“We’ll role-play that, then. You put your hair up, and I’ll track down a horse.”
I laugh, feeling the last vestiges of tension slip away from my frame. “Deal.”
28
The next morning, my first Wordle guess is BRAVE. As in, I’ve decided I’m going to be brave today.
Before work, I head to the local hospital to visit Mrs. Finnamore. She was transferred back from Charlottetown to the local hospital to do a little more rehab prior to going home, and I’ve been too afraid to visit her until now. But like I say, today I’ve decided to be brave.
I buy a card and a vase of flowers from the hospital gift shop and ride up to the second floor with my heart in my throat, visions of Mrs. Finnamore groaning on the ambulance stretcher flashing before my eyes.
To my relief, when I walk into her room, I find her sitting up in a chair by the window, bossily lecturing the poor woman in the bed opposite hers.
“If you keep spoiling your grandson like that, he’s going to grow up into an awful little— Emily!” Mrs. Finnamore interrupts herself, spotting me in the doorway.
“Hi, Mrs. Finnamore. Is it okay if I come in?”
“Of course, dear. Come in, have a seat.” She gestures for me to sit on the end of her hospital bed. “This is my home care girl,” she tells the other woman loudly. “You need to think about getting one of them yourself, Bertha. You’re not getting any younger.”
The woman, Bertha, waves Mrs. Finnamore away. “You worry about your own problems, let me worry about mine.”
I stifle a smile at Mrs. Finnamore’s affronted expression.
“How are you doing?” I ask, to distract her.
“Oh, I’m fine,” she says dismissively. And actually, she does look pretty good. She’s maybe a touch paler than before, but she’s dressed in her own clothes rather than a hospital gown, and she has a crossword book on the little table in front of her.
“Does your hip hurt a lot?”
“Not at all,” she says. “The nurses ask me a hundred times a day, and every time I tell them no. Even when it twinges a bit, I just take a bit of Tylenol. I’m not interested in messing around with street drugs.”
“I don’t think they use street drugs in hospitals.”
She shakes her head. “Barberie told me—you know Barberie, from my old bridge club?—she told me her nephew stole all her pain pills after her knee surgery and sold them on the streets in Charlottetown. I’m not letting the doctors send me home with any of those, thank you very much. I’m on enough medicine as it is.”
“Speaking of medicine,” says a bright voice at the door. I turn and see a middle-aged nurse in scrubs bearing a cup of pills. “Time for your morning pills.”
“Oh, lord,” Mrs. Finnamore says. “Look at all these.” She shows me the pills. “They’ve doubled my pills since I’ve been in here.”
“I think that’s about the same as before,” I say doubtfully.
“Are you a family member?” her nurse asks me.
“This is the home care girl I told you about,” Mrs. Finnamore says. “Emily.”
The nurse looks at me with interest. “You work for VON?”
I recognize the name—those are the real home care nurses, the ones who can give needles and take blood and stuff. “Oh no,” I sayquickly. “I’m not a nurse. I just help out a few folks with laundry and groceries and things.”
“Well, we certainly need more of that,” the nurse says. “The wait lists for home care right now are appalling.”
My heart flutters nervously in my chest. I swallow hard and say, “I actually do have time for a few more clients. You know, if there’s ever a patient who needs a little help...”
“You should give your number to Jane, she’s our care coordinator. I think she keeps a list of private places.”
My heart thumps harder in triumph. “That would be great,” I say, trying not to sound overly pleased. “Thanks!”
She smiles and leaves us to our visit. I sit with Mrs. Finnamore for another quarter hour before I tell her I have to head to work.
