Ann Martin - Claudia And The Sad Goodbye

I sat on a ledge across from two paramedics, Mimi on the stretcher between us. While the attendants took her blood pressure and stuff,

I just kept holding Mimi's hand and talking to her.

About halfway to the hospital, Mimi woke up and realized what was going on. She was so embarrassed that she tried to make up for it by acting like a grand lady.

"Do I not know father?" she said to one of the attendants. "The honorable Mr… Mr… um …"

"I — I don't think so,” replied the man. He fiddled with the gauge on the blood pressure instrument.

"But sure. Yes. Live Bradford Court years long ago."

"No, ma'am."

"It's okay, Mimi," I said.

"Oh, my Claudia. You here," said Mimi, turning her head.

"Yes, I'm here." I squeezed her hand a little harder.

"Dinner is not ready," Mimi told me distinctly.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "It's only lunchtime."

"And I never have enough money for payment. Car loan."

I almost pointed out that Mimi hadn't owned a car in years, but decided not to. Besides, we'd reached the hospital. Here we go again, I thought.

Things were pretty much the same. Mimi got another private room and, by later in the afternoon, our entire family was crowded into it.

Mimi was already better because, remembering her last stay in the hospital, the doctors had given her some new blood.

"Vampire!" exclaimed Mimi, and we laughed, mostly because if Mimi could joke, that was the best sign of all that she was feeling better.

I laughed, too, even though I was madder than I'd ever been. Not at Mimi, not at anyone else in my family, but at the doctors and nurses. Want to know why? I'll tell you why.

This is what happened when Mimi was first taken to her room. She had seemed to be okay in the ambulance and rolling through the hallways of the hospital on the way to her room, but as soon as the attendants transferred her onto her hospital bed which, really, they tried to do as gently as possible, Mimi screamed.

"Oh! Oh!" she cried.

Her entire body stiffened with pain. Dad and I were standing on either side of her bed

and we each grabbed one of her hands and held on tight.

"Will someone please get her some painkillers or something?" my father shouted to whomever was in the room.

Everyone scurried out, but no one came back except a nurse's aide, who took off Mimi's dress and put on a hospital gown instead. She didn't even bother to close the door to the room, so I gave her a dirty look and did it myself.

Mimi's pain seemed to have gone away by then, but Dad asked for the painkillers again anyway.

"I'll see what I can do," the woman replied.

But the next people who came in were Mom and Janine, Mom looking very upset.

"Mother!" she cried, and ran to Mimi. She bent over her. "How are you feeling?"

I think Mimi was about to say, "Fine," when suddenly she went into another one of those awful spasms of pain.

Mom burst into tears.

Dad and I each grabbed one of Mimi's hands again (it was all we could do), and I signaled to Janine to take Mom out of the room. The last thing Mimi needed was to see that she'd upset her daughter. I'm not sure she would

have noticed, though. When the pain came, she would arch her back and squinch up her face, closing her eyes.

That darn nurse's aide hadn't put Mimi's hospital gown on very well, I soon realized. Each time Mimi arched her back, the gown slipped further and further down her chest until she was half naked. And Janine had forgotten to close the door behind her when she took Mom out. Anyone in the hall could see right into the room, see Mimi arching her back and squinching her eyes and crying out, with her gown around her waist. I tried to remember her other ways. I imagined her fully dressed, jewelry and all, smiling at me from across the kitchen table as we shared special tea.

After three or four more spasms of pain, Mimi suddenly lay quietly on the bed. I fixed her hospital gown and drew the sheet up to her chin while Dad rang the bell for a nurse for the eighty-eighth time.

"Hey, you guys," I called to Mom and Janine in the hallway. "Come on in. And close the door."

My mother and sister reappeared, Mom with a paper cup full of coffee she'd gotten from a vending machine. She looked an awful

lot calmer, even though coffee is supposed to make you hyper or something.

Mom set her coffee cup on Mimi's bedside table and peered over at her mother.

Mimi smiled at her. "All better," she said, and we laughed nervously.

She wasn't, of course. She was so weak she could barely move. When she tried to raise herself to a sitting position, she got dizzy and had to lie down. So we raised the bed for her.

But the pain was gone.

It seemed like hours before anyone bothered to do anything for Mimi, but finally doctors and nurses began showing up. Each time they did, I made sure the door to her room was closed. No more public indignity if I could help it. It was bad enough that our family was standing around while the doctors examined Mimi.

Anyway, they finally gave her those pints of blood, ,and very soon she announced that she was feeling better. "TV?" she suggested. And not long after that, "Dinner?"

By the next day, Sunday, Mimi was even better — physically. But her mind didn't seem to be working too well. She kept talking about her things at home, about giving them away, as she'd given Mallory the bird. Only she was

subtler than that now. On Sunday afternoon, she said, "My Claudia, I would like please to move plants to room. You room."

"Plants?"

"My plants."

"Oh, at home?"

"Yes. Put in room."

"I'll remember to water them," I assured her. "I don't have to move them."

"No. Not that. You have them. Put in room."

"Okay, okay."

Later she told Janine she was afraid someone would steal her diamond earrings while she was away in the hospital. She told her to take them out of her jewelry box and put them in Janine's jewelry box. Or preferably on Janine's ears. That night, I moved the plants and Janine took the earrings.

Mom and Dad asked me to stay with Mimi the following afternoon. So I went to the hospital, even though I had to miss an art class before our club meeting. Mimi was not the funny person she'd been when she'd made the vampire joke on Saturday, nor the anxious person she'd been the day before. On Monday she was confused and cranky. She wandered into the nurses' station and complained that

the price of kitty litter was going way up. Then, back in her bed (I practically had to drag her to it), she said crossly, "Turn on TV, Claudia."

I was startled. She hadn't said, "My Claudia."

I turned it on.

"Change. Change channel. No good." It was a rerun of Wheel of Fortune, which is her favorite, but I changed it anyway.

Soon her supper arrived. (It seems like hospital patients get supper around four-thirty.)

"Mess!" said Mimi, scanning her tray. "Trash!" She actually threw a container of bright yellow pudding at the wall. (Well, I might have done the same thing. The pudding looked like a cup of melted yellow crayons.)

Luckily, a doctor came in then to do some more tests on Mimi, since they still didn't know what was wrong with her. I didn't even care that he interrupted her dinner. I was glad for the distraction.