A nod, a wince of pain that seemed all too real. "Mary Jane keeps saying I'll understand some day. I don't think I will."
"Understand?"
"Why they're so afflicted. Why they have to suffer. Why we lose them..." Gladys actually gasped, tapped Timmie's arm again in odd commiseration. "Oh, I'm sorry. Here I am saying that, with your father here. You know, of course."
"It does worry me a little, Gladys," she said, leaning closer. "I mean, I know what kind of care you give up here, but people in the ER have been questioning... well, all the patients who've been... uh, graduating lately."
Gladys patted her again with a hand that trembled just a mite. "Nothing to worry about, I'm sure. You know how it happens. One of the dears fails, and the others tend to follow. They just want some rest, I think, from their suffering. You aren't worried about your father, are you? Why, he's as hale as a teenager."
Which meant that Gladys wasn't the one yearning to share her outrage. On the other hand, she might be one to watch.
"Thank you," Timmie said, sidling away. "I really appreciate the update. I told Mary Jane she needed more staff up here so you guys didn't keep getting amateurs filling in."
Gladys followed Timmie right to the door. "It would be nice," she agreed. "But I can't say a bad thing about the girls we get from the emergency department. Especially Ellen and the other girl. Our little people just love them."
Timmie nodded. "That sounds like Ellen."
Gladys waved Bertha's chart once like a salute and slid it back in its door slot. "You thank her for me when you see her."
"I will. And you take care of Bertha for me, okay?"
"Of course."
Timmie headed back to unit three to be greeted by the smell of popcorn. It was snack time, and the old folks were making for the kitchen like zombies trolling for fresh blood. All the way across the room, Timmie could see her father's nose twitch and then his head swivel unerringly toward the smell. She couldn't help but grin. He adored popcorn. All his favorite taverns had served it. She was going to have to get him a bowl. And maybe one for herself. Nothing sent a hospital staffer's saliva glands working faster than the smell of fresh popcorn.
Timmie had just turned to take her place in the migration when she heard the commotion behind her. A yell. A clatter. Even through two sets of doors, the clear notes of a distinctive voice screaming, "Oh, no, help! Call a code somebody!"
Oh, hell. That was right behind her, which meant unit five.
Which meant Bertha.
Timmie spun on her heel and crashed back through the doors into unit five in time to see Gladys desperately trying to punch three successive nines into the phone without any luck. Nursing home nurses were wonderful at patience and encouragement and calming. They didn't manage crises quite as well.
Grabbing the phone from Gladys, Timmie punched the numbers. "Code blue, Restcrest, unit five," she announced. "Room four."
"No!" Gladys shrilled, grabbing her arm. "Not Bertha. Alice!"
Timmie stared. "Alice?"
"Code blue, Restcrest," the announcer droned. "Unit five, room four."
Gladys spun for the patient, and Timmie ran for the crash cart. "Alice?" she demanded, incredulous. "Are you sure?"
Alice. No doubt about it. The skinny, cranky doyenne Dr. Davies had been so interested in the night before was in there thrashing on the bed like a landed fish, her eyes rolled, her tongue lolling, her skin mottling to quick purple. And Gladys, her nurse, stood there patting her head as if that would make all the difference.
Timmie checked for pulses, knowing already what she'd find.
"Gladys, does Alice have a gate pass?" Timmie demanded as she pulled out airways and leads.
"What?"
"A gate pass! A 'Do Not Resuscitate' order." As in, Hi, my name is Peter, I'm going to be your guide through the Pearlies this afternoon...
"No. Of course not."
Timmie sighed. The operator's announcement would bring the ER traveling code team. One look at the chaos in room two would send them in the right direction. In the meantime, Timmie guessed she should do something more productive than say, "Alice?"
"Here, Gladys," she instructed, passing over an ambu-bag. "You bag her, I'll compress. Come on, let's go."
Gladys had tears running down her face. "She wasn't even sick!"
Timmie dragged over a step stool to get better leverage. "Well, honey, she is now."
* * *
It was a cluster fuck, but then most codes coming over from Restcrest were. Luckily, Alice didn't know any difference, and the ER crew didn't mind in the least when they arrived to find Timmie balanced over Alice's skinny chest doing CPR. The code attempt made it back to the ER in ten minutes and then lasted another twenty before Barb called it. No matter what they did, Alice didn't respond. And Timmie was left to wonder just what the hell had made Alice a victim.
"We have to get an autopsy," she told Barb, who was signing off on the chart with a flourish.
Barb looked up without noticeable reaction and proceeded to strip off her gloves.
Already pulling useless lines, Mattie didn't manage the same. "What do you mean?" she demanded, her hands full of tubing. "This poor old thing's nothing but brain waste. Leave her alone."
Timmie looked at Mattie a moment, but she knew she didn't have time to make her understand. She turned back to Barb. "I mean it," was all she said. "Can you do a drug screen on the blood you got? Double-check the levels of her prescribed meds? And don't send her downstairs without letting me know. I'll try and force Van Adder into doing something."
"It's not a coroner's case," Barb reminded her calmly. "How you gonna pull it off ?"
"Friends in high places. Just hold her. Please."
Over at the cart, one of the other nurses was hanging long strips of tape to the edge of the bed to begin wrapping the body.
Barb just shrugged. "Why not? I didn't like working in this county much, anyway."
"What are you talking about?" Mattie demanded. "Does this have something to do with why Walter's walking your girls home from school?"
Timmie didn't have time to answer, because Ellen was leaning in the door. "Mattie, those old ladies need you back in five."
Which was when Timmie heard it. Wafting on the breeze like a birdcall. Continuous, keening, impervious to soothing or shouting or sedating.
"Help!... Help!... Help!"
Timmie knew then why Mattie was so upset that they'd tried to save Alice. Timmie understood why she had tears in her eyes even as she turned for the door where Ellen waited.
"Help!... Help!... Help!"
Mrs. Clara Winterborn was back. Just as brain dead as before, just as brittle and empty and sere. Even older than when Timmie had been forced to save her the last time for another trip to the unit to be tortured and tormented and saved.
Timmie tried to pass the old woman's cubicle without looking in at the disaster that had once been a human, the two frail and fluttery jailers who held her here. She really did.
"Help!... Help!... Help!"
She didn't quite make it. Like the time she'd caught sight of her father naked in the bathroom, the first adult male she'd ever witnessed. Hairy and huge and alien. Timmie had been terrified, repulsed, appalled. She'd looked anyway, and kept on looking, because she just couldn't seem to stop. She looked now, just as repulsed. Just as terrified.