Cat Raise The Dead

23

Eula rose hastily from the couch, spilling Joe to the cushions. Scowling, clutching the back of the couch to support herself, she stood looking out the glass doors across the patio toward the empty corner room. "There's someone over there; the curtains are open. There's a light on-there, in Jane's old room." This was Joe's second visit. Again, he'd been paired with Eula.

Mae Rose came alert, wheeled her chair around, almost upsetting it, staring out. On her lap, Dulcie rose up tall, looking, her tail twitching with excitement, her green gaze fixed across the patio on the corner room, where figures moved with sudden activity.

Joe leaped to the back of the couch, looking out, nipping at his shoulder, pretending to bite a flea, as he gave the distant view his full attention. Across the patio, through the loosely woven draperies, a bedside lamp shone brightly, picking out three busy nurses. The room seemed to brighten further as the sky above Casa Capri darkened with blowing clouds.

Along the length of the patio garden, each room was lit like a bright stage. In some, the occupant was reading or watching TV; other rooms were empty, though residents had left lights burning while they came to the social hall. Dillon came to stand beside Joe, leaning against the back of the couch, stroking him, but her attention was on the far room.

He hadn't expected to see Dillon again after finding her bawling in the woods, after the nurse booted her out. He'd figured she was done with Casa Capri, that she'd give up looking for Jane Hubble, but here she was, fascinated by that far bedroom, her brown eyes fixed intently on the action behind the curtain.

Suddenly, everyone moved at once. Dillon fled past him out the sliding door, leaving it open to the wind. Mae Rose took off in her wheelchair toward the front entry and the hall beyond, moving faster than he thought that chair could move, Dulcie balanced in her lap, stretching up to see. Eula followed behind Mae Rose's wheelchair, hobbling along in her walker as fast as she could manage.

Joe delayed only a moment, then nipped out the glass doors behind Dillon.

The kid stood across the patio beneath an orange tree, pressed against the glass, shielded by the partially open draperies, looking in, her hands cupped around her eyes. Joe, slipping along beneath the bushes, rubbed against her leg. She looked down and absently scratched his ear with the toe of her jogging shoe. She must think, with the patio darkening and the room so brightly lit, and the flimsy drapery to shield her, that she wouldn't be noticed. He sat beside her in the shadows, watching the three white-uniformed nurses within. One was setting out some books on the dresser, another was filling the dresser drawers with folded garments: neat stacks of lacy pink nighties, quilted satin bed jackets, and what appeared to be long woolly bed socks. The closet door stood open, but the space within did not contain hanging clothes.

The closet was fitted with shelves, and the shelves were stacked with cardboard boxes, wooden boxes, plastic bags, small suitcases, several small flowered overnight bags, and two old-fashioned hatboxes. Dillon seemed fascinated with the jumble; she peered in as if memorizing every item. She looked away only when a fourth nurse entered the room, wheeling a patient on a gurney, a thin old lady tucked up beneath a white blanket, her face pale against the white pillow, her body hardly a puff beneath the cover. The nurse positioned the gurney beside the hospital bed and set its wheel brakes.

Two nurses lifted the patient. Working together they settled her onto the taut, clean sheets of the hospital bed and tucked the top sheet and blanket around her. She squinted and murmured at the light from the bedside lamp, and closed her eyes. A nurse turned the three-way bulb all the way up, forcing a moment of bright glare, switching on through to the lowest, gentle setting. For an instant, in that brief flash of harsh light, something startled Joe, some wrong detail. Something he could not bring clear.

He had no notion what had bothered him, whether some detail of the room, or something about the patient, but soon the feeling was gone. If something was off here, he didn't have a clue. Probably imagination. Annoyed at himself, he lay down across Dillon's feet, watching the room as the nurse pushed the gurney out into the hall.

Another nurse attached an IV tube to the patient's wrist where a needle had already been inserted, and hung a bottle on the IV stand. The old lady was dressed in a lacy white nightie with a high, ruffled collar, and on her hands she wore little white cotton gloves.

"The gloves," Dillon whispered, looking down at him, "are so she won't scratch herself. Wilma says their skin is like tissue paper when they get old. Mae Rose's skin is thin, but I don't remember Jane's being like that."

He wondered if a cat's skin got thin and fragile in old age. Old cats got bony. Old cats looked all loose-hinged, their eyes got bleary, and their chins stuck out. Old cats had a lot of little pains, too. Maybe arthritis, maybe worse.

He didn't think he wanted to hang around after he got frail and useless; he'd rather go out fast. End it quick in a blaze of teeth and claws, raking the stuffings out of some worthy opponent.

Slowly Dillon backed away from the glass. "It's not Jane," she said sadly. She picked him up, buried her face against him. But soon she moved closer to the glass again, peering in as if the sight of that poor old soul fascinated her. He still couldn't figure out what was off about the scene-the old woman looked comfortable and well cared for; the room seemed adequately appointed.

The old lady was very pale, but so were a lot of old people. Her white hair fanned out in a halo onto the white pillow, hair so thin he could see her pale pink scalp beneath. Her wrinkled cheeks and mouth were drawn in, her pale blue eyes were rimed with milky circles. Her lids were reddened, too, and at the corners of her eyes liquid had collected. Dampness shone at one side of her mouth in a small line of drool.

A nurse bent to wipe her face, taking such gentle strokes she seemed hardly to touch the old woman. Behind the nurses in the hall, two visitors appeared, figures robed in black, stepping heavily into the room, two square and hefty old women dressed all in black like two Salvation Army bell ringers.

Their gray hair, frizzed close to their heads, formed little caps as kinky as steel wool. Their shoes were black and sturdy, their black skirts reached nearly to the floor. They seemed as ancient as the bed's occupant, but of a different breed. These two ladies looked indestructible, as if they had been tempered perhaps by some demanding religious sect. Or maybe the vicissitudes of life, alone, had toughened them, just as old leather becomes tough.

The shorter of the two carried a brightly flowered handbag of quilted chintz, its yellow and pink blooms screaming with color against her sepulchral attire. The taller lady bore in her outstretched hands a small bowl covered with a white napkin. Adelina Prior moved behind them, shepherding them inside. She wore beige today, a tailored suede dress that showed less leg, and she wore less makeup, her eyes almost naked, her lips a flesh-colored tone.

The women paused uncertainly by the foot of the bed, watching the patient. She lay with her eyes closed, whether in sleep or out of shyness or bad temper was impossible to tell. The two black-robed ladies leaned forward, peering.

"Mary Nell? Are you awake? It's Roberta and Gustel."

"Mary Nell? Can you hear us? It's Cousin Roberta and Cousin Gustel."

When the patient didn't open her eyes, Ms. Prior took the ladies' arms and guided them to a pair of upholstered chairs that had been drawn up at the side of the bed, the backs to the wall and facing, across the bed, the glass doors. The black-clad women sat woodenly. The shorter lady leaned forward. "Mary Nell, it's Roberta. Are you awake?" As she leaned, she deposited her flowered handbag on the floor. The tall lady remained silent, clutching her bowl in her lap.

Joe, dropping down from Dillon's arms, slipped behind the orange tree, then leaped up into its branches. The sky had grown darker, and the clouds were moving fast. A damp wind scudded through the branches, shivering the leaves. He settled in a fork where he could see out between the moving leaves, directly down upon the bed, upon Mary Nell Hook and her two sturdy cousins. He could see, as well, beneath the bed, Dulcie's two hind paws and the tip of her twitching tail.

Dulcie's view was restricted to the floor, the bed legs, a corner of the blanket hanging down, and the high-topped black shoes of the visitors. Each woman, when seated, kept her feet flat on the floor as if to assure adequate balance. Above their ankle-high shoes, two inches of leg were encased in thick, black corrective stockings- a sharp contrast to Adelina's silk-clad ankles and creamy pumps, her sleek narrow foot tapping softly beside the bed. The two ladies smelled of mothballs, a strange mix when combined with Adelina's perfume and the sweet aroma of vanilla from the bowl that Gustel held. These, with the strong air freshener that had been sprayed earlier, left her nose nearly numb. But she did catch a whiff from the bed above, of nail polish remover. This seemed a puzzling aroma to be associated with a frail, bedridden lady. But maybe she liked nice nails-though one couldn't see them beneath the white cotton gloves.

She could see Dillon standing beyond the glass door and draperies, a shadow among shadows in the darkening patio, a subtlety probably not detectable by human eyes. She had seen Joe streak for the tree-he was hidden, now, high among the leaves-but she caught a glimpse of his yellow eyes, watching.

A chair creaked as if the short lady had leaned forward. "Mary Nell? Mary Nell, it's Roberta. Open your eyes, Mary Nell. It's Roberta and Gustel."

There was a rustle of the covers as if Mary Nell had turned to look at her visitors.

"Mary Nell, Cousin Grace sends her love," Gustel said. "I've brought you a vanilla pudding."

Mary Nell murmured, faint and weak.

"Her husband Allen's son is graduating from Stanford, and we came out to the coast for the ceremony, and, of course, we wanted to see you; it's been years, Mary Nell."

Mary Nell grunted delicately.

"Do they treat you well? We talked with your trust officer, and she said they are very kind here."

Another soft murmur, a bit more cheerful.

The conversation progressed in this vein until Dulcie had to shake her head to stay awake. From Mary Nell's responses, the patient, too, was about to* drift off. The cousins took turns talking, as if they had been programmed by some strict familial custom which allowed exactly equal time to all participants. Mary Nell's answers remained of the one-syllable variety. Not until Gustel began to talk about the old school where Mary Nell had taught did the patient stir with some semblance of vigor.

Gustel, holding her pudding gently on her lap, told about the grandchild of one of Mary Nell's students, who was now vice principal of that very same school. When she described for Mary Nell the new modern gymnasium with a skylight in the dome, this elicited from Mary Nell her first decipherable comment. "A light in the roof. Oh my. And little Nancy Demming, just imagine, she was no bigger than me."

"We have all your old history books and cookbooks, Mary Nell; we're keeping them for the great grandchildren."

"A regular window," Mary Nell said. "A regular window in the roof." The springs grumbled as if she had shifted or perhaps leaned up for a better look at her cousins. It was at this moment that Dulcie saw Mae Rose.

Mae Rose had abandoned her wheelchair and was creeping along the hall. Walking unsteadily, clutching at the wall, she was headed for the open door.

Dulcie had left Mae Rose near the front door, in the parlor. When Mae Rose stopped to wait for Eula, Dulcie had lost patience, leaped down, and streaked in through this door behind the nurses' feet. She thought that not even Dillon peering in through the glass had seen her as she slid beneath Mary Nell's bed.

She didn't know why Mae Rose had left her wheelchair; it frightened her to see the little woman walking so precariously. She did not see Eula, though she could see a good slice of hall from where she crouched; it was only close up that her view was limited to chair legs and feet. Mae Rose crept along to the door, clutching her little doll Lucinda and hanging on to the wall. Moving inside, she approached the bed, drew so close that Dulcie could see only her pale, bare legs and her bright pink slippers. The smell of air freshener was so strong she couldn't even catch Mae Rose's sweet, powdery scent. Just the chemical smell of fake pine.

Wanting to see more, she reared up behind the bed, shielded by Mary Nell's plumped pillows, and peered out through a tiny space beside Mary Nell's left ear. She watched Mae Rose lean over the bed, smiling eagerly at Mary Nell, holding out the doll. Mary Nell grunted, perhaps startled at the proximity of the doll. When she leaned up a few inches from the bed, Mae Rose pressed the doll toward her, as if by way of a loving gift.

The cousins, sitting beside the bed like two black crows, watched this exchange with blank stares. And Dulcie drew back imperceptibly, deeper into the shadows behind the bed.

She felt that if either cousin spotted her, escape would be imperative. And now suddenly Eula appeared in the hall, stumping along in her walker. Behind Eula came a scowling nurse, pushing Mae Rose's empty wheelchair.

Soon the nurse had forced Mae Rose away from the bed, back into her rolling chair, and started away with her, pushing determinedly. But then the nurse seemed to take pity. She turned back again, rolled the chair back into Mary Nell's room, and up to the bed.

Again Mae Rose held out the doll. "Mary Nell, do you remember Lucinda?"

"I remember her," Mary Nell said weakly.

"She's for you, to keep you company. She's your doll now." Mae Rose thrust the doll at Mary Nell. The bed creaked as Mary Nell reached. Dulcie watched intently through the tiny space between the two pillows. Mae Rose and Mary Nell looked silently at each other. Mae Rose said, "I've missed you, Mary Nell. And I miss Jane. Do you see Jane over in Nursing?"

"She's not well," Mary Nell told her. "She misses you. She said-she said, if I saw Mae Rose, to give her love." Her voice was weak and shaky. The effect on Mae Rose was to bring tears; Mae Rose's face crumpled. And at the same moment, Adelina appeared.

Adelina paid no attention to Mae Rose's weeping; she dispatched the tearful old lady back to her own wing, and Eula with her; sent them both away, escorted by two nurses.

The two cousins had sat scowling and silent through the little episode. Seated firmly, their feet planted, they gave each other a meaningful look, then rose as one. Moving slowly, with a measured precision, Roberta clutched her flowered handbag. Gustel turned away from her sister only long enough to deposit her vanilla pudding on the dresser beside the books.

As the two cousins made their good-byes to Mary Nell, Dulcie studied the hall and the glass door, weighing her chances. She could likely unlatch the glass door, but she didn't want Dillon to see her do that. She was assessing the traffic in the hall when she saw the foot.

The nurses had wheeled the empty gurney back into the room. Even as the cousins departed, clumping away, they prepared to lift Mary Nell onto the rolling cart. Wrapping Mary Nell's blanket around her, and one nurse lifting her shoulders while the other supported her hips, they set Mary Nell on the cart for her return to Nursing. But as they slid her acquiescent body off the bed and onto the gurney, her blanket caught and was pulled awry, pulling her off-balance. She kicked out against the bed, to right herself.

Dulcie, looking up from beneath the bed, saw Mary Nell's bare foot kick out beyond the edge of the cart. A slim, smooth foot, without the blue veins and knobby joints of an old woman. A lightly tanned foot that might easily run and dance.

She paused, frozen with amazement, then reared up beneath the blanket for a closer look. Staring at that healthy, slim foot, she was so fascinated that she forgot herself and let her whiskers brush Mary Nell's skin, catching a whiff of disinfectant from the blanket. At the tickle of her whiskers, Mary Nell grunted, startled, and reached to scratch her instep. Dulcie dropped down, crouching deep beneath the bed, in the far corner. Mary Nell scratched her foot vigorously with a white-gloved hand, drew her foot back beneath the covers, and pulled the blanket closer around herself. And she was wheeled away.

Dulcie remained hidden until they had gone, her mind fixed on that slim, smooth foot with its neat, professional pedicure of bright red toenails, and on the sudden, vigorous movements of that frail old lady.