Dead Ringer: Chapter Seven
Link to Chapter Six.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Technically Wednesday should be a day off, but I had to carry the pager. Still, the blasted thing kept blessedly quiet while I puttered around the house, dusting furniture, washing windows, and giving the fridge a deep scouring. Keeping my hands busy helped tamp down the internal shouting — “You idiot! You couldn’t just back off, could you! Why didn’t you let it go?” — that had wakened me in the wee small hours and interrupted my attempts at slumber.
Around mid-afternoon, when I’d run out of things to clean, I walked down to the end of my cul de sac and took the hidden path that cuts between neighbors’ back yards, leading through a wooded area and connecting with a paved walking trail around a man-made lake. I strode along, swinging my arms, getting rid of more excess nervous energy, and even though it was hotter than damnit, feeling suddenly good in my body.
It would be okay, I told myself, maybe even for the best. After all, the fact that I kept putting off telling Fred obviously meant I had conflicted feelings about my work with Mark. I quickened my pace and finished the two-mile circuit.
Back home, I showered and ate a quick salad, then settled on my comfy couch to read, sinking back into thick, fluffy pillows. A brief moment of guilt washed over me. I should have been reading something edifying. Instead, I’d picked up a paperback at a used books store, a bestseller from a couple years ago, advertised as the perfect beach read. I fell headfirst into a frothy tale of gal pals on an island vacation with hunky pool boys who brought them pink drinks with little umbrellas and flexed their biceps for tips.
I woke to the jarring ring of the telephone. It took me a moment to fully come to, and I stumbled toward the kitchen in the dim light of early evening and picked up the receiver on the sixth ring.
“Fifteen minutes. McGill’s.” It was Frankie’s reedy voice in my ear.
“Uh…and how are you, and I’m fine, thanks for asking,” I said, laughing.
“You said you’d buy the next two rounds, because you made me wait for you at Great Shots,” he said, and repeated, “Fifteen minutes.”
I laughed again. “Seeing as how I’m still waking up from an absolutely stellar nap, you’ll have to give me a half hour.”
“K,” said Frankie and hung up.
McGill’s is a great little bar in a concrete block building with no side windows, too much smoke, a couple of pool tables, greasy bar food, and five kinds of beer. For those who want fancy imported brews, there are many establishments that could meet their needs. McGill’s would not be one of them.
I walked in and the owner, Big Eddie McGill, spotted me and reached into the cooler for a Rolling Rock. Eddie is aptly named. He weighs in at around 350 pounds, probably 200 of them concentrated in the vicinity of his butt.
Much of his extra-extra-large pants are eternally lodged somewhere up in that impressive backside, and he’s constantly picking and worrying in a surreptitious manner, thinking no one notices. His gray hair hangs in large greasy ringlets, and his beard is a scruffy cluster of silvery hairs sticking straight out like thistles in winter.
It was Eddie who had given me a job bartending when I’d first moved to Brady, and for three months I moved through a windowless nighttime existence while he’d been friend, confidant, and counselor.
“God bless you and your entire lineage,” I said, taking my beer. Eddie pulled me into an immense hug, and for a moment I disappeared happily into the generous hairy folds of his arms.
“Girl, it’s been too long. Where the hell you been?” His teeth stuck out in an uneven grin.
“It’s this pesky thing called ‘a job.’”
“I keep telling you, come back and work for me. Best barmaid I ever had.”
“Only barmaid you ever had.”
“Yeah, well,” he patted me on my head. “Frankie on his way?”
“Yup. Speaking of.” We both turned and looked at the front door as Frankie walked in.
I bought him his first beer of the evening, which is always a fine thing to be able to do for a friend, and we made a beeline for the dart boards. Sometimes we had to get on a waiting list to play, but tonight the whole place was ours.
I won the first two legs, then Frankie got into some kind of zone and won the next three.
We were just getting ready to start another leg when my pager went off. Excusing myself while taking a lot of grief from Frankie — “Oh, right, just when I’m winning, sure, your pager, of course” — I headed outside to return the call. As I passed by the old jukebox, Willie’s sweet, mournful voice washed over me. “You were always on my mind, you were always on my mind.”
I leaned against my car and dialed the number. “Pediatric ICU,” a woman answered.
“Did someone page me? This is Chaplain Blair.”
“Hold on,” she said. She put her hand over the mouthpiece as she hollered, “Did somebody call for a chaplain?”
There was muffled conversation going back and forth, and then a man got on the phone.
“Is this the chaplain?” he spoke quickly, with a clipped accent.
“Yes, this is Chaplain Blair,” I said again, adding, “Someone paged me.”
“I did,” he said. “Joe Garcia. I’m from Respiratory.”
“What’s going on?”
“Jenny Malone.”
My heart plummeted. “Oh, shit. What happened?”
“No, it’s good news. She’s getting her new heart.”
“Is she in surgery yet?”
“Prepping now. They’re gonna take her in about an hour. The parents asked me to find you.”
“Would you let them know I’m on my way?” I motioned goodbye to Frankie through the plate glass window, and he nodded at me.
“Sure thing.” Then, “Thanks,” Joe said as an afterthought. “She’s a super sweet kid. I hope this goes well.”
“You and me both,” I said.
There was a sense of low-level dread, like something mechanical thumping way down in the basement of my soul. When I’m not ranting about something that hacks me off, when I’m interceding for someone who badly needs some mercy and comfort, I can still pray pretty well. I got into the groove and poured my heart out for Jenny Malone as I drove, wheeling into the nearly-deserted parking lot ten minutes later. I caught a security guard’s attention and got him to walk me to the ER entrance.
Up on the third floor, I flashed my hospital ID and went through the double doors of the Pediatric ICU section. I found the Malones back in a curtained-off corner. Jenny’s parents stood on either side of her, each holding one of her hands. At the foot of the gurney was one of the anesthesiologists, Matt Bellows, with pen and clipboard checking off his required list of questions on a form.
“Hey, kiddo,” I whispered, and waved, standing off to one side. Jenny gave me a small smile while Matt jotted notes and ticked off checkmarks.
When he left, I moved to the bedside, and we held hands and prayed that all would go well. I’d just said, “Amen,” when Jenny asked in an anguished voice, “Shouldn’t we pray for the family who lost somebody tonight?” Her lips trembled and tears pooled in her eyes.
“Oh, honey,” Nora said, and patted Jenny’s arm, looking at me.
I knew a counselor had talked with Jenny about this exact thing, the guilt and the grief that would intermingle while a healthy new heart beat in her chest.
“Yes,” I said, “we should.” So we did. This kid. Honestly. This kid.
When the team came to get her, we walked alongside the gurney all the way down the hall to the elevator.
“Jenny,” I said, and she turned her head to look up at me. “This heart has been given with love, and it’s okay for you to receive it with love.”
She nodded and smiled.
Nora and David bent to kiss her cheek. I could see them biting back tears.
“See you soon, baby,” said David in as bright a voice as he could muster, and Nora stroked the top of Jenny’s head as she was wheeled onto the elevator. Then the doors closed and she was gone.
I gave my pager number to the Malones and told them to call if they needed me for anything at all. On the way back to my office I stopped at a vending machine and fed a dollar bill into the slot for a Coke, fed another bill into its neighbor for some peanuts. I pocketed the change and looked at my watch. It was just past 8:30. The surgery could take as long as seven, even eight hours.
My office has a small fold-out couch where I crash on nights like this one, and I keep a go bag in the closet with pajamas, toothbrush and toothpaste, hair pick, and a change of clothes. The sofa bed creaked as I opened it. There was a clean set of sheets in the closet, but the ones on the mattress looked fresh enough. I’d set my watch alarm for 11:30 and get a couple hours sleep, then go find the Malones and check in with them, see how they were holding up.
But first I needed to call Rachel Roper and let her know Mark wouldn’t be able to help after all. I’d offer to speak to a hospital social worker to see if they had any ideas. I pulled the crumpled note from a zippered compartment of my purse and dialed the number I’d jotted down.
“We’re sorry. The number you have reached is not in service. Please hang up.” I hate those recordings. The woman seems pleasant enough, but she never actually sounds that sorry.
I looked again at the number and then redialed. The same recorded voice was still just as insincerely sorry. One more try, with a deliberate punch on each key as I recited each digit aloud, my voice echoey in the empty office.
“We’re sorry,” came the recording, and at that point I gave up.
Had I written it down wrong? I didn’t think so. Just yesterday afternoon I’d read the number back to Rachel, and she’d confirmed it as correct.
Just damn. Fatigue and despair did a mashup with the thrum of anxiety about Jenny Malone, and I sat down on the bed and began to cry. Sure, throw a handful of shame in there, too, about what an idiot I’d been about Paolo, trying to push the ruins of my own heartbreak off on him.
And then my pager went off.