“That’s good,” Mona said in a dull voice, drawing back into herself, hoping her cousin would keep quiet for a moment. No such luck.
“Look, everybody is very upset,” said Anne Marie. “But we have to follow the directive. A person can have a hemorrhage without it being a miscarriage, obviously. So don’t go off by yourself. If you feel faint, or any unusual physical symptoms, you need to be able to get help immediately.”
Mona nodded, staring off at the blank walls of this place, at its sparse signs and its large sand-filled cylindrical ashtrays. One half hour ago, Mona had been sound asleep when something waked her as surely as a hand touching her-a smell, a song coming from a Victrola. She pictured that open window again, the sash all the way up, the night outside bending in with its dark yews and oaks. She tried to remember the smell. “Talk to me, kid,” said Anne Marie. “I’m worried about you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m fine. OK. Everybody better follow that advice, don’t be alone, whether they think they could be pregnant or not. You’re right. Doesn’t matter. I’m going upstairs to see Mother.”
“Don’t wake her up.”
“You said she’s been sleeping since morning? Maybe she’s in a coma. Maybe she’s dead.”
Anne Marie smiled and shook her head. She picked up her magazine and started reading again. “Don’t get in an argument with her, Mona,” she said, just as Mona turned away.
The elevator doors opened quietly on the seventh floor. This was where they always put Mayfairs, unless there was some pressing reason to be in a special department. Mayfairs had rooms with parlors here, and little kitchens where they could make their own microwave coffee, or store their ice cream. Alicia had been in here before, four times as a matter of fact-dehydrated, malnourished, broken ankle, suicidal-and vowed never to be brought back. They’d probably had to restrain her.
Mona padded softly down the corridor, catching a glimpse of herself in the dark glass of an observation room, and hating what she saw-the chunky white cotton dress, shapeless on a person who wasn’t a little girl. Well, that was the least of her problems.
She caught the fragrance as soon as she reached the doors to Seventh Floor West. That was it. The exact same smell.
She stopped, took a deep breath and realized that for the first time in her life she felt really afraid of something. It made her disgusted. She stood, head cocked to the side, thinking it over. There was an exit to the stairs. There were the doors ahead. There was an exit on the other side of the ward. There were people right inside at the desk.
If only she had Michael here, she’d push open that exit door, see if someone was standing in the stairwell, someone who gave off this odor.
But the smell was already weak. It was going away. And as she stood there, considering this, getting quietly furious that she didn’t have the guts to just open that damned door, someone else opened it, and let it swing shut as he went down the corridor. A young doctor with a stethoscope over his shoulder. The landing had been empty.
But that didn’t mean somebody wasn’t hiding above or below. Either the smell was going away, however, or Mona was simply getting used to it. She took a deep slow breath; it was so rich, so sensuous, so delicious. But what was it?
She pushed through the double doors into the ward. The smell grew stronger. But there were the three nurses, sitting, writing away, in an island of light surrounded by high wooden counters, one of them whispering on a phone as she wrote, the others seemingly in deep concentration.
No one noticed as Mona walked past the station and passed into the narrow corridor. The smell was very strong here.
“Jesus Christ, don’t tell me this,” Mona whispered. She glanced at the doors to her left and her right But the smell told her before she even saw the chart that said “Alicia (CeeCee) Mayfair.”
The door was ajar, and the room was dark; its one window opened upon an airwell. Blank wall stared in through the glass at the still woman, lying with her head to the wall, beneath the white covers. A small digital machine recorded the progress of the IV-a plastic sack of glucose, clear as glass, feeding down through a tiny tube into the woman’s right hand, beneath a mass of tape, the hand itself flat on the white blanket.
Mona stood very still, then pushed open the door. She pushed it all the way back, so that she could see into the open bathroom to the right Porcelain toilet Empty shower stall. Quickly, she examined the rest of the room, and then turned back to the bed, confident that she and her mother were alone.
Her mother’s profile bore a remarkable resemblance to that of her sister, Gifford, in the coffin. All points and angles, the emaciated face sunk into the large, softly yielding pillow.
The covers made a mound over the body. All white except for a small irregular blotch of red in the very center of the covers, very near to where the hand lay with its tape and its tubing and needle.
Mona drew closer, clamped her left hand on the chrome bar of the bed, and touched the red spot. Very wet Even as she stared at it the blotch grew bigger. Something seeping up through the covers from below. Roughly Mona pulled the blanket down from under Alicia’s limp arm. Her mother didn’t stir. Her mother was dead. The blood was everywhere. The bed was soaked with it
There was a sound behind Mona; and then a female voice spoke in a rasping, unfriendly whisper.
“Don’t wake her up, dear. We had a hell of a time with her this morning.”
“Check her vital signs lately?” Mona asked, turning to the nurse. But the nurse had already seen the blood. “I don’t think there’s much chance of waking her up. Why don’t you call my cousin Anne Marie? She’s down in the lobby. Tell her to come up here immediately.”
The nurse was an old woman; she picked up the dead woman’s hand. At once she set it down, and then she backed away from the bed, and out of the room.
“Wait a minute,” said Mona. “Did you see anybody come in here?”
But in an instant she knew the question was pointless. This woman was too afraid of being blamed for this to even respond. Mona followed her, and watched her rush down to the station, walking about as fast as a person can walk without running. Then Mona went back to the bed.
She felt the hand. Not ice-cold. She gave a long sigh; she could hear footsteps in the corridor, the muffled sound of rubber-soled shoes. She leaned over the bed, and brushed her mother’s hair back from her face, and kissed her. The cheek held only a tiny bit of fading warmth. Her forehead was already cold.
She thought sure her mother would turn her head and look up at her and shout out: “Be careful what you wish for. Didn’t I tell you? It might come true.”
Within minutes the room was filled with staff. Anne Marie was in the hallway, wiping her eyes with a paper handkerchief. Mona backed off.
For a long time she stood at the nurses’ station just listening to everything. An intern had to be called to say that Alicia was legally dead. They had to wait for him, and that would take twenty minutes. It was past eight o’clock. Meantime the family doctor had been summoned. And Ryan, of course. Poor Ryan. Oh, God help Ryan. The phone was ringing now continuously. And Lauren? What shape was she in?
Mona walked off down the hall. When the elevator door opened, it was the young intern who came out-a kid who didn’t look old enough to know if somebody was dead. He passed her without even looking at her.
In a daze Mona rode down to the lobby and walked out the doors. The hospital was on Prytania Street, only one block from Amelia and St. Charles, where Mona lived. She walked slowly along the pavement, under the lunar light of the street lamps, thinking quietly to herself.
“I don’t mink I want to wear dresses like this anymore.” She said it out loud when she stood on the corner. “Nope, it’s time to dump this dress and this ribbon.” Across the street, her home was brightly lighted for once. There were people climbing out of cars. All the crisp excitement already begun.