifer sighed, “In time.”

“Will you be okay?” Zoe followed up.

Genifer gave her an odd look before feeling faint and blacking out.

“Mom?” Aleena asked as she watched her collapse, knocking over the nearby table and sending the phone crashing to the floor. “MOM!”

Zoe was by her mother’s side, lifting her head off the hardwood floor. “Go get Dad,” she said in a calm voice to her frightened sister. “Mom’ll be fine. Go, Aleena. Dad will know what to do.”

Aleena looked into her sister’s reassuring eyes, and like all younger siblings trusted that what she said was true. “Okay,” she replied and ran through the kitchen and outside. “Dad, come back inside! Mom’s hurt!”

Zoe could tell that her mother was alive by the rise and fall of her chest. “I’m here, Mom. I won’t leave you, even in the ambulance.”

At these words, Genifer began to shift slightly. “Ambulance?” she muttered, incoherently.

“The paramedics will help you get better on the way to the hospital, the way they do on the Emergency Now show.”

“Hospital?”

Stan burst into the room to see his wife splayed across the floor and his daughter placing a throw pillow under Genifer’s head. “Is she breathing, Zoe?”

“Yes and talking a bit, but she’s really out of it.”

“She seemed fine after you turned off the TV, then I saw her face go white and she ....” Aleena couldn’t continue and started to cry. “She isn’t going to die, is she?”

“No, Bean,” Stan said. “She’s just tired and couldn’t stand anymore. Do me a favour and go to the washroom for a facecloth please. Run some cold water over it first. Can you do that for me, kiddo?”

With superhero-like speed, Aleena sprang into action and bolted down the hallway.

“You’re doing good, Zoe,” Stan said to his daughter who was fighting back her own tears. She gave him a frail, yet appreciative smile as he grabbed the phone.

“911. What is your emergency?”

“My wife collapsed and is going in and out of consciousness. We need to get her to the hospital.”

For the second time, Genifer seemed to rouse from her semi-coma state. “No hospital,” she mumbled weakly. “I can’t go there. They’re going to kill that lady.”

“What did she say?” Stan asked Zoe, as Genifer slipped back into unconsciousness.

“It had to do with the hospital. Like, ‘I can’t go there. They’re going to fill that baby.’ What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, sweetie. She’s hallucinating,” Stan said, shaking his head as he refocused his thoughts to the 911 operator. “How long before the ambulance arrives?”

“I’ve dispatched the first responders. They should be there shortly,” came the reply.

“Thank you,” Stan said, terminating the call. Looking at Zoe, he said, “Can you see what happened to Aleena? Then go into our bedroom for some overnight clothes for your mother – her pyjamas, housecoat and slippers.”

“Will her Minions pyjamas be okay for the hospital?” Zoe asked, thinking of her mom’s favourite gift from the previous Christmas.

Stan smiled. “She’d like those a lot.”

Zoe scampered out of the room, calling Aleena’s name.

Stan sat beside Genifer and stroked her hair, hoping his recent outburst hadn’t played any role in her collapse.

“My dad told me that being a Vikings’ fan would be the death of me, Genifer, not you,” he said half-jokingly, terrified of losing his wife. “Can you hear me?” There was no visible reaction on her face. “Hold on, babe. We’ll be at the hospital real soon.”

With the sound of sirens getting louder outside, Stan stepped away and opened the front door. “They’re here, Genifer. Hold on a little longer.”

Genifer stirred, as sunlight from the open door stretched across the floor and into her eyes. Hearing a stretcher being unloaded from the ambulance, she made a feeble request that no one would ever hear: “No ... hospital.”

***

It had been a long afternoon and evening for Genifer, as hospital staff endlessly poked, prodded and measured her every vital sign, plus a CAT scan. Through it all Genifer didn’t complain, answering every question regarding her diet, sleep habits, headache issues or other health irregularities.

“We may need to call Dr. House in for a consultation,” Maggie, the E.R. nurse, said, referencing the popular television character who specialized in tricky cases. “All your tests were negative.”

Genifer knew they would be, and could have saved the health system a lot of time and money. She was fully aware of what had triggered her fainting spell, but didn’t dare divulge the information to anyone.

If only I had fallen without an audience present, she thought.

Thankful that her children were in the care of her mom and her friend Lisa, and with Stan getting a coffee, Genifer lay listlessly on the E.R. stretcher, jumping whenever she heard an urgent-sounding announcement on the hospital speakers.

“What’s a Code white?” she anxiously asked Maggie, who was examining the heart monitor attached to the wall.

“An unruly patient is causing trouble,” Maggie said.

“And Code pink?”

“That’s a medical emergency dealing with an infant.”

“What if an adult – say, an elderly adult - needs help?”

Maggie adjusted the oxygen mask level and began, “We don’t have different codes for different age groups. An adult is anyone over 18. And if they stop breathing, it’s a Code blue.”

“I heard a Code blue announcement a minute ago,” Genifer said alarmed.

“Oh yes, I heard that too,” the nurse replied calmly, “but it was cancelled.”

“Meaning what?”

Maggie noted that her patient’s heart rate and blood pressure were rising with each question. “Genifer, is there anything wrong? You seem very stressed.”

Genifer took a deep breath. “I have an elderly friend who came into the hospital with a broken hip and I wanted to find out how she’s doing.”

“Let me check. What’s her name?”

“It’s Helga ... Klemens,” Genifer said, not totally certain. If the woman’s house was a regular delivery stop, Genifer would have probably been able to supply more personal information than Helga’s family. Genifer loved the people on her postal route and they loved her. Fun and bubbly, Genifer was often the best part of some homeowners’ day, especially senior citizens who enjoyed engaging in any topic in the short time it took to hand them their mail. Fate had Helga living two blocks north of Genifer’s route, making her a complete stranger until her fall.

Maggie handed Genifer a foam cup. “Drink some of this and relax. I’ll find out what’s going on with your friend.”

Genifer took a sip of ice water, watching as Maggie sat in front of a desk computer and began to tap keys. She saw the nurse’s brow furrow before walking back to the examination room with a smile on her face.

“The computer shows that Helga is in surgery. She could already be out. Sometimes the status isn’t quite up to date.”

“That’s a relief,” Genifer said, relaxing her body into the stretcher. “I was worried something might have happened to her.” Maggie gave Genifer a questioning look. “Broken hips and the elderly don’t make good dance partners. Plus, she lives alone and will need a lot of help in the coming weeks.”

Genifer had no idea if Helga lived alone, or if the old man she saw running away from the house at the time was Helga’s husband, brother or friend. The minutes between Genifer hearing Helga screaming through an open window and when the ambulance arrived were confusing at best. She was enjoying a leisurely mid-morning walk one minute, and the next she was entering a house to find an elderly woman with a broken hip at the bottom of a flight of stairs.

With the adrenaline rush she’d been experiencing, there wasn’t time to process who the mystery man was and his possible role in Helga’s fall. Helga certainly hadn’t mentioned him to Genifer, the paramedics or the nice police officer.

Although Genifer had barely glimpsed the grey-haired gentleman, who was inexplicably wearing a tan overcoat, she believed she could identify him again if their paths crossed.

Clearly, and frighteningly, the man believed the same thing. Why else would he call Genifer at home a few hours later?

“You did not see me today, Mrs. Grant,” the thick accented voice had warned.

Staring at the big screen television as her Detroit Lions were lining up against her hubby’s Minnesota Vikings, Genifer had been distracted and said, “What did you say? Who is this? I think you have the wrong number.”

Undeterred, the man had gone on. “This is the right number. What we’re going to do to Helga is the same thing we’ll do to your lovely girls, Zoe and Aleena, if you breathe a word of seeing me earlier. One dead old woman isn’t worth risking your precious babies’ lives, is it?” The caller had paused, then added, “Are we clear, Genifer?”

Genifer had immediately hung up the phone and tried to process what the man had said. She had watched in silence as her girls role-played characters from the Iron Man movies and her husband bit a fingernail as the Vikings attempted a field goal.

The family life she knew and loved had continued to swirl around her body, yet her mind was in a suspended state of shock. It was only when Stan had walked out of the house, breaking the tension in the room, that Genifer had felt sick.

“Will Dad be okay, Mom?” Zoe had asked.

“In time,” she had managed to answer.

The last words Genifer had remembered before hitting the floor were, “Will you be okay?” and “Mom?”

In the ambulance, she had recalled a garbled conversation with Zoe about wanting to avoid the hospital. Something about ‘filling a baby’.

It had been too much for her.

Stan had followed the ambulance in his car and was with Genifer as they wheeled her into the Metropolitan Hospital E.R. department.

“Where are Zoe and Aleena? Did they come with you? Don’t let them out of your sight, Stan.”

Stan could see the panic on Genifer’s face and figured it was a by-product of her fainting spell, as well as being disoriented. “Your mom and Lisa rushed over and are going to take them to a matinee, then dinner at the mall,” Stan reassured her. “I’ll call them once we find out what’s wrong with you.”

There’s nothing wrong with me! Genifer had fumed internally. “Good,” she had said instead. “They’ll be safe at the mall with all those shoppers.”

As the admitting nurse had begun to pepper her and Stan with medical history questions, Genifer, in the same way Helga had, appraised her surroundings looking for anyone who seemed out of place. Regrettably, every race, sex and age group was represented in the nearby waiting area.

Is overcoat man already here?

A cold spike of fear ran up Genifer’s spine.

It wouldn’t take long for her to find out.