Can't Wait to Get to Heaven (22 page)

A New Kitty

3:10
PM

L
inda Warren had been able to get back to her office and at least work half a day. When she walked into her house, her daughter, Apple, was waiting and ran to greet her all excited and asked, “Where’s my kitty?” The au pair looked at Linda and said, “All she’s talked about since you’ve been gone is that cat.” Linda felt terrible. In the rush of the past forty-eight hours she had completely forgotten she had promised to bring Apple a cat. In the past Linda had always felt that she was far too busy with work and raising a child to have to take care of a cat, but she was stuck now, she had promised. She told a disappointed Apple that tomorrow they would go to the Humane Society and find a cat. After all, Aunt Elner always said that everybody should have a cat. Later, as she started dinner, Linda suddenly had a brainstorm. She was in charge of the AT&T corporate community outreach program and had been wondering what their next project should be. Not only would she and Apple get a cat, tomorrow she would declare April Adopt a Cat Month. With over eight hundred fifty employees, a lot of people would be getting a cat. Aunt Elner would be pleased to think that her falling out of a tree would be the reason an awful lot of cats were about to find good homes!

M
acky had arrived back at the hospital from the airport at around three-thirty that afternoon, and he and Norma had stayed with Elner until around six. As they drove home, Macky was happy, and said, “I think she’s doing just fine. Don’t you? She told me she never felt better in her life.”

Norma was unusually quiet, and did not reply.

He looked over. “Don’t you think she’s doing great? No broken bones, no brain damage.”

Norma sighed. “I’m not so sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…”

“What do you mean ‘well’?”

“I didn’t want to say anything, Macky, but the truth is I’m just worried to death.”

“Why?”

“Macky, if I tell you something, will you
swear
to God not to repeat it?”

“Of course. What?”

“Aunt Elner thinks she took a trip to heaven.”

“What?”

“Yes…. She told me that yesterday, while we were downstairs in the waiting room, she got up and went down the hall looking for somebody, then got on an elevator that zigzagged her over to another building.”

“Another building?”

“Wait, Macky, it gets worse. She said she went down this long white hall and Ginger Rogers walked by, wearing a feather boa and carrying a pair of tap shoes.”

“Ginger Rogers? You’re kidding.”

“Yes, then she said she saw Mother sitting behind a big desk at the end of the hall.”

Macky was suddenly finding this extremely interesting. “And then what?”

“Mother took her up some glass stairs to heaven, but it was really Elmwood Springs fifty years ago; and then she went over and had a visit with Neighbor Dorothy, and some man named Raymond.”

Macky laughed.

Norma looked at him. “Don’t laugh, Macky, she said mother knew all about Tot doing her hair and makeup. How would she know that?”

“Oh, Norma, for God’s sakes…it was just a dream. And if your mother was in it, it was a nightmare.”

“I told her it was just a dream, but she said no it wasn’t, it really happened. She swears she talked to Ernest Koonitz and met Thomas Edison and that this Raymond person told her that the egg comes before the chicken, and something about a flea, and gave her all kinds of messages to bring back.”

“Messages? Like what?”

“Oh, stupid cliché stuff. You know. Be happy. Smile…silly stuff. I couldn’t make any sense out of it, everything was all jumbled around, but she’s convinced it really happened, she said she even ate a piece of cake while she was there.”

“Don’t worry about it, Norma, it was just a dream.”

“Are you sure?”

He looked at her. “Of course I’m sure, Norma. The woman was knocked out cold. Who knows what medication she was on, people do that all the time. Remember when Linda had her tonsils out and dreamed there was a pony in her room?”

“Do you think that’s all it was?”

He nodded. “Of course. She’ll probably forget all about it in a day or so, you wait and see.”

“I hope you’re right, but I’m still afraid she’ll tell everyone she meets that she’s been to heaven. You know how she likes to talk…. Let’s just pray she doesn’t tell anybody she saw Ginger Rogers or we’ll never get her out of that hospital.”

After they drove awhile, Macky asked, “What kind of cake?”

“She didn’t say.”

Then he laughed again. “Raymond? Where does she come up with this stuff?”

“I don’t know, but, Macky, you don’t think there’s
any
way Mother knows that Tot did her hair, do you? I couldn’t hurt Tot’s feelings, I don’t know what else I could have done under the circumstances….”

Macky looked over at his wife, who was busy twisting a Kleenex to death. “Norma, you need a good night’s sleep.”

Nurse Boots

7:19
PM

B
efore she went off duty that night, Ruby Robinson’s nurse friend, Boots Carroll, stopped by Elner’s room to check on her. “Is there anything you need before I go?” she asked.

Elner said, “Not a thing, honey, everybody is taking real good care of me.”

“Well, you try and get a good night’s sleep, and I’ll stop by in the morning.”

Boots was the oldest working nurse at Caraway, and the only reason she was still on duty was because of the terrible shortage of nurses. It was not like it used to be when she and Ruby had entered the profession. They had both been influenced by the movie
Women in White,
and when they were young girls, nursing was thought of as almost a noble profession, a true calling to serve humanity, one step below a nun, as her Catholic friends had said at the time…but things had changed. A lot of the new crop of nurses were just in it for the money. They now had the unions and were always going on strike, or threatening to. Never mind about the poor patients. All the nurses who had walked out on strike hated her because she had crossed the picket line, but with Boots her patients were her first priority. Nursing was no longer just a career for young girls. The profession was now full of men, and she resented it. In her day it had been the male attitudes that had kept most women from becoming doctors, and now they were horning in on her profession. Some were serious and did a good job, but there were also a lot of sissy boys who had taken up nursing. She couldn’t care less about their so-called sexual orientations, but there was one in particular who had lied about her to the head of the hospital; told him she had made mistakes when she hadn’t. He had caused her to be demoted. She also did not like the way he talked. He thought it was funny to refer to all his female patients as “that bitch in room 304” or “that fat bitch” or that “skinny bitch.” He clearly did not like females, and it irritated her. A good nurse does not notice gender. She had never referred to any of her patients as bastards or bitches, and throughout the years she’d had her share of both. Plus, he was always standing around in the hall, talking about his sex life, spreading rumors about movie stars he had never met, and to hear him tell it, he had been propositioned by every man he ever said hello to. But the real reason she had no use for him was that he was a mean-spirited vicious little gossip who should not be in nursing. Boots had lost part of her right leg to cancer in 1987 and wore a false leg, and so when she overheard him calling her “The Goody One-Shoe old bitch” behind her back, it was not so funny to her. He had no idea how much she hurt each night from walking those halls all day, or how long and painful it had been to learn to walk again. He may not know it, but she had feelings. “I may be a nurse,” she thought, “but I’m a woman too!”

Welcome Home

8:48
PM

W
hen Norma and Macky drove up to their house, they saw that Norma’s car was parked in the driveway, with a note on the windshield. Merle and Verbena had driven it over from Elner’s house for them. And when they went to the front door, there were six or seven notes that friends had taped to the door. All saying how happy they were Elner was alive. As she went in, Norma was exhausted, but there were so many messages asking about Elner on the answering machine, it had run out of tape. Norma was not surprised by any of this. Aunt Elner knew everybody and was the only person Norma knew who didn’t hide from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. After Norma had called everybody back and cleared the machine, she came into the den and sat down by Macky. “Linda called, she got home all right and said they were going to get a cat tomorrow.”

He nodded. “That’s good.”

After a while she looked over and said, “Did I mention that she said she walked through a button?”

“No. What kind of button?” he asked.

“A big mother-of-pearl button with a door in it.”

Macky roared with laughter.

“Well, you can laugh all you want, Macky, but thank heavens I got to Mr. Pixton in time about the deposition. They could have carted her off and we would never have seen her again!”

“Norma, if anybody gets carted off, it will be you for believing such a thing.”

Norma looked at him with alarm. “I’m not saying
I
believe it, Macky, I said she believes it, and you’re right, I’m so tired I don’t know what I’m thinking…. I swear, if one more thing happens—”

There was a knock on the door. “Who in the world is that?” she said. When Norma opened the door, Ruby Robinson stood there with a gun in her hand and announced, “I tried to call, but your line was busy. I found this in the bottom of Elner’s dirty-clothes basket and I didn’t know if you’d want me to put it back or not.”

Norma thought about fainting again but was just too tired.

“Oh, come on in, Ruby,” she said. “Macky will have to deal with this. I’ve got to go lie down before I fall down.”

When Macky came into the bedroom a little while later, Norma was lying flat on the bed with a cold rag on her head.

“What fresh hell now?” she moaned.

“Oh, it’s nothing, Norma. Ruby found it in Elner’s dirty-clothes basket and got all freaked out, that’s all.”

“Just tell me that was not a real gun. If it is, don’t even tell me. I can’t handle it.”

“No, it’s not a real gun,” said Macky, unbuttoning his shirt. “It’s just a little starter pistol, like they use at the stock car races. It probably belongs to Luther Griggs. I’m sure she was just keeping it for him. Just go on to sleep.”

“I don’t care if it’s fake or not, it obviously scared poor Ruby to death! Tell Luther to quit leaving stuff like that at her house; first that truck, and now a gun. She could have hurt herself with that thing.”

“No, she couldn’t. It only shoots blanks.”

“I don’t care what it shoots, it has no business being in her dirty-clothes basket. I swear, if it’s not one thing it’s another, you have to watch her twenty-four hours a day.”

After Norma had gone to sleep, Macky lay there wideawake. He had lied to Norma. The gun was not a fake, or a starter pistol. Ruby knew it, and he knew it, and he wondered what the hell Elner was doing with a loaded .38 in her dirty-clothes basket? After a while he decided that the only possible explanation was Luther Griggs, and what in the hell was he thinking leaving something that dangerous at her house? He knew thinking was not one of Luther’s strong points, and he liked Luther, but nevertheless, he was going to kick his butt from here to Wyoming and back. Macky wished that Ruby had not brought it over, because Norma was looking for any excuse to try to get Elner into that damned assisted living place, and Elner was not helping matters. First falling out of a tree, and now the gun. Tomorrow he would get up early and ride over and throw the thing in the river and get rid of it. He was not worried that Luther had shot or robbed anybody with it. Luther was too stupid to do anything and not get caught; when he had broken into his father’s trailer, he had left a note saying that he was the one who had done it.