The Safety Zone (A Novella by Bob Racine) - Chapter 4

The surgeon on the following morning disconnects Cara from the blood thinner and schedules the next day for her operation, after which Vernon visits her again, and this time seems uncommunicative with her on the subject of her surgery and quite self-absorbed in baseball talk, much to her annoyance.  He does perk up, however, when he hears his sister tell the nurse that she has changed her mind about moving to another room and more surprisingly that she and Dagne have become friends.

The next morning Cara was awakened by Nurse Macy for the next scheduled checking of her pulse, blood pressure and temperature.  Macy said nothing further about the prospect of moving to another room, and Cara did not bring up the subject.  Now she actually looked forward to another contact with the roommate from whom she had wished to escape. 

She recalled Dagne’s confessed need of her and the warmth she had felt and the kindness she had managed to give to someone in need.  The memory gave her a deep sense of satisfaction and the brightest start to a new day that she could ever remember.  She even felt a little smug.  Dagne had in so many words declared that Cara’s companionship was more meaningful and fraught with understanding than that of her own family.  None of those relatives had understood her or helped her as she, Cara, had. 

Cara perceived that a bond had been formed.  Her space no longer felt cursed or full of threat.  She asked Macy to draw back the curtain surrounding her own bed so that she could enjoy the sunlight again.  But her real reason for it was Dagne.  She wanted a clear sightline to Dagne’s space. 

Macy complied, but once the curtain was drawn back, Cara was startled to see that the curtain surrounding Dagne’s bed was also drawn.  She assumed that Dagne had so sequestered herself to get the restorative, post-operative rest she needed.  It was early in the day; surely before too many hours she and Dagne would be communicative again.  She would wait patiently and anticipate taking up where they left off the night before. 

When Cara’s surgeon came to see her a little while later, she knew he wanted a decision about the operation.  By the afternoon of the previous day  she had accepted the inevitability of it and thought it best to get it over with while she was already in the hospital.  Now with her spirits raised and her state of mind relatively cleared of stress, she told him she was ready and signed the legal document absolving the medical profession of any blame for any adverse side effects.  

After he told her that it would be scheduled for the following morning, she was even more pleased when he disconnected her from the blood thinner.  For the balance of the time awaiting the operation she would be free to walk around and free to use the toilet facilities.  No more bedpans!   Surely Dagne would be awake and conversational long before Cara’s rendezvous with the scalpel.  Surely Dagne could be counted on to give her roommate the same comfort and support in the face of her ordeal that Cara had given her. 

As she watched her surgeon walk out the door, she intuited that the coming day would be one of the most important in her life.  Dagne would become the surrogate family she needed to face her crisis.   

With the surgeon gone, Cara got to her feet and tiptoed around to check on Dagne.  The woman was lying still with her eyes closed and faced away from the window, supposedly in a state of sleep.  How snug and tranquil she looked!  Cara derived some vicarious pleasure from seeing her in this state and some warm satisfaction from knowing that she, Cara, had played a part in putting her enough at ease through the comfort and friendship she had extended the previous night.  

Once she treated herself to the privilege of looking out the window and absorbing some much appreciated sunlight, Cara left the room for the first time in three days and delighted in taking a walk down the hallway.

 

- - - - -

A few hours later Vernon arrived.  When she told him that the operation had been scheduled for the following morning, he sat for what seemed to her like an inordinate amount of time, saying nothing, but staring blankly into space.  His face revealed no emotion at all, but his hands twitched in a noticeable manner that she had witnessed more than once in their lifetimes together when stressful circumstances prevailed.  The most vivid occasion for it was the time he had to tell her that Ruth was divorcing him.  She felt compelled to beg the question he showed no inclination to answer. 

“So what do you think of that?  I guess I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.”

“Yeah. . .yeah!” he sputtered in a soft voice.

Yeah what? she wondered.  Yeah, you’re ready?  Yeah, your brother  approves?  Yeah, you’re doing the right thing?  Yeah, but it scares me?

“You will be here with me before I go into the operation, won’t you?”

“Sure!”  But the word was spoken lifelessly, almost fatalistically.  It evidenced not the slightest quality of fare-thee-well or tender assurance. 

Then to her utter amazement he launched into a tirade about things happening on the baseball diamond.   He was so into the game in fact and was so eager to unload it all on her that he did not seem to notice that she was no longer connected to the blood thinner.  She called his attention to that fact, but he said nothing more than “Oh, that’s good” and went right back to his subject.  She had no interest in the sport and wished he would save his ruminations for someone else. 

“Some things are just too weird to believe.  Their champion slugger, a man on first and third, only one out remaining!  And he takes the walk, with their weakest batter next up!  If their anchorman can’t parlay a curve into at least a base hit, what’s the game coming to?  And after letting two go by him – right over the plate!  It almost looked to me like he wanted to walk, like he’s got a cramp in his shoulder or tendonitis in his right bicep or maybe he was schmoosing with his alter ego! 

“I wanted to yell, ‘Schmoose on your own time, buster.  I got money running with you.  You can afford to take a walk, but you’ll walk me right out of twenty-five bucks.’  And then after him this yokel steps up, strikes out, dumps the inning!  What was our boy wonder up to out there?  The pitcher wasn’t all that much of a force to contend with.  I might have to find me a new boy.”

“You’re going to wake her up,” Cara protested, throwing a glance in Dagne’s direction.  “At least lower your voice.”

“Lower my voice!  How about if I get under the bed?  Will that be low enough?”

Nurse Macy entered the room, as bright and as ingratiating as ever, but this time she looked straight into Cara’s eyes with a wide and bubbly smile on her face and her hands joined behind her back.  She reminded Cara of a child who was bursting to share something she knew the grownups wanted to hear. 

“Mrs. Hutchins, I have some good news.  There’s an empty bed in a room at the other end of the hall.  I’ve spoken with Admissions, and they have no objection to the switch.  So how does that sound to you?” 

A few beats of silence passed, Cara not sure she was prepared for what would now be another complication.  While she pondered, Macy hastened to assure her, “We can do it right now, if you feel you’re ready.  Your brother and I can bring your clothes and things.  You’re not hooked up to the machine anymore, so that makes the move much easier than it would’ve been.”  Then true to form Vernon switched into his jocular mode once more and teased Macy.

“You need to assure her that no one will be admitted to this room as long as Witch Denison is here.  You don’t want a needless death on your hands.” 

But the nurse ignored Vernon’s attempt at humor and remained focused on her patient.  Cara did not answer the question right away.  She knew what she wanted, but felt the momentous weight of the decision she was about to make and, as with all momentous decisions, she was experiencing that modicum of fear that comes with the making of it.  Beware what you think you want most, you may have to put up or shut up! 

She looked across at the curtain that concealed the sleeping Dagne.  Was she laying a trap for herself?  Was there a hidden catch to all of this? 

“Well, come on, Cara darling,” prodded Vernon, “here’s your chance.  You can move up from coach to first class, and without paying a cent more.” 

“I don’t want to go.”  Cara heard the words bounce off the walls and was not sure who had uttered them.  It took her a few fleeting seconds to be sure that they came from her.  Vernon and the nurse exchanged bewildered looks.

“Am I hearing you?” Vernon quipped.  “I could swear you said scratch the trip.”

This time Cara was fully conscious that it was she speaking.  “I don’t want to go.  I want to stay here.”

Vernon addressed the nurse.  “Maybe she thinks she’s going to die anyway.”  He cocked his head, as he looked quizzically at his sister and uttered the question.  “Is that what you think?”

“I’ll be all right,” Cara assured them.

Macy’s bubbly smile had disappeared.  She was all professional adult again.  “I hope you don’t think you’re causing us any trouble.  I can still assure you that you’re perfectly safe from harm right where you are, but I don’t want you having to put up with needless worry and stress.  We’re perfectly willing to respect your wishes.  We want you to be as comfortable as possible.  That’s our job.” 

“No, I just don’t want to move,” declared the newly self-confident bed patient.  “I want to be here, when she wakes up.”

“And risk her giving you her name all over again,” teased Vernon,   “the double whammy?”

“Let her be!” said Macy.  “She has her reason.”

Cara wished she could explain her reason, the remarkable thing that had transpired between her and her roommate, but all she could manage to say was: “It wouldn’t be right to leave her now.”

Vernon then came forth with the question she knew he would ask: “What changed your mind?”

“Dagne needs me.”

“Who needs you?” 

“Dagne, that’s her first name.”

“You mean Witch Denison?  Since when have you gotten to first names with each other?  Are you friends all of a sudden?”

“Yeah, and she needs me.”

“What makes you think that?  She has family, doesn’t she?” 

“You wouldn’t understand,” Cara maintained.  Her words were tantamount to saying that there are some things only women can share with each other, but she could not bring herself to go that far. 

“Well, Mrs. Hutchins, I’ll leave you be then,” offered Macy.  “Call me if you change your mind, though I’d do it soon, if you’re going to do it.  That bed won’t stay empty for long.” 

Cara had by this point reached a new high of certainty.  It gave her a kind of smug delight to give assurance to the young and fledgling nurse that the fifty-four-year-old woman veteran in the bed did indeed know what she wanted and what was best for herself.  “I won’t be moving.  You can go now.”

“Okay, rest well.”  Macy fixed Cara with her eyes for a few beats before she departed, as if she wanted to be sure all had been said that was going to be said.  When she was apparently so assured, she turned and left.      

“I’m floored,” confessed Vernon, once they were alone.  “But you do seem a little calmer today than you were when I left you yesterday.”

Cara was glad she looked that way to Vernon, because actually she was seized with a spasm of anxiety that she hoped he could not detect.  The momentousness of the decision she had just made final caused her to feel as if she were in the middle of an ice pond, not sure if she had really fathomed the thickness of the ice. 

Vernon and Cara said nothing more to each other for the space of about ten minutes, before he excused himself to return to work.  As he departed, Cara thought he looked quite worried, but she did not know how to tell him why his worry was needless.  She wanted to say that all things essential to her safety and survival were in place, that the ice was firm beneath her, but words failed her, perhaps because of her own modicum of doubt. 

That curtain still separated her from Dagne, with most of the morning gone.  This fact began to trouble her mind a bit.  Why would she have required all this much sleep this far into the morning?