Waking Rose: A Fairy Tale Retold (25 page)

H
IS

After an insanely hectic week, on Friday evening Fish received a call from the dean, who told him the meeting with Donna had seemed productive. She had admitted to writing the note and seemed to understand the gravity of the situation in light of her previous actions. Her father had come up to get her for the three-day weekend, so the dean had a chance to speak with him, too. The father told him that Donna had been put back on medication for depression, and that he and his wife would be watching her closely.

Fish expressed his strong disappointment that more disciplinary action hadn’t been taken, but thanked the dean for his trouble. Still wary, Fish drummed his fingers on his desktop. He decided to call Rose, just to see how she was.

Rose answered the phone on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hi. It’s me.”

“Hi Fish,” she said, her voice picking up. “Nice to hear another human voice!”

“Why, is everyone gone?”

 “It’s practically deserted here,” she admitted. “All my friends have gone home. It’s almost scary walking around here.”

He didn’t particularly like that scenario. “Have you been nervous?”

“Well, not really,” she said. “It’s been a quiet day. I got a chance to spend some time in the chapel and the library. But mostly I’ve just been cleaning lavatories. For custodial. That’s my job.”

“Sounds refreshing.”

“It is, in a way. I’m all for manual labor, to a certain extent. It’s a good change from mental work. So—what are you up to this weekend?”

“Working on a paper, of course,” he said with a sigh. “The biggest one of the semester.”

“I’ve got one too. What is yours on?”

“John Keats. I had to choose a long poem of his and compare it with the work of the other Romantics. Not one of my favorite poets, but he did write an occasional really good verse.”

“I love the ‘Eve of St. Agnes,’” Rose said.

“Do you?” he asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “That’s the one I picked. It’s one of my favorites, too. Very sad, though. One hopes for a happier ending than that—if you follow the interpretation that the lovers die in the storm at the end.”

“Or a happier ending than Keats himself had—dying of consumption before he could marry the love of his life,” Rose said with a sigh. “Why is it that unrequited love always seems more serious and more real than...well, than ‘requited’ love?”

 “I’m not sure,” Fish said. “Probably because of this fallen world we live in. Too many stories in real life end with tragedy—or at least with lonely struggles in the dark and silent crucifixions. So tragedy sounds like reality to us. Comedy always seems a bit artificial.”

“It’s not artificial, Fish, it’s supernatural,” Rose said. “At least, that’s what Professor Dawson says. It points to heaven.”

“Interesting,” Fish said, “particularly that a theology professor would have something to say about literature.”

“That’s what I like about this place—all the different subjects are kind of mixed up with each other,” Rose said. “It’s neat.”

“Glad to hear it,” Fish said, rubbing his neck. “So what are you doing?”

“My big medical ethics paper I’ve got to do interviews for. I’m scheduled to go see a doctor tomorrow, and then I have to figure out someone else I can interview. So that will occupy me most of the day.”

“Would you want to do something tomorrow night?” He almost couldn’t help himself.

“I would really like that.”

“Good. Give me a call tomorrow afternoon and we’ll talk. Call me if you get bored, or for any reason whatsoever, okay?”

 “Okay.”

Hers

Hanging up, Rose felt buoyant. A sort-of date with Fish, for the first time. Still no Katerian proof, but this was hopeful, wasn’t it? At least he wanted to be friends with her. But in the meantime, she had something less pleasant to do. There were only a few students staying here over break, which meant she was very limited in her ability to get a car to go out for the interview tomorrow. She had been invited out to a facility for comatose patients and felt she really shouldn’t pass up the opportunity.

 Bracing herself, she dialed a number she knew far too well.

“Paul? Hi, it’s me, Rose. Yes, I’m doing okay. I was wondering if I could borrow your car again tomorrow?”

She hated to ask him because she was afraid he would read it as a fact that she was interested in him, when she wasn’t.

But Paul didn’t seem to mind. “When do you need it?”

“Tomorrow at nine?” Rose winced, waiting.

“Actually, that would be cool. I have to go someplace at three tomorrow. So long as you could be back by three, you can have it.”

“I’m sure I could,” she said. “If I’m lucky, I might find someone else to interview tomorrow too, but I’m sure I’ll be done with my interview with the doctor by the early afternoon.”

“Doctor? What doctor?”

Rose flipped through her notes in her special yellow notebook. “Dr. Madelyn Murray of Graceton Long-Term Care Facility. She specializes in treating comatose patients. Dr. Cooper said it’s one of the best facilities of its type in the country. I was lucky to get an interview with her.”

“Excellent. So you’re speeding right along with comatose patients?”

“Yes, I guess I am.”

“That’s a shame you couldn’t find those notes of your dad’s. Are you going to go out to that old barn sometime again?”

“Maybe. Actually, maybe I could on the way back from the interview. I think it’s in the same direction. But I have to find at least one other person to interview, and I haven’t found any. I thought I would ask Dr. Murray and hope for some luck.”

“Well, stop by my room tomorrow and I’ll give you the keys. Glad it’s going so well.”

“Okay. Thanks a lot, Paul. I really appreciate it.”

She hung up and sighed. If only she hadn’t had to ask him. She could tell he still liked her.

Saturday at nine sharp, she arrived at Graceton Long-Term Care Facility. It was a vast, handsome Victorian mansion with wings stretching out in either direction, set high on a wooded hill in a secluded section of the country. It certainly seemed peaceful.

When Rose walked inside, she was struck by the hush of the place, with all the residents entombed in sleep. Rose hesitantly found the receptionist and told her about her appointment. The nurse ushered her into a small room, and after a minute, a woman of medium height, with curly blond hair cropped short and a furrowed but pleasant face and somber eyes walked into the room. She wore a white coat over a dark green pantsuit.

“Hello. I’m Dr. Madelyn Murray. You must be the student, Rose—?”

“Brier,” Rose said, shaking her hand.

“Brier,” the doctor repeated, as if the name sounded strange to her.

“It’s a German name. My dad’s family is German. Actually, they’re from this area.”

“I thought I’d heard the name before,” the doctor said. She gestured to two chairs and sat down in the larger one. Rose took the other. “So what got you interested in comatose patients, Ms. Brier?”

“Well, actually, I didn’t start out on the topic. My dad, who used to be a reporter in town, had done an interview with a nurse about patient abuse at the hospital near here and at first I wanted to find his notes and follow up on that.”

“Really?” Dr. Murray said. “You mean Robert Graves Memorial Hospital?”

“I guess so. Would you know about anything going on there?” Rose couldn’t help being a bit intrigued.

Dr. Murray hesitated. “There had been rumors,” she admitted. “But that was a long time ago. I’m afraid I don’t know much about what goes on there now. Certainly no one there was ever charged with abuse. So you were trying to re-open your father’s investigation?”

“Not really,” Rose laughed. “Well, my dad died a number of years ago, and all I would have had to go on were his notes he stored in our family’s old barn. But I went out there and dug through them and couldn’t find them. There was a lot I just couldn’t get through. So, you know, I sort of put that aside and picked comatose patients instead. My sister was in a coma once,” she added. “After an accident.”

“How long?”

“About two days.”

Dr. Murray nodded. “That’s typical for a short-term coma. Most people who are going to come back, come back in that time. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.”

“How long have most of the patients in your facility been comatose?” Rose asked.

“It varies. We are a research facility in that area, so we get referrals from all over.”  She stood up. “If you’d like to come with me, I can give you a short tour. Then I’m afraid I have to get back to work.”

Remembering that the doctor was very busy, Rose flushed a little and got up. “Thanks very much.”

The tour was interesting, and Dr. Murray was kind and complete in her answers to Rose’s questions. She gave Rose some other recommendations of nurses and doctors in the field. She even let Rose use her phone to call a few of them and ask if she could come and talk to them that morning.

Thanking Dr. Murray, Rose drove out for the interview with the other doctor, who was more busy and less happy to talk with an undergraduate about medical ethics. He could only spare a few moments for questions and seemed to have said yes to the interview only because Dr. Murray had recommended her.

The third interviewee, a nun named Sister Genevieve who worked at a small Catholic hospital, was also busy, but gave Rose a short interview. When Rose asked for any further people she could interview, the nun said reflectively, “Well, you could try talking to Dr. Murray at the Graceton Long-Term Care Facility, but she’s so busy I doubt she’d see a student.”

“Actually, I just met with her this morning,” Rose said.

The sister smiled. “Did you? Well, I’m sure you have some wonderful material for your paper. She’s the most knowledgeable specialist in the field that you could find in this area. A truly brilliant doctor.”

Rose was glad to hear that. The only other person the nun could recommend was a local doctor, and when Rose called his office, she found he had no Saturday hours. But maybe she had enough right here, and it was barely noon. She decided to take some time to go back to the barn.

Rose drove slowly back towards the barn, thinking hard. Inevitably, thoughts of Fish dogged her mind again, as they usually did. He was coming to see her tonight, and of course that was a very distracting thought... She was so deep in distraction that she missed the exit for her family’s farm.

“Darn it!” she moaned, seeing a sign that read, “Next exit 5 miles.” She would have to turn around and go back.

But as she drove on, she realized she was starving. What she really needed to do was find someplace to eat.

It was perhaps not too surprising that when she saw the mall at the next exit, she was extremely tempted. Additionally, in a mall, there would not only be things to eat, but clothing—she was feeling the urge to go shopping again, especially now that there were no classes. And she did have a little bit of money left from cashing her student work check.

She parked the car at the mall and hurried inside, her stomach crying for food. There was a Chinese food place right inside the door and she ordered three egg rolls and a carton of stir-fried chicken.

Rose sat by the mall fountain and ate her lunch, licking her fingers meditatively after she had finished. If she spent some time typing up notes from the interviews and then did some more research on the Internet, there was a chance she could actually start writing this paper tomorrow. There was really no need for her to go back to the barn. But she decided to go anyway, the thought of her dad’s research nagging at her for some reason. It might be interesting just to find the notes, even if she couldn’t use them.

All the same, she still had some time, and there was no reason why she shouldn’t do a bit of browsing in the mall first.

Throwing out the empty containers from her lunch, she sighed and passed dreamily into the first fashion store she passed. As she wandered around the racks of clothes, her mind drifted over the lyrics of a soft pop song, and she fingered garments and wrinkled her nose at the badness of this year’s clothing. She found that shopping in a mall, as tempting as it was, was rarely rewarding in terms of finding something she could both like and afford.