Marcia Talley - This Enemy Town

The aide looked up from her work, her face grave. “Tylene, give this lady a hand, will you?”

From behind a partition, Tylene appeared, dressed in turquoise scrubs in a cheerful ice cream cone print. Within seconds she’d located a wheelchair and followed me outside to help Dorothy get into it.

With Dorothy sagging like a cooked noodle, Tylene pushed the chair up to the information desk, where I explained Dorothy’s problem to the aide, who handed me a clipboard and asked me to have Dorothy fill it out. “She’s so sick,” I replied, “that I don’t even think she can remember who she is, let alone hold a pen.”

“I’ve got to get the roast into the oven,” Dorothy muttered, pretty much proving my point. “It’s just sitting out on the counter. And the potatoes need peeling. But I suppose I could make rice.” On and on she babbled, leaping from dinner preparations to movies she forgot to TiVo to plans for an addition to their Davidsonville home.

“Do the best you can, then,” the aide said with a sympathetic smile. “We’ll fine-tune it later.”

In the end, I filled out the form as best I could by rummaging around in Dorothy’s purse for her driver’s license, military dependent’s ID, and her Tricare health insurance card. “Here,” I said, handing the card over the counter along with the clipboard. “Over to you.”

The aide scanned the form, photocopied Dorothy’s insurance card, then, apparently satisfied, handed me a square pager made of black plastic with a blinking red light like the kind you get when you go to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. I showed it to Dorothy, whose eyes were now hovering at half mast. “Look, they’ll call us when our table is ready.”

Dorothy’s eyes flew open. “How long do I have to wait?”

Earlier, I’d noticed a sign prominently displayed on the information desk: approximate wait time for non-life-threatening emergencies. Underneath the notice was a selection of flip cards hanging on pegs. The flip card said: ‹ 1 HOUR.

I read the sign aloud. “Less than one hour.”

“Okay.” Dorothy managed a weak smile, then grabbed the hem of her sweatshirt and began retching into it.

Almost instantly, Tyrene materialized like a guardian angel, carrying a kidney-shaped basin and a wet cloth. “Here you go, sweetheart,” she soothed, wiping Dorothy’s face with the cloth. “They’re kinda busy back there right now, but we’ll be getting to you right soon.”

Dorothy nodded, and using both hands, pressed the wet cloth against her eyes.

“Can’t we get her something to drink?” I asked.

Tyrene shook her head. “Not till the doctor takes a look at her.” She pushed Dorothy’s chair out of the traffic and eased it into position next to an upholstered chair, which I plopped down in immediately.

And we did what you do in waiting rooms. We waited.

At the far end of the room, a huge, flat-screen TV was tuned to CNN and some Army brigadier general (retired) was pontificating about the war in Iraq. Next to us a bearded man in a plaid shirt dozed under a ficus tree, his head thrown back and his mouth yawning open, a black pager balanced precariously on one knee. Every time somebody wandered in the vicinity of the doors, they would whoosh open, letting cold air in. After five minutes of that, I moved Dorothy over several rows to keep her out of the draft. Tyrene must have noticed because she reappeard bearing a flannel blanket, fresh from the ER blanket-warmer, which she helped me tuck around Dorothy’s shoulders.

Eventually our pager started flashing like an alien spaceship and someone appeared to roll Dorothy away. I offered to go with her, but in three or four rambling sentences, Dorothy refused. Trying not to feel miffed, I watched TV, read two old National Geographics from cover to cover, telephoned Paul to tell him where I was, left a message for Admiral Hart on his home phone, and filed my nails, not necessarily in that order.

Three hours later Dorothy was back, smiling bravely. “That’s it?” I asked Tyrene.

“That’s it. You can take her home.” She handed me a sheaf of papers. “These are for her primary care physician. She’ll need to follow up with him in three days.”

“What did they do?” I asked Dorothy.

“Blood and urine tests. Then they started an IV and put something in it. I felt better almost right away.”

Tyrene looked down at her patient. “Now you take it easy for a couple of days, you hear me, Dorothy?”

Dorothy nodded mutely.

I set the hospital forms on Dorothy’s lap, went around to the back of the chair and started pushing. “Home again, home again, jiggidy jig.”

Dorothy twisted in her chair. “Oh, no! My car’s at the Academy!”

“We can pick it up later. You shouldn’t be driving anyway.”

She checked her watch. “I’m missing it, I’m missing it!”

“Missing what?” I asked.

“Kevin’s final performance!” Her eyes glistened with tears. She grabbed my hand where it rested on the handle-bar of the wheelchair. “Please, Hannah, take me back to Mahan.”

After everything that had happened in the past several hours, I’d completely forgotten about the musical until she reminded me. “You have been to every rehearsal. And you haven’t missed a single one of Kevin’s performances,” I reminded her. “He’ll understand if you miss just this one.”

“I need to go back to Mahan.”

“Well, then you’ll have to push yourself down Route 50 in this wheelchair, because I am going to take you home.”

“There won’t be anybody there,” she pouted. “Ted has to report to Norfolk in the morning. He’s already gone.”

“That’s all right. If nobody’s home, I’ll just stay with you until we’re sure you’re all right. End of story.”

With Dorothy muttering mild curses under her breath, I pushed her chair in the direction of the sliding glass doors, but had to pull to one side to make way for an emergency. An ambulance had roared up, siren whoop-whoop-whooping , and a pair of EMTs had opened its rear doors, preparing to off-load some poor soul on a stretcher.

Five seconds later the EMTs eased through the door with the stretcher, followed by someone I recognized: Professor Medwin Black. Before I could even begin to wonder what he was doing at the hospital instead of overseeing the musical at Mahan Hall, Dorothy screamed. I turned my head and watched as her eyes rolled back in their sockets and she fainted dead away. “Dorothy? What the hell?”

The form on the stretcher stirred. The left side of his face was covered by a bandage that wrapped completely around his head, and his neck was encased in a brace. “Mother? What are you doing here?” he slurred, before he, too, lost consciousness.

The casualty was Midshipman Kevin Hart.

How we all fit into the private treatment roomwithout a shoehorn, I’ll never know.

Kevin lay on the gurney, woozy but conscious, and Dorothy sat in a chair-a regular one, without wheels-appearing more alert than I’d seen her in weeks.

“How are you feeling, Kev? Can I get you anything?” Dorothy shot up and down from her chair like a jack-in-a-box, with Medwin Black and me running interference to keep her from actually climbing up onto the gurney with her son.

Kevin’s left eye was turning black and he’d been X-rayed. No broken bones, thank heaven. We were awaiting the arrival of a plastic surgeon who’d been called in for consultation about the nasty gash on his cheek.

“What happened?” I asked Kevin after doctor number one came and went.

“I crashed my car,” he replied, squinting at me through his one good eye. “I was moving it from in front of Mahan to a space along the seawall.” He paused, as if trying to piece it all together. “I remember feeling groggy. Then wham !”