48
Mary Daheim
ground. Finally, Judith saw a third form, more shadowy than the others, wearing what looked like a cape
and pacing anxiously as a band of deep-fried prawns
lay in wait with a cauldron of boiling sweet-and-sour
sauce.
Judith woke up with a muffled gasp, but saw only
Renie, clutching Archie the cheerful doll, and snoring
softly.
FOUR
NO ONE HAD died by morning. Judith awoke after a
fitful night, not only of pain and discomfort and
nightmares caused by an overdose of Chinese food,
but of constant disturbances by nurses taking more
vital signs. Not only didn’t Judith feel rested, but
she was very stiff and sore. The weakness she had
suffered as a result of the surgery was still there,
leaving her limp and lifeless.
Breakfast turned out to be more palatable than the
previous meal. The cousins ate oatmeal, toast,
scrambled eggs, and bacon. There was apple juice
and coffee. Even Renie didn’t complain. Much.
“You get to go home in a couple of days,” Judith
said, pushing her tray aside. She’d eaten only half
the food; her appetite seemed to have shrunk. “Dr.
Alfonso said I’d be in here for almost a week.”
Renie was standing up, scratching various parts
of her anatomy with her left hand and trying to adjust the sling on her right arm so that it didn’t tug at
her neck.
“I have the feeling that if we were in any other
hospital,” Renie declared, finally managing to
loosen the sling an inch or so, “I’d be headed home
this morning. Good Cheer has held fairly firm in al-50
Mary Daheim
lowing longer patient stays. Maybe it’s got something
to do with the hospital being run by a religious order.”
“In other words, by people who have good sense?”
Judith said.
“Exactly.” Somewhat unsteadily, Renie went into
the bathroom and closed the door.
Judith felt envious. Her cousin was mobile; it would
be weeks before Judith would be able to get around
with ease. She’d be stuck using a bedpan or the commode. Doctors and nurses bragged of success stories
about eighty-year-olds who danced the fandango six
weeks after surgery. But Judith knew those tales were
the exception to the rule. Besides, she’d never known
how to dance the fandango with two good hips.
Renie emerged from the bathroom, a big grin on her
face. “That must be the original toilet,” she said, moving cautiously toward her bed. “It’s the old-fashioned
chain type. It’s so high off the floor that my feet didn’t
touch. By the way, we’re sharing.”
“We are?” Judith said. “With whom? Robbie the
Robot?”
Renie shook her head. “No, Robbie the Pro Quarterback. There’s a door on the other side. I could hear him
talking on the phone. He was thanking somebody
named Taylor for something or other. No doubt some
special treatment he’s getting that we are not.”
“Bob Randall’s famous,” Judith said. “He’s used to
five-star treatment. We are not famous, thus we are not
entitled to special treatment.”
“Doesn’t infamous count?” Renie retorted. “I’m
working on that one.”
Judith sighed. “So you are. And with great success,
I might add.”
Dr. Alfonso arrived on his rounds shortly before ten
SUTURE SELF
51
o’clock. He was full of encouragement for Judith,
though she remained skeptical. With the help of a willowy redheaded nurse named Appleby, he managed to
get Judith into a sitting position. She confessed she felt
dizzy, almost nauseous, and had to put her head down.
The faded linoleum floor swam before her eyes.
“Perfectly normal,” Dr. Alfonso assured her. “By tomorrow, you’ll hardly feel dizzy at all.”
After the surgeon had gone, Corinne Appleby informed Judith that they’d have her on her feet by late
afternoon. “You’ll be surprised,” the nurse said, a tired
smile on her long, freckled face. Like Heather Chinn,
Nurse Appleby wore a crisply starched white uniform,
spotless white rubber-soled shoes, and a perky cap
with a single black band. “You may feel weak now,”
Corinne went on, “but little by little, you’ll get your
strength back.”
“I hope so,” Judith said, trying to block out Renie’s
latest complaints to an orderly who was attempting to
straighten her bed and apparently had attempted to molest Archie the doll. Maybe it was a good thing that her
cousin would go home first. When Renie was in a
drawn-out bad mood, she could be nerve-racking.
“Did you bring a book?” Judith asked after the orderly had managed to flee.
“Yes, but it sucks scissors,” Renie declared. “I
started it last night, somewhere between the vital signs
and the nurses’ argument over who ate the last package
of M&M’s.”
“Oh.” Judith glanced at the paperback on her bedside stand. “I couldn’t even try to read last night, but
maybe I will now. Unless you want to watch TV.”
“During the day?” Renie was aghast. “There’s nothing on except the Weather Channel.”
52
Mary Daheim
“There’s CNN,” Judith said meekly.
“That’s just news, and it won’t be good,” Renie asserted. “I’d rather read. Maybe if I started this book
from the end and read it backwards, it’d be more interesting.”
“I brought a deck of cards,” Judith said, brightening.
“If you could sit by my bed, we could play cribbage.”
“I haven’t played cribbage in years,” Renie said. “I
don’t know how anymore.”
“I could teach you,” Judith said. “I play with Mother
all the time. She usually beats me.”
Raised voices and a sudden scurrying in the hallway
diverted the cousins’ attention.
“What’s that?” Renie asked, sitting up in bed.
Judith leaned forward as far as she could, which was
only a few inches. “I can’t tell. A couple of people—I
think Nurse Appleby was one of them—just ran by.”
“Code blue!” someone shouted.
“What was that?” Renie asked, clumsily getting out
of bed and trailing her IV stand behind her.
“It sounded like ‘code blue.’ I don’t think that’s a
positive phrase in a hospital.”
Renie padded across the floor in her baggy hospital
gown and brown-treaded bed socks. “I thought they
said ‘cordon bleu.’ I thought it sounded like something
good.”
“I think maybe it means . . . dead,” Judith said, gulping.
“Oh.” Renie sounded dismayed, but kept moving
until she was in the doorway. After a few seconds, she
turned back to Judith. “Whatever it is seems to be happening in Bob Randall’s room next door.”
“No!” Judith’s hands flew to her cheeks. “It can’t
be! Maybe I’m wrong about what the code means.”
SUTURE SELF
53
A large bald-headed man in a white coat came striding down the hall. He saw Renie halfway out of the
door and barked at her to get back. Startled, she took a
single step but remained on watch.
“Dr. Van Boeck,” Renie said over her shoulder to Judith. “I heard somebody say his name.”
“Who else do you see?” Judith asked, wishing she
could join Renie at the door. But just thinking about it