F. Wilson - The Select

Dorothy Havers, long time

Towson resident. Age 82

Dorothy O'Boyle Havers, the only daughter of Francis and Catherine O'Boyle, both Irish immigrants, died on July 12 of natural causes at the Laurel Hills Medical Center. Prior to that she had been a resident of the Towson Nursing Center for seven years. Mrs. Havers was predeceased by her husband, Earl, and by her two daughters, Catherine and Francine. No plans for viewing or burial were announced.

Ireland...Dorothy came over from Ireland...just like her mother. And she'd died right next door to The Ingraham.

Quinn reread the obit and was swept by a wave of sadness. Of course no plans for viewing or burial were announced. There was nobody to view her remains, nobody left to mourn at her grave side. Husband dead, children dead, seven years in a nursing home, probably without a single visitor, completely forgotten, no one caring if she lived or died. So she'd willed her body to The Ingraham.

Poor woman.

But what had she died of? That might be interesting to know during the dissection. She wondered if they'd know at the Towson Nursing Center. How far could it be?

Quinn xeroxed off a copy of the obituary, then went looking for a phone.

*

"Dorothy Havers?" said Virginia Bennett, R.N., head nurse at the Towson Nursing Center. "I remember that name. You say you're releated to her?"

"Her great niece," Quinn said.

She'd discovered the Towson Nursing Center was a couple of miles from the library, so she'd stopped in to learn what she could. The one-story dark brick building seemed about as pleasant as something called a nursing home could be. Elderly men and women sat in wheelchairs around the foyer while others inched by with the aid of four-footed canes. A vague odor of urine suffused the air, like olfactory muzak.

"Well, I'll be." Nurse Bennett scratched the side of her neck with short, scarlet fingernails. She had ebony skin, gray hair, and a bulldog face, but seemed pleasant enough. "We searched high and low for a next of kin last year when we were getting ready to transfer her to the medical center. Couldn't find anybody. Fig ured she was alone in the world."

"We have a common relative in Ireland," Quinn said, amazed at how easily the lies tripped off her tongue. She'd figured no one would tell her a thing about Dorothy unless they thought she was related. "I just happened to come across her name while I was researching the family's medical history. Was she very sick?"

"Just a little heart failure, if I remember. But Dr. Clifton—he's one of our doctors—is very conservative. He refers patients to the medical center at the first sign of trouble. But he's top notch. A graduate of the Ingraham, you know."

"Really? That's good to know."

"But what sort of family history were you looking for?"

"There's ovarian cancer in one of my aunts and I was wondering..."

"Very important," Nurse Bennett said, jabbing a finger at Quinn. "But I don't know a thing about Mrs. Havens, so I can't—" She glanced past Quinn. "Wait. There's Dr. Clifton now. Maybe he can help you. Dr. Clifton? Could we see you a minute?"

Quinn turned and saw a young, dark-haired doctor, surely not much older than thirty, entering through a rear door, dressed in a sport coat and carrying a black bag.

"Dr. Clifton," Nurse Bennett said as he approached the desk. "You remember Dorothy Havers, don't you? This is her great niece."

It almost looked to Quinn as if Dr. Clifton stumbled a step. He blinked twice, then smiled.

"I didn't know Dotty had a great niece, or any kind of relative at all."

Quinn repeated her story about the Ireland link, and about researching the family medical history. The lies came easier the second time around.

"No," Dr. Clifton said. "Dotty had no history of cancer of any sort. Her main problem was arteriosclerosis—coronary and cerebral. We were sorry to lose her this summer. She was a nice lady."

"I wish I'd known her," Quinn said, and that wasn't a lie. "Was she in bad heart failure when you transferred her to the medical center?"

"Bad enough in my clinical opinion to need more intense care than a nursing home could provide," he said stiffly. "Is there a point to these questions, Miss...?"

"Sheedy," Quinn said, barely missing a beat. "No. Just curious."

"Well, then, as much as I'd like to satisfy your curiosity, Miss Sheedy, I have rounds to make. Excuse me."

"Not much of a bedside manner," Quinn said after he'd hurried off.

"Must have had a bad day," Nurse Bennett said. "Usually he's very easy going."

Not today, Quinn thought. Today he's downright defensive.

As she left the Towson Nursing Center, she noticed the small print on the entry plaque: Owned and operated by Kleederman Medical Industries.

KMI is everywhere, she thought. I guess I'll be pretty well connected after I graduate.

She wondered why she took no comfort in that.

She pulled the folded copy of Dorothy Havers' obituary from her pocket and reread it.

"There's no one left to remember you, is there, Dorothy Havens," she said softly. "Tell you what. I'll remember you, with gratitude, for the rest of my life. And maybe I can get someone else to remember you too."

*

"Well, now. Look at you."

Quinn glanced up from her dissection of the Accessory Nerve to see Tim peering at her from the other side of their cadaver. He'd just arrived, late as usual.

"What's the matter with me?" she said.

"Here she is, the gal who was turning three shades of green out in the hall before her first An Lab last month, and look at her now: Having lunch with her cadaver."

Quinn paused. Tim was right. She hadn't given it any thought, but she had come a long way since that first day when she'd feared she was going to toss her cookies as soon as she stepped into this room. She hardly noticed the smell anymore, and here she was, barely a month later, sitting with her nose in her dissection of the rhomboid muscles, a Pepsi to her left by the cadaver's shoulder, and a half-eaten Twinkie to her right by the hip.

"A testament to the human organism's adaptability, I suppose," she said.

"And how."

Quinn watched him open his kit, pull the damp cloth off his dissection, and sit down. Only his head was visible on the far side as he got to work. She'd been debating how to broach a certain subject with him and figured now was as good a time as any.

"I've been thinking," Quinn said.

"Careful. That can be dangerous. Habit forming, even."

"Seriously. I want to name our cadaver."

Tim glanced up at her. "Yeah? Well, why not? Kevin and Jerry named theirs Auntie Griselda. We can name ours Skinny Minnie."

"No. I mean give it a real name. A person's name."

He went back to his rhomboids. "Any particular name in mind?"

"Dorothy."

"Dorothy...like Dorothy of the Oz variety?"

"Exactly."

"Should we scare up a little dead dog and name it Toto?"

God, he could be annoying at times. "I don't know why I even bothered."

Tim must have tuned in to her tone. He glanced up again. "Okay. Dorothy it is. We can call her Dot."

"No," Quinn said firmly. "Not Dot. Dorothy."

"Why is this suddenly so important?"

Quinn had hoped he wouldn't ask that. She couldn't tell him, That's her name, and she wasn't sure how to answer otherwise without sounding like some sort of wimp.

"I've got my reasons," she said. "But you're going to think they're corny and sappy."

Tim set down his instruments and leaned forward. "Try me."

"All right." She took a deep breath and rattled off her rationale: "I want to call her a real name because she was a real person when she was alive and I think it's only fair that we think of her as a 'she' or a 'her' instead of an 'it.' And as we whittle her away and she stops looking like something even remotely human, maybe we can still think of her as a person if she's got a person's name. Dot isn't very human. It's like a punctuation mark. But Dorothy sounds pretty neighborly and very human—even with out a dog."