“Good.”
“A hundred and one.”
“That’s just great. How’s the pulse?”
“Down too. To ninety-six.”
“That’s wonderful. Mildred, I’ve probably put you to a lot of expense over nothing. Just the same—”
They walked out to the corridor, came to an angle, went on. He resumed talking in a casual way: “I hated to do it, Mildred, just hated to slap that outlay on you — though I’ll see that every charge is as reasonable as they can make it. But if I had it to do over again, I’d tell you just what I told you before. You see, here’s what we’re up against. Any infection above the mouth drains into the lateral sinus, and that means the brain. Now with that little pip on her lip there was no way to tell. Every symptom she had spelled grippe, but just the same, all of those symptoms could have been caused by strep, and if we had waited until we were sure, it would have been too late. The way she’s reacting to that transfusion shows it was all a false alarm — but I’m telling you, if it had been that other, and we hadn’t moved fast, I’d never have forgiven myself, and neither would you.”
“It’s all right.”
“These things happen, they can’t be helped.”
Somewhere on the floor a buzzer sounded, then sounded again, sharply, insistently. It seemed to Mildred that Dr. Gale turned rather quickly, that their saunter was no longer a saunter. As they approached the room an orderly hurried past them, carrying hot-water bottles. He entered the room. When they went in, the nurse was jamming them under the covers, which were thick with the extra blankets she had already piled on. “She’s having a chill, doctor.”
“Orderly, get Dr. Collins.”
“Yes sir.”
From the ice that was forming around her heart, Mildred knew it was no false alarm this time. She sat down, watched Ray’s face turn white, then blue; when the little teeth began to chatter she looked away. An orderly came in with more bottles, which the nurse pushed under the covers without looking up. He was followed by Dr. Collins, a short, heavy man who bent over Ray and studied her as though she were an insect. “It’s the pimple, Dr. Gale.”
“I can’t believe it. She reacted to that transfusion—”
“I know it.”
Dr. Collins turned to an orderly and snapped orders in a curt, clipped voice: for oxygen, adrenaline, ice. The orderly went. Both doctors studied Ray in silence, the chattering of her teeth the only sound in the room. After a long time the nurse looked up. “Her pulse is faster, Dr. Collins.”
“What is it?”
“A hundred and four.”
“Take off the hot-water bottles.”
As the nurse pulled out the hot-water bottles and dropped them to the floor the room began to fill. Other nurses appeared, wheeling an oxygen apparatus and a white table full of vials and syringes. They stood around, as though waiting. Ray’s teeth stopped chattering and her face lost the blue look. Then red spots appeared on her cheeks, and the nurse felt her forehead. “Her temperature’s rising, Dr. Collins.”
“Take off the blankets.”
Two nurses stripped off the blankets and a third stepped forward with icebags, which she packed around Ray’s head. For a long time they were all motionless, and there was no sound except Ray’s labored breathing, and the first nurse’s report on the pulse: “A hundred and twelve... A hundred and twenty-four... A hundred and thirty-two...”
Presently Ray was panting like a little dog, and her whimpering had a pitiful note in it that made Mildred want to cry out against the injustice that one so small, so helpless, should have to bear such agony. But she sat perfectly still, not distracting by so much as a movement the attention of those on whom Ray’s chance depended. The child’s struggle went on and on, and then suddenly Mildred tightened. The breathing stopped for a second, then resumed in three or four short, harrowing gasps, then stopped altogether. Dr. Collins motioned quickly, and two nurses stepped forward. They had scarcely begun their rapid lifting and lowering of Ray’s arms before Dr. Gale had the mask of the oxygen apparatus over her face, and Mildred caught the thunderstorm smell of the gas. Dr. Collins filed the neck of a vial, snapped it off. Quickly filling a syringe, he lifted the covers and jabbed it into Ray’s rump. The first nurse had Ray’s wrist, and Mildred saw her catch Dr. Collins’s eye and glumly shake her head. The artificial respiration went steadily on. After a minute or two, Dr. Collins refilled his syringe, again jabbed it into Ray’s rump. Another minute went by, and Mildred saw glances exchanged between nurses. As Dr. Collins refilled his syringe, she stood up. She knew the truth, and she also knew that one more jab into the lifeless little bottom would be more than she could stand. She lifted the mask of the oxygen apparatus, bent down, kissed Ray on the mouth, and pulled the sheet over her face.
She was sitting in the alcove again, but here it was Dr. Gale who broke down, not she. The cruel suddenness of it had left her numb, as though she had no capacity to feel, but as he approached, his stoop was a tottering slump. He dropped down beside her, took off his glasses, massaged his face to keep it from jerking. “I knew it. I knew it when I saw that orderly, running with the bottles. From then on there was no hope. But — we do everything we can. We can’t give up.”
Mildred stared straight ahead of her, and he went on: “I loved her like she was mine. And there’s only one thing I can say. I did everything I could. If anything could have saved her, that transfusion would — and she had it. And you too, Mildred. We both did everything that could have been done.”
They sat for a few minutes, both swallowing, both locking their teeth behind twitching lips. Then, in a different tone, he asked: “You got any choice on an undertaker, Mildred?”
“I don’t know any undertaker.”
“I generally recommend Mr. Murock, out there in Glendale, just a few blocks from you. He’s reasonable, and won’t run up charges on you, and he’ll attend to everything the way most people want it done.”
“If you recommend him, then it’s all right.”
“I’ll call him.”
“Is there a phone around?”
“I’ll find you one.”
He took her to a little office on the same floor, and she sat down and dialed Mrs. Biederhof. She asked for Bert, but he was out, and she said: “Mrs. Biederhof, this is Mildred Pierce. Will you tell Bert that Ray died a few minutes ago? At the hospital. I wanted him to know, right away.”
There was a long, bellowing silence, and then: “Mrs. Pierce, I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him just as soon as I can find him, but I want to tell you that I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart. Now is there anything I can do?”
“No, thank you.”
“Can I take Veda for a little while?”
“No, thanks ever so much.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Biederhof.”
She drove home mechanically, but after a few blocks she began to dread the stop signals, for sitting there, waiting for the light to change, she would have time to think, and then her throat would clutch and the street begin to blur. When she got home, Bert came out to meet her, and took her into the den, where Letty was trying to quiet Veda. Letty went back to the kitchen, and Veda broke into loud sobs. Over and over, she kept saying: “I owed her a nickel! Oh, Mother, I cheated her out of it, and I meant to pay it back, but — I owed her a nickel!”