Breathless, he looked down at her. He was about to kiss her again when someone tapped on the door. “Careful of the linen in there!” Jones’s rubber soles squeaked down the hall.
“Marry me.”
“Okay.”
His breath came out sharply. “Okay?”
“Yes.” She stepped forward and dug her hands into his hair. “Yes. Please.” She pulled his head down. “Don’t stop.”
He caught her wrists and pulled her hands down. “I hoped to get this welcome in Murietta.” His mouth tipped in a lopsided grin. “You gave me the impression you weren’t coming back at all.” His eyes darkened. “Boots called.”
“I’ll have to thank her.”
“Mama doesn’t need you anymore?” He taunted her gently, putting her cap back on her head, trying to make repairs. Her heart hammered.
“Mama kicked me out.”
“God bless Mama.” He cupped her cheek tenderly, then ran his thumb lightly over her swollen lips. “I’m going to write her a thank-you letter.” He kissed her again, as though he couldn’t help himself.
No tap this time, but a firm rap of hard knuckles. “That’s enough, Mr. Arundel. We have work to do around here.”
Trip opened the door. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Get that cheeky grin off your face and get off my ward.” She looked Hildemara over. “Fix your hair. What? No ring?” She called after Trip. “You do have honorable intentions, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am!” Laughing, he hit the door again and disappeared.
Hildie laughed, too, exultant.
Trip wanted to buy a diamond solitaire, but Hildie talked him out of it. “I can’t wear it to work. Fancy rings carry bacteria, and a solitaire would catch on linens when I change beds.” He picked a platinum wedding band lined with tiny diamonds instead. They would have a small church wedding in Oakland right after school let out in June.
Trip took another part-time job washing windows to save money for a house. Hildemara took extra shifts. They hardly saw one another, except when they went to church together every Sunday.
As the weeks passed, Hildie began to feel lethargic. She had chills during the day and bundled into a sweater. She had night sweats. Trip put his hand against her forehead one evening. “You’re hot.”
“I’m probably getting a cold or something.”
Trip took her back to the apartment she shared with a pulmonary ward nurse. He insisted she stop working so hard and take at least two days off a week. She cut back on her hours, but still didn’t seem to feel rested. When Trip took her bowling, Hildie could hardly lift the ball and roll it down the alley. Twice, she dumped it and watched it roll slow motion down the gutter. “Sorry. I’m just too tired tonight.”
“Taking care of your father took a lot out of you, Hildie.” Trip wove his fingers with hers. “You’ve lost more weight since you got back.”
She knew and had been trying to eat more. Her chest ached. She couldn’t seem to get a full breath. Depressed, she took a few days off. Trip came by and opened cans of chicken soup. “No more extra shifts, Hildie. Promise me. You look exhausted.”
“Stop worrying, Trip.”
Jones scowled when she came on ward after a few days’ rest. “Go downstairs right now and see the staff physician.” She picked up the telephone. “Go on, Hildemara. I’m calling him right now and telling him you’re on the way.”
The doctor put his stethoscope against her chest. He reviewed her symptoms. She found it difficult to fill her lungs with air. It hurt to breathe. He thumped her chest and listened again, looking grim. “Pleural effusion.” Fluid on the lungs.
“Pneumonia?”
He wouldn’t answer, and Hildemara felt cold shock race through her body. When he checked her into the hospital and ordered X-rays, she didn’t protest. She couldn’t get Mr. Douglas off her mind, and there had been two other patients she had tended since then who had been transferred out of the medical ward into quarantine.
Trip came in before she could leave orders that she didn’t want visitors. She hadn’t stopped crying since being checked into the hospital. When she saw him, she put out her hand. “Stay away from me.”
“What?”
“Get out of here, Trip.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
She held a sheet up over her mouth. “I think I have tuberculosis.”
He went white. Both of them knew a student nurse had died the year before. Two other bronchitis patients turned out to have active TB.
Trip kept coming. She grabbed the cord and pressed the button over and over. A nurse came running.
“Get him out of here. Now!”
“Hildie!”
Sobbing, pulling the sheet over her head, she turned away.
The nurse escorted Trip from the room, then came back. “Shouldn’t you wait until the test results come back before-?”
“And risk exposing someone? You should wear a mask! And keep people out of here!”
She didn’t have to ask the doctor what the X-rays showed. She could see it plainly on his face.
“We need to send fluid to the lab before we can be sure.”
Small comfort. He aspirated fluid from her infected lung and sent it to the lab, where it would be injected into a rat. The doctor ordered her to the contagion unit.
Trip came immediately. She refused to see him. He wrote a note and gave it to a nurse.
We’ve kissed a hundred times, Hildie. I’ve already been exposed! Let me come in and see you. Let me sit with you. Let me hold your hand…
Crying, she insisted on plastic gloves and a mask before she wrote back to him.
I didn’t know I had TB! You cannot come in. Don’t ask me again. This is hard enough as it is. I love you. Go away!
She didn’t want to take any chances on infecting him or anyone else.
Hildie spent the next few weeks on the isolation ward, waiting for test results. Trip kept coming back. “You’re the most stubborn, willful woman I’ve ever met,” he called through the door.
The tests came back positive.
36
“We don’t know enough yet about tuberculosis.” The doctor looked apologetic. Several nurses had died over the last few years. Clearly he didn’t want to give false hope.
Hildemara knew she had little chance of survival with a history of pneumonia.
“I’ve ordered bed rest.”
She gave a bleak laugh. As if she hadn’t been in bed resting for weeks!
“Merritt doesn’t have a contagion ward dedicated to TB, so you will be transferred to a sanatorium. There are several from which to choose, but you’ll need to make your decision right away or the hospital administration will have to decide for you.”
Though Hildie had contracted tuberculosis while working, it still remained unsettled whether Merritt Hospital administration would pay for her care. Not wanting to accumulate debt, she chose the least expensive facility, Arroyo del Valle, a county sanatorium in the Livermore hills. They offered financial aid. If she survived, she would need it. She found herself wondering who would have to pay the bills if she died. Citizens, of course. Taxes. She felt ashamed.
Trip protested. “There’s a better hospital right here in the Bay Area.” He stood in the hallway, speaking to her through the barely open door.
She didn’t want to tell him her reasons. Why waste money if she wasn’t going to live anyway? “I’ll do better out in the country with space and fresh air around me.”
“I’m going to call Rev. Mathias. He can perform the wedding right here in the hospital. Jones would come.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“You know why not. There’s no cure, Trip.”
“I’m praying for you. I’ve got the whole church praying for you. My folks are praying. Their church is praying. Your mother, Bernie, Elizabeth…”