What Stella Wants. Nancy Bartholomew
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the profile. I left the room but lingered outside the door long enough to hear one of them speak. No trace of a foreign accent. Nope, I was probably letting my imagination run away with me and seeing terrorists everywhere.
I reached the corridor leading to Baby Blankenship’s room just as two uniformed ambulance drivers wheeled a gurney through the back door. A thin, white-haired woman with vivid blue eyes was propped up in a sitting position and seemed to be taking great interest in everything going on around her.
“Hey, I know you!” The little elderly firefighter from our earlier visit sat in his wheelchair at the opening to his room. He was looking right at me and scowling. “I’ve seen you around here, Sister, and believe me, it takes more than a bunch of black and white cloth to hide that package!” He cackled but I was frozen, wondering who’d heard him.
“Mr. Heinz, that’s no way to talk!” A young woman dressed in aqua scrubs emerged from the room across the hall and stood, hands on hips, shaking her head at the little man.
“Don’t pay him no mind, Sister,” she said, smiling at me. “He don’t mean a thing by it.”
“I do, too!” Mr. Heinz sputtered. “I’m old, girly, not crazy! She may smell like a mothball but she’s all woman underneath that get-up! I seen her!”
I hated to do it but it was his sanity or mine. “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, let us pray,” I murmured softly.
The little man dropped his head as the aide walked away. “Forgive me, Sister, for I have sinned,” he said slowly.
I couldn’t do it. God might not strike me dead for lying but Aunt Lucy certainly would.
“I’m just praying, son,” I whispered. “It’s not confession time yet.”
The white-haired man peeked up at me. “The hell it ain’t, Sister. You’re hotter than a two-dollar pistol, and I’ve got lust in my heart!”
Before I could move away, my admirer shot out his hand, grabbed a sizable portion of my posterior and squeezed.
“Mr. Heinz!” The aide materialized from another room just in time to catch her patient in action.
The retired firefighter drew his hand back and smiled up innocently at the girl. “Ah, Kenya, there you are! I was looking for you!”
“Not like that you weren’t!” she groused. “Come on. You’re not fooling me or the sister.” She looked up at me and shook her head. “He’s got selective dementia,” she said. “He picks and chooses when to forget his manners. I’m sorry.”
I raised one hand and smiled my best pure-of-heart smile. “Go in peace, child,” I said, and was amazed when lightning didn’t strike me dead. I turned to walk away and found Baby Blankenship watching me.
“One time,” she said, her voice quavering with the effort to speak. “One time that old coot did the same thing to me. I wasn’t as Christian to him as you just were.”
I smiled as I approached the gurney. “What did you do?”
Baby Blankenship smiled. “I told him to go fuck himself!”
The entire nursing station fell silent for a long moment before one of the nurses gave the tall, skinny ambulance attendant a sharp glance.
“I take it the doctor didn’t order Mrs. Blankenship some Ativan before you left?”
“Apparently not.” The guy started to grin, remembered who I was, and stopped.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said pleasantly. “She’s not fully cognizant of what she’s saying. I’ve worked in nursing homes before. I know how it is.”
The ambulance attendants, accompanied by the nurse, rolled Baby into her room and as I watched, gently deposited the frail woman back into her bed. When they’d gone, I quickly entered the room and closed the door behind me.
“Mrs. Blankenship?” I said, approaching her bedside. The woman’s eyes were closed, but at the mention of her name, they popped open and for a moment she appeared frightened.
“Am I dying?” Baby asked in her shaky voice.
I smiled and patted her arm. “No, dear, not that I know of. I wanted to talk to you about what happened earlier today.”
Baby gave me an understanding wink. “I see. You heard about that, did you?”
A wave of relief spread through me. Baby was having one of her lucid periods.
“Yes, I heard. It’s just terrible! Can you tell me what happened?”
Outside Baby’s room I heard footsteps stop and Marygrace’s voice as she spoke to whoever was with her.
“The door’s closed. The aide is probably with her, getting her changed and back into bed. We’d better not go in just yet. I really don’t think it’s in Mrs. Blankenship’s best interest to talk to you now. Surely this can wait until morning?”
Marygrace had pitched her voice just high enough to carry into the room, signaling me. The deep rumble of an insistent male voice told me that time was of the essence. I turned back to Baby and smiled.
“Baby, did someone come in here and take something that belonged to you? Is that how you got hurt?”
Baby frowned. As I watched her lower lip began to tremble as her watery blue eyes filled with unshed tears.
“Oh, did they? How awful!” she murmured. “I thought that girl wanted something. She was mean to me!”
“Who was mean, Baby? Was it your aide?”
Baby shook her head emphatically. “No, not Lunta. Lunta’s good to me.” She picked nervously at her cotton coverlet. “Barbara came to see me the other day. She’s almost grown-up now.” Baby closed her eyes and appeared to have fallen asleep.
“Baby?”
Her eyelids fluttered as she focused on my face, smiling. “Oh, hello. Am I dead?”
I sighed silently. This was not going to be something I could rush. “No, dear. I’m a chaplain. I came to see if you’re all right and to keep you safe.” I decided to take a risk. “Your granddaughter, Bitsy, sent me. She said someone took something that belongs to you and I’m here to help get it back.”
The door creaked open and instead of turning around I began to pray, hoping it would deter Baby’s visitors from entering the room. “Our Father who art in Heaven…”
Baby obediently closed her eyes and I kept on praying until I heard the door click shut again.
“Baby?”
This time she was truly sleeping. I slipped my hand into the deep pocket of my robe, pulled out my cell phone and dialed Jake.
“Hey, what’s going on?” he answered.
“Marygrace is trying to keep two guys out of Baby’s room and I’m in here with her. She’s sleeping. I asked her about what happened earlier and if someone had taken anything from her room but she’s not all there. I got nothing.”
Jake chuckled softly. “She apparently thought I was one of her old boyfriends but she did tell me Bitsy came to see her.”
“Well, you got further than I did.”
I looked around the spare little room, feeling sad for the small woman lying asleep in her bed. What an awful way to spend the last days of your life.
“Maybe we ought to look at this from the other end,” Jake said. “Maybe we should find out why Bitsy was in such a hurry to talk to us.”
I looked back at Baby’s door and saw shadows moving past the bottom of the door frame. I had no doubt the feds, or whoever they really were, wouldn’t give up and leave without coming into the old woman’s room and questioning her for themselves.