made her feel vaguely light-headed.
“I see the patient from across the hall looking at
me,” Renie said. “He’s a man.” She waved. “Hi, I’m
Serena Jones.”
“Hello,” Judith heard the man reply in a chipper
voice. “I’m Mumford Needles. Call me Mr. Mummy.
Everybody else does.”
“Sure, Mr. Mummy,” Renie said. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Mummy said. “I don’t think it’s
anything good, though.”
Judith had to strain to hear the last part of Mr.
Mummy’s sentence. “Do you see anybody else?” she
asked Renie.
“Umm . . . Here comes Margie Randall. Can you
hear her?”
Judith could, as Margie uttered a series of keening
noises that sounded like mourners at an Irish wake.
“That’s awful,” Judith said, putting her hands over her
ears.
“There must be a bunch of people in the room,”
Renie said, cautiously taking a couple of steps farther
into the hallway.
But suddenly, except for Margie Randall’s shrieks,
the commotion seemed to subside. Renie informed Judith that there were a handful of staffers milling about,
with anxious, curious expressions on their faces.
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Mary Daheim
“Here comes Sister Jacqueline,” Renie said. “She’s
with some guy who looks like Ronald Colman on a
bad day. What was that movie he made where he was
drunk all the time?”
“Never mind,” Judith responded. “What does the
guy look like? A doctor? Security? A wizard?”
“A doctor, he’s wearing a white coat,” Renie answered as the man quickly passed by. “He looks very
grim. So does Sister Jacqueline.”
For several minutes, nothing seemed to happen, at
least nothing that Renie could tell. Then, quietly and
somberly, several of the people who had been in Bob
Randall’s room came back into the hallway. They
spoke in hushed tones, shaking their heads and placing
hands on each other’s arms, as if to give comfort.
Margie Randall had finally stopped shrieking, though
she was nowhere in sight.
Mr. Mummy gave a sad shake of his head. “I don’t
like the looks of this, do you, Mrs. Jones? Or may I call
you Serena?”
“Mrs. Jones is fine. What did you do to your leg?”
“I broke it in several places,” Mr. Mummy said. “A
nasty fall off a ladder while I was taking down Christmas lights. I had surgery in the community hospital out
where I live, then they transferred me in here today. It’s
a very small town and a very small hospital, with only
one surgeon. Excuse me, I must lie down. Perhaps I’ll
see you again?”
“Probably,” Renie said in mild surprise. Mr.
Mummy returned to his room.
“Is Mr. Mummy going to ask you out?” Judith inquired with a quirky little smile.
“I hope not. He’s almost as old as I am, bald except
for two tufts of hair sticking straight up, glasses, and
SUTURE SELF
55
about a fifty-inch waist. Cute in a way, but not my
type.” Renie spotted Corinne Appleby. “Nurse?” she
asked, trying to sound humble but not succeeding.
“What’s wrong?”
Corinne’s face was very pale under her freckles.
“There’s been a . . . problem. An emergency. Don’t
worry, everything’s under control.”
“It doesn’t seem like it to me,” Renie shot back.
“Come on, we have a right to know. Whatever it is, it
happened right next door.”
With trembling fingers, Corinne tucked a red curl
under her cap. “Sadly, Mr. Randall expired. Excuse
me, I must get back to the desk.”
If pain and posture had permitted, Judith would have
fallen out of the bed. Instead, she stared at Renie, who
had turned back into the room. “Bob Randall’s dead?”
Renie gave a helpless shrug. “As a dodo, I gather.”
Awkwardly, Judith fell against the pillows. “I should
have known.”
And then she wondered why she’d already guessed.
Renie’s job as sentry wasn’t easy, but she remained
propped up at the door, clutching the pole that held her
IV, and keeping Judith apprised of what was going on
in the next room.
“I can hear Margie sobbing,” Renie reported, “but at
least she’s not yelling her head off.”
“Can you ask somebody what happened to Bob
Randall?” Judith urged, feeling supremely frustrated. The room seemed to be closing in on her; the
windows were shrinking and the walls were shriveling. Judith felt as if she were in a cage instead of a
bed.
Renie glared at Judith. “If I draw any more attention
56
Mary Daheim
to myself, they’ll probably make me go back inside
and close the door.”
Her cousin had a point. Judith tried to relax. She
could hear the distorted sounds of the hospital loudspeaker, summoning certain parties to specific places.
“Okay,” Judith inquired, “who do you think is in Randall’s room besides Margie and Dr. Van Boeck and the
other guy?”
“A couple of nurses, maybe,” Renie said. “What’s
her name? Appleby? Oh, and Sister Jacqueline, but she
just came out and is headed”—Renie paused—“right
past me. She’s going to the nurses’ station.”
The doctor who had reminded Renie of Ronald Colman came back into the hallway. He caught Renie’s
eye and scowled.
“Would you mind stepping back into your own
room, please?” he said in a cold, cultured voice.
“I kind of would,” Renie replied. “What about the
patient’s right to know?”
“Know?” snapped the physician, his fine silvery
mustache quivering with outrage. “What do you need
to know? Please go back inside and close your door.”
“Okay,” Renie said, but didn’t budge. Apparently the
doctor wasn’t used to being disobeyed, since he didn’t
look back, but resumed his quick pace down the corridor.
“Back to the play-by-play,” said Renie. “Coming in
out of the bullpen and onto the mound, otherwise known
as Bob Randall’s room, is Peter Garnett, chief of surgery.” She relayed the information she’d gotten off the
man’s name tag. “His ERA, otherwise known as Good
Cheer’s mortality rate, is way up. No wonder he looks
so bad.”
A moment later, two orderlies bodily carried Margie
SUTURE SELF
57
Randall out of her husband’s room. She looked as if
she’d fainted. The little group moved off in the opposite direction. Then, before Renie could recount what
had happened, two more orderlies appeared, on the
run.
“More action on the field,” Renie said. “Margie
struck out—as in out cold—and another pair of orderlies have been called in from the dugout.” She’d barely
finished speaking when the orderlies reappeared, pushing what looked like Bob Randall on a gurney. His face
was covered with a sheet, and Renie let out a little
squawk as the entourage all but flew down the hall,
then disappeared into an elevator that must have been
waiting for them.
“Oh, dear.” Renie gulped and crossed herself. “I
think Bob’s just been taken out of the game.”
“What’s the rush?” Judith asked. “Maybe he’s not
really dead.”
But Renie sounded dubious. “He looked pretty dead
to me.” She lingered in the doorway, but events seemed