I push it open slowly, scared of what I’ll find, because the house is as quiet as a graveyard. The kitchen looks exactly the way I left it last night. With one exception: the Oxycodone bottle is gone. I head into her bedroom, right off the kitchen, and spy it on her bedside table. Fee’s underneath the covers. As still as the cold air in the room.
The floor creaks under my foot. Then I hear a frail voice. “That you, baby?”
Rushing over to her bedside, I say, “Of course it’s me. I’ve been outside knocking. Can’t you get up?”
She moves her head, but only slightly. “Having a hard time this morning.” The strong scent of urine fills the room.
“What’s your doctor’s name?”
She bites down on her lip, whispers, “Nelson.”
After rifling through my pocketbook, I yank out my phone. “You got his number around here?”
“I think you better take me on to the hospital.”
Fear streaks through me like a runaway train. She would never go to the hospital unless it was an emergency. I punch 91—
“Who you calling?”
“The ambulance.”
“No, ma’am. We ain’t gone pay for no ambulance.” She presses into the mattress with both hands, trying to rise. With lips mashed together, she grunts and strains. But after a few tries, she gives up.
“Aunt Fee,pleaselet me call the ambulance. You’re too weak.”
She shakes her head. “Cost too much.” Then she tries to push up again. “Give me a hand, baby. I can make it.”
I take her by both arms and pull her to a sitting position, put two pillows behind her back, then let her rest. When she’s got her strength, I help her swing both legs off the side of the bed, and put her slippers on her feet. She tries to stand, but falls right back down.
“Come on, Auntie, please. Let me call the ambulance.”
“No,”she says harshly. So I cup her elbow on one side, and she uses the bedside table to finally push herself up. It’s then that I notice blood on the sheets.
“Can you walk?”
She nods. “Let’s go.”
It’s taking us a long time to get to the car because the poor thing can’t lift her feet. She just slides. The two steps down to the driveway are the worst part. I see her grit her teeth from having to bend her knees. When I finally get her in my car she lays her head back on the headrest, and never utters another sound. I have no idea if she is awake or asleep, but the fifteen-minute trip from her house to the hospital is the longest ride of my life.
The emergency entrance is the first I see, so I pull right up to the front door. Leave my car running and head straight to the desk. It doesn’t take long for someone to meet me at the car with a stretcher, and take Aunt Fee back to a room.
Once I’ve parked and asked for her room number, I make my way down a long hall, stopping at number twelve. The bottom portion of a nurse’s legs are visible underneath the curtain. When I pull it back and peek my head in, shemotions for me to step inside. Fee’s just lying there. Even though I try to talk to her, she won’t utter a word.
After I fill the nurse in on all the details of what had happened before we got here, she takes Fee’s pressure, checks her pulse, and draws two vials of blood. She slips out quietly. Less than five minutes later the doctor walks in. Fee can hardly open her poor little eyes to tell him hello. And now she’s moaning. He takes one look at her then turns to me. “Good morning. Looks like we’ve got a sick patient.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll see what we can do to get her some relief.”
“Thank you, doctor,” I say.
He walks over to the sink and washes his hands. After drying them with a paper towel he turns back around. “Hello, Mrs. Smith. I’m Dr. Jensen. Mind if I do a little poking around?” Aunt Fee manages a slight nod, so he pulls a flashlight out of his pocket and points it into her eyes, then listens to her chest with his stethoscope. Once he’s checked her pulse, he pulls back the sheet. “I’m going to press on your abdomen now, and I’d like for you to tell me when it hurts.”
She never answers him, but she doesn’t need to. She moans most everywhere he touches.
I watch him intently, every move he makes. After unwrapping the stethoscope from around his neck and replacing it in his pocket, he turns to me. “I’m going to send Mrs. Smith downstairs for tests. Are you her next of kin?”
“No, sir. She’s my auntie. I may as well be her daughter, but she does have three sons.”
