“It’s too early to give an accurate prognosis, but she is stable.”
Gabe spoke up. “You’re not giving us much of anything, Doc.”
Dr. Patterson shrugged. “I’m trying to be realistic, Dr. Covington. I don’t want to give you false hope. She’s not out of the woods. We’re doing everything we can to keep her stable and to possibly turn things around. Right now she is awake, but she can’t talk or move. We’re trying to keep her as comfortable as possible and get her ready for follow-up tests in the morning. We’ll know more then.”
Indigo wanted to tell the doctor that, while Aunt Melba was a practical businesswoman, her faith would trump all doubt, even in a situation as dire as this. Instead, she zeroed in on how her mother was holding up and prayed that this crisis wouldn’t overwhelm her.
“Thanks for all you’re doing, Doctor,” Mama told Dr. Patterson. Uncle Herbert shook his hand. “Can we see her?”
Dr. Patterson surveyed the group. “Some of you, but not all of you. I know you want to make sure she’s okay, but it would be best if not everyone tried to go in tonight.”
Mama looked at Daddy. “You coming with me?”
He squeezed her hand and they followed Dr. Patterson down the hall.
Indigo watched her parents leave, thankful that they had each other.
“Want to go next?” Brian asked her. He hugged her gently, and she realized she was thankful for him too. When she had called him in tears just before noon, Brian jumped in the car and drove down from Austin. He had already resigned from his job in Dallas and was spending the next few weeks with his parents, before leaving for OCS.
“I’ll go in after Uncle Herbert, and Rachelle and Gabe,” Indigo said.
She would likely be the last visitor of the day since Dr. Patterson wanted Aunt Melba to rest, but she needed to check on Aunt Melba. She couldn’t get the image of Melba slumped on the salon floor out of her mind, and she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if she didn’t see for herself how her aunt was faring.
Indigo sat on the edge of her seat, anxious for her parents to return. The ten minutes seemed more like thirty.
Mama’s eyes were red and her face was drawn when she entered the waiting area. Rachelle stood and embraced her.
After a few seconds, Mama pulled away and took a deep breath. She mustered a smile. “It’s alright. This is all very scary, but I know that God is here with my sister, and with us. We can listen to the doctors, but we really need to just trust God.”
Uncle Herbert patted Mama’s shoulder on his way out of the waiting room. Rachelle kissed Mama’s cheek, then she and Gabe followed Uncle Herbert.
When it was Indigo’s turn, she felt like she and Brian had stepped inside an episode of
Grey’s Anatomy
. Tubes canvassed Aunt Melba’s arms and chest. Her hands were strapped to her sides, and consistently timed beeps and pings from the various machines keeping her alive punctured the silence in this somber, sterile environment.
The right side of Aunt Melba’s face appeared slack, and she looked as if she had aged fifteen years in a matter of hours. Where was the vibrant aunt Indigo knew and loved? This couldn’t be happening.
Indigo approached Aunt Melba and leaned in close to her ear. She caressed Melba’s forehead.
“Auntie, I need you to get better, okay?” she said softly. “You know I love you. Don’t let this get the best of you. We need you. And besides, you left me hanging just as you were about to give me some great advice.”
Indigo tried to chuckle, but the laugh got caught behind the lump that had formed in her throat. She stood there, taking in this broken image of her beautiful aunt, who had always encouraged her and told her she could do and be anything. Aunt Melba backed up those words with action. Her graduation gift to Indigo was a savings account with a healthy balance that would help pay for grad school.
Based on her aunt’s current condition and Dr. Patterson’s cautious diagnosis, it would be awhile before Melba would be ready to welcome clients into her seat at Hair Pizzazz. Aunt Melba needed her encouragement now. Indigo was ready to give her whatever support was needed.
Indigo kissed her aunt’s forehead. Aunt Melba’s eyes fluttered and she tried to talk.
“I can’t understand what you’re saying,” Indigo told her. “What is it, Aunt Melba? It’s okay; calm down.”
Aunt Melba continued to fidget, and Indigo knew she wouldn’t relax until she conveyed what was troubling her. Because the nurses had her hands strapped down, she could only move so much. When she tried to speak, she didn’t realize that just half of her mouth was moving. The right side remained slack.
“Har . . . har. . . my har . . .”
Indigo leaned in and grasped Melba’s hand.
“Are you trying to say ‘hair salon,’ Aunt Melba?”
Melba sighed and nodded once. She closed her eyes and sank into her pillow.
“Don’t worry about that right now. It will be okay,” Indigo said.
Melba grew agitated again and shook her head.
A male nurse entered the room and added more medicine to her IV. Within seconds, she grew calm and dozed off.
“We don’t want her moving or trying to talk,” he said. “We want her to rest.”
But Indigo took Aunt Melba’s agitation as a good sign. She was in the fight, and Indigo had to believe she was going to win.
I
ndigo knew better. She had learned the skills she should be applying right now in a freshman-level photography course: focus on your subject, put her at ease, and concentrate on making the poses as natural and as unscripted as possible.
Unfortunately for her and for this kind older woman, she could care less about all of that. At least, not today.
Instead of enjoying the photo shoot in this lush backyard, she just wanted it to end. Aunt Melba was coming home from the rehab facility today. She wanted to help her get settled.
Besides, she felt a headache coming on. Those annoying halo-like shapes that sometimes clouded her vision when she spent too much time in the sun had returned. She couldn’t tell Ms. Harrow that, though; she had to keep trudging.
“Don’t look at the camera, Ms. Harrow,” Indigo said. “Keep your eyes on the flowers. Smell them like you normally do and forget that I’m here.”
The
Jubilant Herald
’s two photographers despised assignments like this, where they were required to shoot what they considered fluff photos for the paper’s Home and Garden section. It thrilled them when a freelancer got the assignment or, as was the case with Indigo, a current or recent college student joined the staff for the summer. The extra help allowed them to skip the lightweight stuff and capture photos for the front page or the local news section.
Indigo didn’t care to compete for those assignments anyway. She hadn’t wavered from her plans to photograph still life, nature, and other fine art images as a career. This kind of newspaper work was giving her practical experience that would make a difference long term.
Today, however, Ms. Harrow was working her nerves. She bit her lip to keep from saying something she’d later regret. Mama had raised her better than that; respecting her elders was a given, not an option.
Lord, if I can’t move her along, will you?
Aunt Melba would be arriving at Indigo’s parents’ house in half an hour. Indigo had agreed to give up her bedroom so Melba would have easy access to the primary rooms in the house while she recovered from the stroke.
Indigo’s bedroom had a small private bathroom and was the closest of the four bedrooms to the kitchen and family room. Melba wouldn’t have to navigate too far down the hall in her wheelchair and, eventually, with her walker. To make her aunt feel more welcome, Indigo had removed pictures of herself and Brian from the bedroom walls and had replaced them with images of Aunt Melba in better times. She couldn’t wait to see her aunt’s face when she was wheeled into the room.
Finally, Ms. Harrow gave Indigo a pose she could live with. The thin, auburn-haired woman cut a long-stemmed rose and held it to her nose. She closed her green eyes and inhaled its fragrance. The sun set on the horizon, behind her, just as Indigo snapped the picture.
Ms. Harrow pushed herself up from the ground with one fist and wiped grass clippings from the knees of her royal blue capris.
“Did you get what you needed, dear?”
Terms of endearment from strangers or new acquaintances usually annoyed her, but in her second week at the newspaper, Indigo had decided she’d better get used to them. She was interacting with people from all walks of life, trying to make them feel comfortable being photographed for a publication that thousands would see. If they wanted to call her affectionate pet names because she looked eighteen instead of her actual twenty-two years, so be it.
“Yes, ma’am, I think we’re good to go,” she said and quickly removed her zoom lens. She tucked it and the camera into a black shoulder bag and approached Ms. Harrow.
“I’m sorry to rush off, but I have another commitment,” Indigo said. She extended her hand to Ms. Harrow and they shook. “It was a pleasure to meet you, though. I’m going to review the photos when I’m in the office tomorrow, and one of them will be in the
Herald
next weekend, as the cover art for the section.”
Ms. Harrow clasped her hands together. “How exciting!”
She walked Indigo from her backyard to the driveway and rattled off everyone she’d be buying a copy of the newspaper for that day. Then she stunned Indigo.
“I’ve heard that you’re related to Melba Mitchell. She’s a wonderful person. How is her recovery coming along?”
Indigo’s eyes widened. Jubilant was a fairly small city, but everyone didn’t necessarily move in the same circles. How did this woman know her aunt?
Ms. Harrow patted Indigo’s arm. “Let’s just say you can’t judge a hair salon by its name,” she said and smiled. “I moved to Jubilant about ten years ago and didn’t know a soul in town. I woke up one morning feeling sad and started having a pity party about everything that wasn’t going right in my life. I decided to get a new look to make myself feel better, but I had no idea where to go. I looked up salons in the phone book and drove around the city to check them out. I stopped by the first shop that appeared to have some class. When I strolled my l’il Caucasian self into Hair Pizzazz to ask for a perm, your aunt Melba and I both were speechless.”
Ms. Harrow grabbed her sides and guffawed. Indigo couldn’t help but join her.
“Of course she didn’t have the appropriate chemicals for my hair texture, so I couldn’t get my Shirley Temple curls that day, but Melba graciously shampooed and styled my hair while her other clients watched in amazement. We became friends after that,” Ms. Harrow said.
“The fresh flowers that sometimes grace her reception desk come from that very garden you just photographed.” Ms. Harrow motioned with her head toward the backyard. “God can bind anyone in sisterhood, you know. Sometimes Melba joins me back there in prayer.”
A lump filled Indigo’s throat. She’d been so focused on her own agenda during the photo shoot that she hadn’t taken time to appreciate the floral sanctuary she’d just left. To know that Aunt Melba sometimes communed there made her want to take another look.
“She comes here?” Indigo asked.
Ms. Harrow nodded. “Usually twice a year. We get together at the beginning and halfway points of each year to agree with one another in prayer about the blessings and miracles we’re asking God for. I visited her once, before she left the hospital, but I haven’t made it to the rehab center to see her. Can you let her know that I’ve been in our special place, thanking God for her full recovery?”
Tears blurred Indigo’s vision. “A full recovery seemed so unlikely two weeks ago, because the stroke left her unable to talk or walk. Her speech is still slurred, but it’s possible to understand her now, when she talks slowly. Her doctors say she’ll be able to walk again as long as she continues the physical therapy; and thankfully, her mind is as sharp as ever.”
Indigo knew that witnessing her aunt’s fight to recover was changing her in ways she couldn’t yet articulate.
Now, to hear that feisty Aunt Melba, who rarely attended church or mentioned God, had a personal prayer partner who was a well-to-do white grandmother from the other side of town stunned her.
“I’ve never been able to pigeonhole my aunt Melba,” Indigo finally said. “To hear that you two are friends surprises me, but then again, it doesn’t. Thank you so much for praying for her.”
“You don’t have to thank me, young lady,” Ms. Harrow said. “Now that you and I have a connection beyond your job, you feel free to stop by anytime you need my backyard for prayer too, okay? I’ve groomed that garden as a special place for everyone, not just myself. It’s my gift to God for blessing me in so many ways.”
The two women hugged. Indigo slid into her Honda CRX, eager to get home and share with Aunt Melba details about how she wound up meeting her friend.
She waved to Ms. Harrow and pulled out of the driveway. Before she could turn the corner and enter the busy intersection, her cell phone rang. It was Brian. Indigo didn’t have her Bluetooth in her ear, so she pressed the speakerphone setting.
“Yeah, babe, where are you?”
“I’m pulling into your parents’ driveway,” he said. “You almost home?”
Hearing his voice always lifted her spirits. It was sweet of him to have driven from Austin for her aunt’s homecoming too.
His last day with Hillman Aeronautics had been a month ago. He had submitted his resignation early so he could make more frequent trips before reporting to Officer Candidate School in ten days. Indigo was grateful.
“You know that everything in Jubilant is fifteen minutes from everything else,” she told him. “I’ll be there in no time. Wait ’til I tell you about the woman whose picture I just shot for the paper.”
“Wait ’til I tell you about my day,” he countered.
Indigo frowned and lowered her speed slightly.
What was he up to now? Today was about Aunt Melba. She hoped he wasn’t planning something foolish, like starting a discussion about wedding dates with her family. The two of them hadn’t talked about the logistics of his proposal since Aunt Melba’s stroke. With Aunt Melba’s life hanging in the balance, little else had mattered. Now she wasn’t sure what to expect.