Different Drummers (16 page)

She picked up the receiver.

“Hello.”

Beulah's voice came faintly down the line.

“Kathleen, can you come over? Otis and Selma ain't here and I'm not feelin' so good. Somethin's wrong with me. I…”

There was a clatter as if her mother-in-law had dropped the phone.

“Beulah, are you there?”

The line was dead. Had Beulah fainted, or even worse?

“Not now, Beulah, please not now,” she pleaded aloud in the middle of the empty room.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kathleen stood by the phone feeling her very life hung in the balance. For over a minute she struggled to think more clearly. Maybe with a bit of luck, she could still do both. There was a chance she could drive to the house on Bennington Street, reassure herself Beulah was all right, and then leave for the airport from there. After all, Otis and Selma couldn't be all that far away. Maybe they'd even be at the house by the time she got there. She hurried out the door, flung her suitcase in the trunk of her car, and pulled out of the driveway. Relief surged through her when she found Beulah lying on the bed in Selma's room.

“Thank God you're all right. What happened?”

“I don't rightly know.” Beulah's voice was weak and trembling. “I've been havin' this pain on and off for a couple of months. Today it was real bad and I got to feelin' awful dizzy. I got down the hall to the phone but while I was talkin' to you, I sort of cramped up. I don't remember no more. I guess I must've passed out. When I came to, I got up and came in here. It was closest to the phone. I knew you'd be comin', so I waited for you.”

The words came out in gasps and her face had a pallor about it that frightened Kathleen.

“I'm calling Dr. Parker to take a look at you.” She tried to keep the emotion out of her voice, surprised at the same time by the depth of her feeling for her mother-in-law.

The telephone was on a small table at the end of the narrow hallway. She gave a cursory glance into the little shabby bedroom she'd occupied on arrival in Eddisville, seeing again Otis's ghostly face watching her and Bob through the door.

Dr. Parker's examination of Beulah lasted about fifteen minutes. When he joined Kathleen in the living room his face was serious.

“How is she?” Kathleen asked.

“Not good. Her abdomen is very tender, her blood pressure's up and so is her temperature. What worries me is she told me she's been bleeding for weeks now.”

He replaced his stethoscope in his bag and then glanced at his watch. “Where in the hell is Otis? The sawmill's closed today. Beulah needs to be in the hospital, but I'd like to discuss it with him first.”

“I don't know where he is, or Selma. Beulah said they'd gone out and she didn't know where. I suppose I am the next of kin, so I'll take responsibility for the decision. Should we send for an ambulance?”

“Yes, we can do that,” Dr. Parker said, “but it would be faster if you drove her there. Can you do this?”

Kathleen's hesitation was so slight as to go unnoticed. “Yes, of course. Just give me a minute to pack her a few things.”

“Good girl. While you're doing that, I'll call Memorial Hospital so they'll be expecting you.”

Kathleen rummaged through Beulah's drawers, looking for something suitable for her to wear, but all she could find were two tattered nightgowns. She felt a kind of ache deep down somewhere inside as she hurried out to her car and opened the suitcase she'd packed with such care. She tossed everything out except her own two nightgowns, a robe, and some toiletries. Then, unable to think of anything else Beulah might need, she placed the suitcase on the front seat and returned to the house.

“Have you told her yet?” she asked Dr. Parker softly.

He shook his head. “It might be better if you did. I hope she's not going to be stubborn about this.”

Kathleen sat gently on the edge of the bed and placed a hand on Beulah's arm. “Dr. Parker wants you to spend a few days in the hospital. That bleeding you've been having needs to be checked. He thinks you may have fainted from loss of blood. There's no point in hanging around waiting for Otis and Selma so I'm going to take you. I'll leave them a note to call Dr. Parker.”

Beulah looked anxious. “But ain't you supposed to be goin' to Atlanta. I knowed you was lookin' forward to it and what's your friend gonna think?”

Kathleen forced a smile. “It doesn't matter.”

As she looked into her mother-in-law's trusting eyes, the stab of guilt was like a blade. What would Beulah say if she knew her son's wife had planned a rendezvous with an old love? Together she and Dr. Parker carried Beulah to the car, and placed her gently on the back seat. Kathleen put a pillow under her head and covered her with the most presentable blanket she'd been able to find in the house.

“Hang on, Beulah,” she said as she closed the door. “Columbia isn't all that far. You're going to be fine.”

* * *

Within four hours of arriving at the hospital, Beulah was in the operating room undergoing surgery.

As soon as she'd checked Beulah in, Kathleen had telephoned the Morrowcroft Hotel in Atlanta, hoping Ron would already be there. When she was told Mr. Velnes hadn't checked in yet, she asked the desk clerk to give him a message.

“Please tell him Kathleen Conroy's plans have changed and she will not be coming to Atlanta after all.”

She telephoned Eastern Air Lines to explain why she'd missed her flight, then called the Banks Hotel who informed her coldly she'd lose her deposit.

* * *

“Mrs. Conroy?”

Kathleen felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, nudging her awake. She hadn't meant to fall asleep and felt her face redden as she smoothed her hair with her hands and at the same time looked into the tired eyes of a man in a wrinkled operating gown, face mask hanging loosely on his chest.

“I'm Dr. Silverstein,” he said, as he sat companionably by her on the couch. “Your mother-in-law is in the recovery room.”

Kathleen scooted over to give him more room. “Is she all right? When can I see her?”

The doctor looked around the otherwise deserted waiting room. “I'd like to speak to her husband first,” he said. “Is he here?”

“Not yet. There's only me. Can you tell me what you found?”

Dr. Silverstein fiddled with his fountain pen as he talked. “We were more or less flying blind at first because we couldn't tell where the bleeding was coming from. That's why we opted for an exploratory. When we got in there we found her left ovary to be cancerous. It was much enlarged and as careful as we tried to be, it ruptured as we removed it, spilling cells into the abdominal cavity. We tried flushing them out and hope to hell we got them all. It's always hard to tell, though.”

“You mean there's a chance she may still have cancer?”

“There is that possibility.”

He rubbed his brow, almost impatiently. “She's been bleeding for some considerable time. If we could have just got to her sooner…”

Kathleen cast her mind back to the day Beulah had complained of pain in her abdomen. Why hadn't she been more insistent that Beulah see Dr. Parker? If she had, Beulah might have had a better chance.

“So where do we go from here?” she asked.

“I'll need to talk to her husband about his wife's prognosis and explain about her medications.”

“Will somebody let me know when I can see her?”

“Yes, one of the nurses will, but it'll be a while yet.”

Kathleen called Otis from the phone outside the coffee shop. After two rings, she heard the hated voice.

“Otis, this is Kathleen. I'm at Memorial Hospital here in Columbia. Did Dr. Parker get in touch with you?”

“Yes.”

She resisted the urge to ask him why he hadn't felt the need to follow along to the hospital. “I'll tell you what I know so far. Beulah's had an operation and they're going to let me see her soon. They found one of her ovaries to be cancerous. They…”

“Stop right there,” he said sharply. “I don't think it fittin' for you to be discussin' my wife's female problems with me. This ain't the sort of thing a preacher of my standin' needs to be hearing from his son's wife.”

“But…”

“But nothin'. I reckon I'll be hearing this from the doctor.”

Kathleen swallowed hard to keep from saying something she'd be sorry for. What a two-faced creep the man was.

“I'm puttin' this in the hands of Jesus,” Otis said. “When life's burdens get too much for us to bear, Jesus takes them on his own shoulders.”

“In other words you won't exactly be falling over yourself to get here.”

“Selma and me will be comin' when we can.”

Kathleen slammed the receiver down and walked toward the cafeteria.

* * *

Beulah was wheeled on a stretcher into her hospital room just after midnight.

“I knowed you'd be here.” She slurred her words as she looked at Kathleen through heavily sedated eyes. “I…”

Kathleen felt the tears at the back of her own eyes as she watched Beulah drift back to sleep.

“She's resting comfortably and in no pain,” the nurse said from the other side of the bed. She was the motherly type and looked at Kathleen appraisingly.

“Are you here alone?”

“Yes.”

“I think it's safe to leave her,” she said. “If I were you, I'd go home and get some sleep.”

“Are you sure? What if she wakes up and asks for me?”

“She'll sleep for hours now.” The nurse adjusted the night light. “The nursing station's right opposite this room and we'll be checking on her constantly. And you can leave us your phone number. Do yourself a favor, honey, and get some rest. You're not going to be much help to her when she does wake up if you don't.”

Kathleen nodded. “I suppose you're right. She does look peaceful and I am very tired. I just wanted to make sure she was OK. I'll be back early tomorrow.”

* * *

Late as it was when she arrived home, she walked straight to the phone and rang the Morrowcroft Hotel.

The worry in Ron Velnes's voice carried down the phone. “Thank God it's you. The desk clerk gave me your message. He said you rang about ten minutes before I got here. I've been calling you every hour on the hour ever since.”

“I knew you'd be worried and I'm so sorry. I'd already picked up my suitcase to walk out the door when the phone rang…”

There was a long pause. “What happened?”

“It's Beulah, my mother-in-law. She's been taken ill. I don't know what to tell you, except I think the world of her and honestly don't feel I can leave her just now.”

“I didn't know you were so attached to the family.”

“I'm not. Only to Beulah.”

“But what about your father-in-law. Where was he?”

“He wasn't at home when Beulah collapsed. They're not very close anyway. She, well, she sort of relies on me.”

You fool, her inner voice screamed.
Tell him you care. If you don't, you'll lose him. You'll never hear from him ever again.

“I feel I've let you down badly.”

“No you haven't,” he said. “Don't worry about it, Kath. We all have to do what we have to do. I shouldn't have asked you to come in the first place.”

“Yes, yes, you should have. But it was a sort of madness, wasn't it? I mean to think we could do this.”

She ran a hand through her hair, desperately aware she wasn't handling it right.

“I suppose it was,” he said.

She cleared her throat, then gave a little cough, struggling to put a bit of a smile in her voice. “Anyway, even if I can't come, maybe you'll still have a good time. Tomorrow's New Year's Eve, and in a big hotel like the Morrowcroft must be, they're bound to have a party planned and all.”

“Yes, maybe so.”

The bitter disappointment in his voice was almost more than she could bear.

“I hope your mother-in-law gets well soon,” he said.

“Thanks, Ron. And, again, well, I'm sorry.”

“Take care of yourself, Kath.”

“Yes, you too.”

The conversation had become awkward and stilted. Kathleen was so exhausted that her brain hardly functioned. What would meeting him accomplish anyway, she had to ask herself. It all seemed too late now, an opportunity lost.

“It's late and you sound all in,” he said suddenly, as if he too felt the need to end this pointless conversation. “And for what it's worth, Kath, Happy New Year.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice beginning to crack. “The same to you, and God Bless, Ron.”

Tears streamed down her face as she ran the water for a bath. Half an hour later, sleep reached out to claim her even as she slipped between cool sheets. Her last waking thought was she'd telephone Ron Velnes first thing in the morning when she wasn't so tired. Everything would sound better then.

* * *

She woke to sunlight streaming in her window, which immediately let her know she'd overslept. She glanced at the alarm clock beside her bed. It couldn't possibly be nine-thirty. She'd slept hours longer than she'd meant to. She leapt out of bed and went to the phone.

“Morrowcroft Hotel.”

“I'd like to speak to Mr. Ron Velnes please.”

“One moment,” came the impersonal reply.

Her heart raced dangerously while she waited for Ron to come on the line.

“I'm sorry ma'am,” the operator said. “Mr. Velnes doesn't answer. Is there any message?” What should she do? Ask him to call her? She was on her way to the hospital. And anyway, what would that accomplish? She'd already explained to him why she hadn't gone to Atlanta. Was there really anything left to say?

“No, no message. Thank you.”

“Yes ma'am. Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year to you too.”

* * *

Beulah was awake when she walked into the hospital room. Kathleen beamed her best smile, hiding her alarm at how very frail her once-tough mother-in-law had grown. But Beulah's weak, brave smile told Kathleen all she needed to know. The great sacrifice of her rendezvous with Ron hadn't been in vain. This woman needed her.

“I've been waitin' for you,” Beulah said. “The nurse said you'd be comin' back, but I couldn't be sure. I knew you were plannin' on goin' to Atlanta. I messed up your plans didn't I?”