Charlene stiffened at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. Aside from her family, no one called her on her cell phone for one very simple reason: she never gave out the number. She rolled her eyes, resigned to the idea that telemarketing had invaded the world of cell phones, too, and made a mental note to see if she could add her cell phone number to the national Do Not Call list. “What can I do for you?”
“Is this Mrs. Charlene Butler?”
A deep sigh. “Yes, I’m Charlene Butler, but I can assure you that I am definitely not interested in buying anything you might be selling. As a matter of fact—”
“Mrs. Butler, this is the emergency room at Tilton General Hospital. Your aunt, Dorothy Gibbs, asked that we call you. She arrived here about twenty minutes ago and—”
Charlene’s heart pounded hard against the wall of her chest, and her mind raced with questions that she hurled at the caller. “Aunt Dorothy? Are you sure? I was just with her. She was fine. What’s wrong?”
“The doctor is with her now. She appears stable at the moment, but she’s asking for you. We couldn’t reach you until she found the paper she had written your cell number on. Can I tell her that you’ll be coming to be with her?”
“Yes. Absolutely. Of course I will,” Charlene cried, blinking back tears as she looked for a place to turn around. “Tell her I’m on my way. It’ll take me an hour. Just tell her I’m coming,” she directed, praying that the good Lord would continue to keep watch over Aunt Dorothy.
Chapter Two
C harlene pulled into a parking space in the visitors’ lot across the street from Tilton General Hospital just after nine o’clock—well ahead of her husband, who was on his way from the bowling alley to meet her. She slammed the car into Park, grabbed her purse and locked up with a quick click of the remote.
She practically jogged toward the emergency room on the east side of the hospital, where she could see the steady pulse of the flashing red lights on the ambulance parked at the entrance. Her purse, which hung from her shoulder, swung in a short arc with each pounding step, mirroring the emotional pendulum that dragged her from fear that Aunt Dorothy might be seriously ill to the hope she had just had another one of her little “spells.”
When Charlene finally reached the entrance, she paused to whisper a prayer before passing through the automatic double doors. Inside, a security guard seated behind a desk cocked a brow, and she shifted the strap of her purse. “My aunt…Dorothy Gibbs…They brought her here…I need to see her,” she stammered.
His gaze softened when he handed her a visitor’s pass. “Information desk is straight ahead. Then take a number. Take a seat.”
She swallowed hard and glanced around the emergency room to get her bearings. Like most people, she supposed, she was not fond of hospitals. She had been fortunate to have raised two active children without ever needing to visit an emergency room.
As she might have expected, the air was heavy with anxiety and suffering, but also held a peculiar sense of boredom or, perhaps, a sense of resignation that she found disturbing.
Straight ahead, a bank of signs hung from the ceiling over a long, low counter in front of a series of five small, semi-partitioned areas. One sign read Information. Three were labeled Patient Registration. One read Intake. Non-medical personnel in business attire toiled with computers and paperwork at their stations, serving visitors and patients at the counter.
Charlene got in the information line behind two women and looked around. Through an opaque wall behind the security guard, she could see a good two dozen people seated in a stark, gray-painted waiting room, but Aunt Dorothy was not among them. Several children were lying on the floor, coloring or reading, while other youngsters raced back and forth between the restrooms and the water fountain.
The gray plastic chairs along the walls were nearly all filled with patients and their loved ones. An elderly woman sat alone in a wheelchair in the corner. Another woman lay on a gurney, her face to the wall. Everyone was waiting for medical attention. Charlene didn’t know if Aunt Dorothy had had to wait, too, or if she had arrived by ambulance. Either way, Charlene’s heart trembled with regret that she had not been by her aunt’s side.
At that moment, a pair of metal doors swung open on Charlene’s right, revealing the very heart of the busy emergency room, where she caught a glimpse of medical personnel hustling to care for patients behind curtained treatment rooms.
“Next.”
With her visitor’s pass in hand, she stepped up to the counter, where a middle-aged woman with frizzy orange hair sat filing a broken fingernail. Her name tag read Joy Wohl, but her bored expression was certainly joyless. “My name is Charlene Butler. I got a call from the emergency room saying my aunt had been brought here and that I needed to come right away. Dorothy Gibbs. Her name is Dorothy Gibbs,” she explained, anxious to see her aunt as quickly as possible.
Without making eye contact, the woman slowly turned and pressed a few keys on the computer with the tip of her emery board. She sighed, put down the emery board and handed Charlene another visitor’s pass, this one blue.
“Press the button to open the double doors. Once you’re inside, there’s a small waiting area to your left. Wait there until someone comes for you. You’ll need to keep this pass visible at all times,” the woman explained as she picked up the emery board again and resumed filing her nail.
Charlene nodded, peeled the backing from the blue pass and pressed it on her coat. She proceeded exactly as she had been told.
Too anxious to sit down in the waiting area, Charlene remained standing at the entrance, watching medical personnel hurry from a central station in and out of the treatment rooms. After waiting for five long minutes without any offer of help, she approached the central station. Not one of the three women behind the counter stopped working to acknowledge her; instead, an older woman dressed casually in khaki pants and a matching sweater approached, wearing a gentle smile. “You look like you need some help. I’m Kathryn Campbell. I’m a volunteer with the hospital’s spiritual-care team.”
“I’m trying to find my aunt, Dorothy Gibbs.”
The woman’s smile broadened. “Then you must be Charlene. Your aunt’s been asking for you.”
Charlene sighed with relief. “Then she’s fine. Will I be able to take her home?”
Kathryn Campbell’s smile deepened. “She’s in the emergency room, so I’m not sure I’d say she was fine, but she is resting comfortably. You’ll have to speak to the doctors about her medical condition. I’ve been checking in on her while she was waiting for you. She’s alert and oriented, and she’s feeling much better. She had a bit of an ordeal, but I’ll let her tell you all about that. To be honest, I think she’s still pretty frightened. If you’ll follow me, I can take you to her. She’s right down the hall.”
Charlene followed the volunteer down the hall to the third room, where the woman peeked in and then motioned for Charlene to enter. “She’s in the first cubicle. The curtains have been pulled to give her privacy, although she’s the only patient in the room at the moment. While you visit, I’ll see if I can find Dr. McDougal. She’s been treating your aunt. One of the nurses will probably be in to check on her shortly, and I’ll stop back later, too.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Charlene murmured. Unsure of what to expect when she saw Aunt Dorothy, she caught her breath and entered the room. An off-white curtain framed the far side of the hospital bed where her aunt lay, eyes closed, clutching her battered purse to her breast. The cubicle, like all of the emergency room, reeked of alcohol and medicines.
Aunt Dorothy appeared paler and smaller than usual, and uncharacteristically frail. Charlene approached the bedside slowly, and smiled when she caught the scent of her aunt’s perfume mingled with the pungent smells of antiseptics and medications. Relieved to see the gentle