Angel of Mercy (3 page)

Sylvia Livingston’s eyes glimmered like stones under a cool mountain stream.

Hoffman stared at Faye for a moment and then looked at the expired patient. Faye was right. There wasn’t any grimace; the patient’s face was in repose, the eyes glassy and still. Death had already made its claim and turned her into a specimen, Hoffman thought. She was quickly beginning to resemble the cadavers upon which he had practiced and studied: anonymous bodies without names, without histories, without bereaved relatives.

Faye Sullivan closed Sylvia Livingston’s eyes and stood beside her with her own eyes closed as though she were offering some last rites. Then she turned abruptly to Dr. Hoffman, her eyes so bright and excited that now she looked like a little girl about to open her birthday presents.

“I’ll call Mr. Livingston,” she said. “He just went down to the cafeteria to get a bite.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Hoffman said. He felt this need to apologize to someone and was glad it was the private duty nurse and not the patient’s husband. “She’s been out of CCU for what, a little more than a day?” he asked. Faye nodded.

“Twenty-nine hours,” she said. He shook his head.

“I’m sure her husband wasn’t expecting this,” he said sadly.

“No, but you did very well, Doctor. I’ll be sure to tell him,” she added.

Brad Hoffman smiled gratefully. Yes, he had done everything he had been trained to do. It wasn’t his fault. He barely knew this patient, and despite the new emphasis on bedside manner and personalizing medical treatment, he was grateful for his ignorance about the woman and her family. It would make it easier for him to forget, if he ever could forget that cold, icy stare.

“Thank you. Er… if you need me when Mr. Livingston comes up, I’ll be finishing up my rounds,” he said.

“I won’t need you, Doctor,” Faye said confidently.

She gazed at Sylvia Livingston’s corpse one more time and when she looked at Brad Hoffman again, he looked like he really appreciated her.

Couldn’t she fall in love with such a man and couldn’t he fall in love with her? But then again, all the unmarried nurses she knew fell in love with doctors and wished doctors would fall in love with them.

She grimaced and took on her professional, stoic look. “Unfortunately, I’ve had more than my share of these,” she added, and then left to call Sylvia’s husband.

Tommy Livingston had just sat down with his tray in the hospital cafeteria. He had taken only a cup of coffee and a bran muffin, confident that he would not even eat much of that. His stomach felt full, tight, and his chest had turned to iron, making every breath an effort. He had this thing about hospitals. The moment he stepped through the entrance, he felt queasy. He tried to hide it from everyone, especially his sons, but he had always had an anxiety about hospitals and rarely visited anyone there if he could help it, even members of his own family.

Of course, he couldn’t avoid coming to see Sylvia.

She had come so close. At one point her life had been down to a trickle; each beat on that monitor sounding like the drip, drip, drip from a melting icicle. He could literally feel the wintery air surrounding her in the CCU. Death was weaving its cocoon. He had been present at his own mother’s final moments and still vividly recalled the way she had turned her eyes toward him and smiled just before she expired.

If I went to a psychiatrist, he’d probably tell me that was why I have this thing about going to hospitals, he thought.

But the boys don’t have this problem. They should be here more often.

Then he wouldn’t feel so guilty about avoiding the place, he decided.

Sylvia doted on the two of them anyway and had long since devoted more of herself to their sons than she did to him. She was a mother before she was a wife. He shook his head at the thought. Ridiculous, being jealous of my own children.

Anyway, it really was unfair to expect two men in their mid-thirties, both successful and busy, one an accountant in a major agency, the other owning and operating one of the biggest real estate firms in the Coachella Valley, to just sit around day and night in a hospital lounge or at their mother’s bedside while she slept. For him time wasn’t a concern; it didn’t matter.

As an architect, he had made plenty during the boom construction days in the desert communities. Now, he worked only when he felt like it. He could sit here for weeks, months. He just hated it.

Tommy sat forward and sipped some of his coffee.

He started to cut a piece of muffin when one of those senior-citizen hospital volunteers tapped him on the shoulder. She was a short, gray-haired lady, someone’s grandmother, with the pink uniform draped over her dress.

“Are you Mr. Livingston?” she asked. Her lips were curled in a friendly smile, but her eyes were a deep, dark gray, the eyes of someone who had been summoned to do a sad deed. “Yes.”

“I have a message for you to return to the step-down floor immediately,” she said. “Why? What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and stepped back as if making any physical contact with him would infect her with his sadness and misery.

“They just asked me to find you. Maybe nothing’s wrong,” she said.

“But, they told you… immediately?” he said, flustered for a moment.

The old lady didn’t reply. She pressed her lips together to seal in her true thoughts.

He rose to his full six feet, but his shoulders refused to straighten.

For a moment he gazed stupidly down at his coffee and muffin.

“I’ll take care of that for you,” the elderly volunteer said.

“Thanks.”

“I hope things turn out all right for you,” she said.

He nodded at her and started away, his legs carrying him as if they had a mind of their own and his torso had lost all control. He stabbed the button by the elevator with his right forefinger and waited impatiently, his heart pounding. The door opened and two nurses stepped out laughing. They didn’t seem to notice him and for a moment, he did feel invisible. Alone in the elevator, he felt like he was being swept up in a dream and when the doors opened again, he would simply wake up.

But when they opened, he found Faye Sullivan standing there, waiting for him. He didn’t have to ask.

The sadness in her soft blue eyes, the way she tilted her head just a bit to the left and pressed her lips together told him. He didn’t need to hear her say it.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Livingston,” she began. “Your wife was one of the most courageous patients I ever had.”

“What happened?” he demanded. “What…”

“She must have had another seizure. The doctor on the floor did all he could.”

“You mean, she’s… gone?” He realized he had to hear it spoken after all. A part of him refused to believe it any other way.

“She’s expired, Mr. Livingston,” Faye said. That was just the way the doctor had put it to her father when he had described what had happened to her mother. “Expired.” As if her time had run out on the meter of life.

The words fell thunderously through Tommy Livingston’s ears and sent his blood raging to his face. In fact, he felt as if all of his blood were spilling onto the hospital floor. He actually gazed down to see if he were standing in a pool of red.

“I’ll take you to her,” Faye said, and she marched ahead of him to his wife’s room.

No matter how much Tommy had tried to prepare himself for such an event, he was still utterly devastated to stand at Sylvia’s bedside. She already looked different to him. Without the spark of life, her face seemed more like a mask now, a replication. He hated looking at her, but even though his chest ached as sharply as it would have if someone had driven a knife into it, he didn’t cry. He closed his eyes instead and felt himself sway until Faye Sullivan took hold of his arm.

“Here, sit down,” she told him as she led him to the seat.

He started for it, then stopped.

“No, I’ve got to call my boys… Perry and Todd… and I’ve got arrangements to make…”

“There’s sufficient time, Mr. Livingston. Catch your breath first.

Believe me, I know of what I speak. Just sit down a moment. It’s like you’ve been struck with a sledge hammer, I’m sure. No matter how big and strong you think you are,” she added.

He didn’t resist. Maybe she was right. She appeared to be very competent, a true professional. He let her lead him to the seat and sat down, gazing at Sylvia.

“The last thing she said to me was, ‘Tommy, go home and get some rest.”

She was always thinking about others more than she thought about herself.”

Faye nodded.

“I’ll leave you alone for a moment and get you a glass of cold water,” she said.

After Faye had left him, Tommy went back to Sylvia. He held her cold hand, whispered his final words of devotion, and began to cry. He didn’t hear Faye Sullivan return to his side a short while later, so he didn’t hide his sobs. Suddenly, he felt her hand on his arm and he pulled himself back.

“Drink this,” she said. He wiped his eyes with a quick sweep of his big right hand and then took the glass of water. He drank some and thanked her. “I’d better call my boys now,” he said.

“I’ve taken care of that for you, Mr. Livingston.

They’re both on their way.”

“Really? But… how… I mean…”

“I took their phone numbers when I first met them.

Just as a precaution,” she added. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? No, I’m… just surprised,” he said.

“I know how difficult a time this is for everyone concerned and especially for the husband,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“My father… survived my mother. We were with him when my mother died, my twin sister, Susie, and myself. All of his siblings were gone.

My mother still had a living sister, but she was on the East Coast.

Essentially, he had only us.”

Tommy nodded, only half-listening and clearly not absorbing a word.

Faye pulled her shoulders back.

Why was she babbling like an idiot? “Will you be all right?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “I’ll just sit here and wait for my boys.”

“Fine,” she said, and she left him.

After she had gone, he looked at Sylvia again and shut his eyes. He was filled with an urge to bolt out of this room, even out of the hospital, but he fought it back and waited for his sons.

While in the corridor outside, Faye paused to gaze out the window at the puffs of clouds that were making their way lazily across the horizon, moving like a caravan of marshmallows through some child’s panorama of sweet dreams. She had sweet dreams, too, especially her dream of some day finding someone who would love her and cherish her as much as Tommy Livingston loved and cherished his wife. Why were some people blessed with that and so many not? What was the secret? What was she doing wrong? Surely there was someone out there who would respect and admire a woman dedicated to her work.

She was interrupted by what she first mistook for a reflection of herself in the window, but when she turned, she realized it was Susie.

“What are you doing here? If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, I don’t want you appearing unexpectedly. This is a hospital, not a social hall. The work I do is very serious… life and death.”

“I just came to visit Mrs. Livingston and you. I was bored sitting at home,” Susie whined.

Faye shook her head. Something in Susie’s eyes told her she hadn’t just appeared in the corridor, however.

“You went into Mrs. Livingston’s room, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Susie admitted. “I didn’t disturb him, even though I saw how he’s trying to hide the pain. You could see his terrible suffering, couldn’t you?” she said excitedly.

“Yes,” Faye replied in a tired voice. “I could see it, but I’m a trained nurse. I can’t cry with the close relatives of every single patient I have, you know,” she said sharply. Susie didn’t seem to hear or care.

“He’s another one of those strong, manly types who thinks any show of emotion is womanly,” she said.

“They’re the worst when it comes to facing tragedy.

They boil up inside, swell like an infection. Daddy tried to be like that. He didn’t want to cry in front of us when Mommy died.”

“Daddy didn’t cry in front of anyone when Mommy died. Not even himself,” Faye said.

“That’s not so. I was there. I saw him cry. I saw him,” Susie insisted.

Faye turned away to look out the window again.

“Mr. Livingston’s going to need someone to stand by him, isn’t he?

Will you tell him about me? Faye, will you?”

Faye took a deep breath and then turned around and stared at her a moment.

“He has family, children,” she said. She hoped Susie would leave it at that, but in her heart, she knew she couldn’t.

“You’ve met them. You know they won’t give him any real support.

They’re self-centered. Will you tell him I’m available? Will you? He needs me.” She limped up to her sister. “Faye?”

Faye nodded softly, resigned.

“I’ll tell him at the proper time, after the funeral,” she whispered.

“Promise?”

“I said I would, didn’t I?” she snapped.

Susie seemed to wither right before her eyes, growing smaller and smaller until she looked like a twelve yearold girl again, always depending on her, even more than she depended on their mother and father.

“It’s just that when I peeked in, he looked just like Daddy, sitting by the hospital bed.”

Faye closed her eyes and opened them.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Daddy never sat at Mommy’s hospital bed.”

“Of course he did,” Susie said smiling.

“All right, Susie.”

“I don’t know why you insist on saying these things that you know aren’t so.”

“All right.”

“You just forget, that’s all. You want to forget, so you just forget.”

“Don’t start!” Faye snapped. “Just go home,” she ordered. Susie backed away, nearly stumbling over herself as if she expected Faye to reach out and slap her.

“You don’t have to shout at me.”

“Just… go home, Susie. Please.”

“You just forget,” Susie insisted. She turned and started away. Faye watched her sister hobble down to the elevator. Then she started back to the room where she knew Tommy Livingston was still sitting, staring at his dearly departed wife.