Blackout (12 page)

Betty sat down in the other visitor’s chair, and Foster bent himself back into his seat. Katherine picked up her pen and fiddled with it.

“Will your article be only about Merry Hills, or about other homes as well?” Betty asked.

Foster’s voice was surprisingly strong for such a frail-looking young man. “Just Merry Hills since it’s the only one in town.”

Must be a slow news week
, Betty thought. “Do you have any preconceived ideas about nursing homes in general? A lot of people do.”

“Well, my mother always tells me never to put her in one, no matter what. I would say, honestly speaking, there is a negative connotation in the back of my mind. But I’m a reporter, and I try really hard to be objective. Frankly, I’m hoping you can convince me they’re not as bad as universally believed.”

Betty nodded. “We can try. Would you believe that frequently the residents who come here get better? Most are even able to go back home again. For the residents who won’t ever leave, we want them to be as happy and content as possible. My own mother lives here because she is paralyzed and needs constant care.”

Foster seemed surprised. He diligently made notes on a small yellow pad while Betty talked.

“Will you show Foster around?” Katherine asked. “I need to make some phone calls. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Of course.” Betty stood up. She knew Katherine would want to call Maxwell because, as regional director, he would be interested in any publicity.

Betty mentally ran through the people Foster should see. Donald would be good, and Brenda. She could tell him about how she used outside agencies to help the residents. They’d need to avoid Margaret until she could be coached by Katherine. Yolanda would do all right because she was so enthusiastic about her activity programs. She’d take him to see her mother and a couple of other residents who liked Merry Hills.

But Foster seemed to have his own ideas about whom he wanted to talk to and what he wanted to see. He stopped Joyce, told her who he was, and asked her if she had a moment to talk to him. Joyce glanced questioningly at Betty. Betty shrugged her shoulders.

“Do you like working here?” Foster asked.

“Well, yes, actually, I do,” Joyce replied.

“Really?” He seemed surprised. “But isn’t it depressing?”

“Sometimes. When a resident gets sicker or dies. But I feel like I’m doing something worthwhile, and there’s always a laugh or two during the day.”

Betty smiled at Joyce while Foster took notes. Alice came out of a resident’s room, carrying dirty linen. Foster turned to her.

“Hi. I’m a reporter for the local paper. How do you like working here?”

Alice looked startled and glanced at Betty, then back to Foster.

“I…I just started a while ago,” she explained.

They all became aware of the smell coming from the linen as Alice stood there, holding it carefully away from her body.

Foster wrinkled his nose. “I’ll let you go.”

Alice smiled faintly at him and took off down the hall toward the dirty-linen barrel.

Betty felt like laughing but didn’t know how Foster would take it. She suppressed her inclination and said, “Let me show you the activity room.”

On the way, Betty pointed out the decor and attention to detail. “We let residents bring furniture from home if they want to, as you can see from the different items in their rooms. We tend toward Queen Anne style because a lot of older folks are comfortable with that. It reminds them of home. Since this is their home now, we want them to be as comfortable as possible. Notice the wallpaper in the common rooms, the wainscoting, and see the chandelier in the dining room. We have two special rooms set aside for the residents. One is a small, private dining room where they can arrange to have a meal with their family.” Betty opened a door to a beautifully decorated room with a large table, chairs, a hutch and server, and another chandelier.

Foster glanced around and wrote furiously in his notepad.

“And this room across the hall is a sitting room for residents. They have decorated it themselves with mementos from home. You see, there’s no TV in here, and residents are urged to relax quietly.” The walls were lined with bookshelves full of books and small ornamental objects. Betty stood a moment admiring the room. She really liked it but lately had no time to come in. An elderly man sat in one of the wing-back chairs reading a book. Dressed nattily in brown loafers, gray slacks, white shirt, and yellow, V-necked pullover, he had a cane resting at the side of the chair.

Foster approached the old man and introduced himself. Homer put his book down and stood up to shake hands. Betty saw
Moby Dick
had been upside down while Homer “read” it. She wondered if Foster noticed.

“I’m doing a feature on Merry Hills for the
Valleyview Record
,” Foster told Homer. “How do you like the place?”

“Oh,” Homer said, rubbing his hands together. “Altogether delightful. Pretty ladies, good company, even the food is good. You ought to come join us. The ship is about to embark, you know. We have gambling, and dancing girls. Come, let me take you to the captain so you can buy passage with us. The more the merrier, you know!”

Betty was amused to see Foster at a loss for words, or should she say all at sea? His hands hung limply at his sides, holding notebook in one, pencil in the other.

“Homer, Foster can’t go right now. He has to write his article.”

“I see. That’s all right, though.” Homer appeared disappointed as he sat back down in his chair and picked up
Moby Dick
. “Maybe some other time.” He bent his head to the page.

Foster gave Betty a grateful glance and led the way out of the room.

“Are there many like him here?”

“Some.” Betty suppressed a smile as Lettie approached.

“Do you know me?” she asked Foster. She stared at him, standing perfectly still in front of him.

“Ah, no,” Foster said.

“Do you know me?” Lettie became agitated.

“Of course we do,” Betty said soothingly. “You’re Lettie. Lettie, this is Foster.”

Lettie nodded. Without saying anything more, she took off down the hall.

“This is getting eerie,” Foster said, making a notation on his notepad.

“Well, if they were all okay, they wouldn’t be here, now would they?” she asked with some heat.

“I guess not.”

“Come meet my mother. Her mental faculties are as sharp as yours and mine.”

Foster appeared relieved to hear that. “But you said she needs twenty-four-hour care.”

“Yes, she has to be fed and turned every two hours. She can’t move from the shoulders down.”

“Will she ever get better?”

“No,” she answered shortly.

In room 301, they found Betty Senior watching
Jeopardy
on her television. “I know the question to that one,” she said to the TV.

Betty walked over to where her mother could see her.

“Betty!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here in the middle of the day? Who’s that?” she asked when Foster moved to where she could see him.

Betty introduced them.

“Turn off the TV,” Betty Senior said, “so we can hear ourselves think.” While Betty did so, her mother continued, “As you can imagine, I have only good things to say about Merry Hills. I get excellent care here.”

“I expect you would. But, you can tell me, really, don’t you have
any
complaints?”

“None.”

Betty forced herself not to laugh. She knew her mother had the good sense not to complain in front of a reporter. But if he could be a fly on the wall…

“Besides television, Mrs. Cranston, how do you occupy your time?”

“I have a lot of visitors, most of them employees of the nursing home, or volunteers the nursing home has recruited.”

“Tell me about the food.”

“The food. It’s really rather good, for institutional cooking. The food service manager does a good job.”

“I can see I’m not going to hear anything negative from you.” Foster grinned. “It was very nice meeting you. I promise to spell your name right in my article.”

“See that you do. Now, Betty, if you’ll turn the TV back on.”

Betty did what she was told. “Come on, Foster. I want you to meet our activity and social services directors.”

They were passing Mrs. Stevenson’s room when the two men from Valleyview Memorial Funeral Home were taking the lady out on a gurney. Her roommate sat up straight in her bed, watching everything. Betty and Foster stopped. She was annoyed to see him make a note on his pad. Three aides huddled in the next doorway, eyes large as they watched.

Rita asked the men to be careful of the wall corners. They always were, Betty knew. Rita felt she had to do or say something. The men moved slowly and carefully down the hall.

“Who was she?” Foster asked in a soft voice. “Tell me about her.”

“Not here,” Betty snapped.

Employees lined the hall, watching respectfully as the gurney passed. Betty wanted to be rid of Foster and go somewhere to be by herself. She felt so tired suddenly. Sad and tired and discouraged. The day was almost over, and she had barely accomplished anything she needed to do.

Alice watched the men wheel the shrouded resident down the hall. She didn’t know who it was. The figure was completely covered by the sheet. Several other aides stood along the wall, and Alice noticed many of them seemed to be near tears. The activity director, Yolanda, leaned against a doorjamb, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. An image flashed in front of Alice, quickly gone. But she captured it, staring at a blank space on the wall in order to take in every detail she could remember.

Death was in the room. A kitchen. The smell of wet clothes—soap and bleach. A shadowy figure stood next to her. In front of them on the floor, sort of heaped together, lay two people, an old man and an old woman, their white hair intermingled. Another smell entered her consciousness. Gunpowder. She didn’t know how she was familiar with that odor, but she recognized it without a doubt. Even now, the acrid smell made her nose twitch.

Alice put a hand over her mouth to keep from exclaiming. Involuntarily, she closed her eyes a moment and moaned. The image faded away. Angry at herself for closing her eyes and losing the vision, Alice glanced around the hall. The men with the gurney were gone, and people were moving purposefully away from the area. She caught sight of Betty and that reporter. She didn’t want him to ask her a lot of questions, so she ducked into a resident’s room.

Lettie sat on the edge of the bed nearest the door, her short legs swinging back and forth. A handsome older man occupied the visitor’s chair. Alice had seen him with Lettie before, but usually they were walking briskly down a hall.

The Hinderguard bracelet gleamed on Lettie’s wrist. Alice remembered bringing the disoriented woman back inside a couple of days ago.

“Do you know me?”

Alice smiled. “Of course I do, Lettie. How are you doing today?”

“Okay. I’m okay. Do you know Thomas?”

Alice shook her head.

“Thomas, this is Alice. Alice, Thomas,” Lettie said, looking proud of herself.

“How do you do?” Thomas asked, getting up to shake hands.

“Hello,” Alice said at the same time, taking his hand, a little discomfited, shaking it quickly, then dropping it. She didn’t feel she was used to shaking people’s hands.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked Lettie to cover her embarrassment.

“No.” Still swinging her legs, Lettie’s eyes lost their focus as she stared at the wall. “Thank you.”

Alice waited a moment, glanced at Thomas, who had sat back down, then said, “Okay. If you need anything…” She turned away.

“Need to walk,” Lettie said. She dashed past Alice, who jumped out of the way. Thomas followed. Alice felt as if a whirlwind had gone by. She grinned at the two figures heading down the hall, one short and plump, the other tall, slender, with ramrod-straight posture. From behind, Thomas appeared to be a much younger man.

The call light over the room next door came on, and Alice decided since she was so close, she’d go in and see what the resident needed, even though it wasn’t “her” hall.

An old woman sat at the edge of her bed, the call light control in her arthritis-swollen hand.

“May I help you?” Alice asked. She took the control and turned off the light.

The woman smiled timidly at her. She wished she’d remembered to check the nameplate by the door.

“I’m Alice Strong,” she said.

“Hello,” the woman replied. “I’m Dana Griffith. I’m sorry to bother you, but I think I need my cane. It’s in the closet. I haven’t used it for a while, but my knee is acting up.”

“Let me get it for you, then.” Alice brought her the fancy wooden cane with a brass duck head for a handle.

“What a nice one,” she said, handing it to her.

“Do you like it? My daughter gave it to me last year. But she’s gone now. Died of cancer. I still can’t believe I’ve lived longer than she did.” She took the cane from Alice and stood up. “I’m going to the cooking activity.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Alice said. “I need to go back to the hall where I usually work.”

“Which one is that?” Dana asked as she made her way slowly across the room.

“The 300 wing.”

“Those folks are really bad off over there. I’m glad I can still get around. I was a farmer’s wife before I came here—real active. It’s bad enough when the arthritis kicks up. Not to be able to get out of bed—now that would be awful. I don’t have any family left. Never thought I’d outlive everyone.” She shook her head as they entered the activity room.

“Mrs. Griffith, I’m glad you could come,” Yolanda said in her cheerful voice. “And Alice. How are you, dear?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Alice said.

“Has Betty told you when you’re to start assisting me?” Yolanda asked, pouring some water into a bowl.

“What? What do you mean?”

Yolanda’s hands stilled. “I thought you knew. Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. You’re not upset, are you? Betty thought you might like working in activities better than on the floor, and I need an assistant…” Her voice trailed off as she watched Alice.