Chapter Five-Aidan's Quest

Chapter 5
Margo

     
Chapter 5
Margo

  “I can’t believe that guy, Margo.  You shoulda seen him.  Sat through the whole date playin’ with his steak knife while he talked about his ex-wife.  You tell Mr. Wade, the next time he tries to set me up with some pathetic loser, he needs to do a criminal check first.  I wanna know if he’s a divorce or a widower. I’m like tryin’ to talk about myself and the jerk kept interrupting me to talk about her.  I couldn’t get out of the restaurant fast enough.  Kept lookin’ back to make sure he wasn’t following me.  Annie was interrupted by the phone in the nurses station.  She was the closest to the phone.

    “B-Wing Nurses station.”  Annie, gum still in her mouth from before her litany about the blind date, resumed smacking while she covered the mouthpiece with her free hand.

    “Margo, Mr. Wade is on the phone.  I’ll transfer him to the lounge.”

    Margo was in the nurse’s station updating some charts and listening to Annie, one of the more colorful nurses on the rehab wing, talk about her latest blind date.  She hated to miss the juicy details but she was also hoping to eat lunch with Aidan and show him off to some of the residents.  “Thanks, Annie, I’ll be right there.  Tell him how that date went.  He’s dying to know.”  The nursing home was like a very small town.  Gossip was rampant among the staff and the more talkative residents, especially Mrs. Riseman.  Margo was just updating her file when Mr. Wade called. 

  “How are you boys doing? You want to meet me for lunch? I’ll be done with my last morning session at 11:30. I should be done by 12:30” 

    After an odd pause, Mr. Wade finally responded.  “Do you think you can take over for thirty minutes?  I have an important phone call to make and little ears don’t need to hear it.  Can I meet you in the cafeteria when you get done with your meeting?  We’re actually heading toward the cafeteria now so Aidan can pick Mr. Kelly’s brain for a while.  You know how the old man likes to talk.  You just look for the overalls and you’ll find us. 

  “No problem, is everything okay?  You sound shell-shocked.  You sure you don’t need to get checked out by the nurses?

    “What, and let that blabbermouth, Annie, spread rumors that I’m on my deathbed already.  No telling how many ears would be tickled when she got through. No, I’m fine.  Just some business I need to take care of.  Thanks for understanding, Hon.  I hate to skip out on you the first day but it should only take about 30 minutes and I promise I will return before your lunch break is over.  Oh, and tell Annie I’m awful sorry about Eddie.  Lapse of judgment, I guess.  He didn’t mention he was still so bitter about Louise.  Thought that marriage was over a long time ago, in spirit anyway.  Reckon I was wrong. 

    “Reckon? Do me a favor.  Don’t set me up with any of your psychopathic buddies, okay.  I don’t need any more drama in my life.  Speaking of which.  You still buddies with Mrs. Riseman?  I heard gossip that you two were sweet on each other. 

    “From who?  Annie?  You know better than to believe that one.  Heck, I figured she and Eddie deserved each other.  And no, for the second time today, I am not sweet on Mrs. Riseman.  Do you and Aidan spent your nights gossiping about me too? 

    “Why ever would you say that, old man?”  Margo took enormous pleasure in their banter, to the point that she actually spent time thinking of jabs she could throw out to him, not that she remembered them when the time came.  He usually got the better of her in an argument because it was not her life’s goal to always win an argument.  She aimed to try, though, just to keep his big head from expanding any larger than it was already.  He was a legend in his own mind.  “So, I’ll meet you at 12:30 in the cafeteria, right.” 

    Sounding distracted again, Mr. Wade answered in the affirmative and hung up without  saying goodbye.  He was known for his calm manner, even in the midst of crisis, but not today.  Maybe it was the added responsibility of having a boy tag along.  She was afraid Aidan had been talking nonstop and Mr. Wade was just looking for an excuse to get a moment of peace and quiet.  She didn’t blame him, really.  She loved her son dearly but when he got on a subject that fascinated him, he could literally talk nonstop for an hour with barely a breath between sentences.  She hoped he could handle this arrangement.

    It was almost eleven.  Margo had to do a psychosocial evaluation on a resident who was ready to return to her home from cardiac rehab in the nursing home.  This was a benefit of living on the “campus”.  Rather than going to a hospital, they can spend a few months at the nursing home to get their strength back after a heart attack or stroke while not losing their own homes.  She gathered Mrs. Riseman’s chart and headed to her room. 

    Margo stood at the nurses station long enough to flip through Mrs. Riseman’s chart.  Annie found her and filled her in on Mrs. Riseman’s progress.  You think she’ll pass your test? 

    “Don’t really know her well enough to say.  I know her reputation, though.  You two are a bit alike, don’t you think? 

    “Oh, shut up, Margo.  God, you can be so judgmental sometimes.” She jabbed Margo in the shoulder but flashed a big grin to signal she was just kidding. 

      You’ll love her, Margo, she’s a hoot.  Course, you might be right.  We just might be two peas in a pod.”  No, I was just askin’ because she’s doin’ good, healthwise.  You’re the only one standin’ in her way to goin’ back home.  No pressure or anything.  Right?  Look, do me a favor, will ya? Pass her on so she can quit competing with me on who’s got the best gossip.  Drives me nuts when all the old folks hang out in the hall takin’ turns seein; her like she’s a holdin’ court.  What am I, chopped liver?  I’m the one they crowned Ms. Gossip Queen three years in a row.  It’s up to you, kiddo.  Send her back to the street of denial and get her off my wing, ya hear.”  Annie got really close and cupped her hands around her mouth.  “’sides, I hear she talks to dead people.” 

    “You’re not helping me make a decision to send her home, ya know.  I’m going to forget you said that and chalk it up to you bein’ a natural born storyteller.  You tell anyone else and the deal’s off, girlfriend.”

    Annie whispered “mums the word, hon.  They won’t hear it from me.”  She whispered something else Margo thought sounded like “but I ain’t the only one knows it.”

    Margo’s shoulders jumped with a silent chuckle.  She thought of Mrs. Riseman’s little bungalow in the neighborhood laughingly known as the “Street of Denial” or officially speaking, the minimal assistance cottages.  These folks thought they were still 50 and couldn’t admit the next step was the nursing home.  They lived in mortal fear of a broken hip, or even a sprained ankle.  Rumor was that if you get injured in the 80’s or 90’s, it was downhill from there.  Margo’s evaluation was one of the steps they had to take to get out of the nursing home if they were there for rehabilitation only.  She was looking forward to meeting this eccentric old lady. 

    Walking toward Ms. Riseman’s room, Margo noticed the sign along the hall that said Cardiac Rehabilitation Unit.  The “rehab only” residents, like Mrs. Riseman, were an elitist clique who insisted daily that they were not like those drooling old bags of bones pacing over the grave.  The regular residents lived in utter jealousy of the coveted designation of “rehab only” residents.  Sometimes, both categories of residents reminded Margo of a kindergarten class.  They changed friends like they changed clothes, they told on each other, and they did not hesitate to bend the rules when the nurses weren’t looking.  She figured Mrs. Riseman was no different but Margo was looking forward to meeting her anyway.  Short of a major emotional crisis, she had no reason to hold her longer than nurses’ discharge date.

      “Hello, you must be Margo.  You going to tell them I am crazy?  If you do, you going to have to see my ugly face every day.  You think twice about telling them I am a fruitcake? 

    “Hello, Mrs. Riseman, are you ready to get home?  Ms. Riseman had long black hair, but today, she had it pulled up and tied with a loud scarf;  purple and gold shapes springing out from the delicately wrapped bun.  Margo wondered if Mrs. Riseman knew her head looked like a present waiting to be opened.  The irony did not escape Margo’s cynical mind.

    “Da, I am ready to get back to my cats.  I worry about them.  The neighbor says he is feeding them but I don’t think he likes my cats too much.  What you need to ask me? I have been rude.  Would you like some vater.  I wish I could make you tea and give you proper cookies but as you see, these rooms are not furnished with a stove.  Another thing I am missing right now.  Go ahead, test my brain.  I am ready.”

    Margo planned to do a standard mental status exam and a few other screening tools for common mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, or general worries about their health.  The psychologist will do a more thorough evaluation if there are enough indications the person has a diagnosable mental illness.  “Who will be checking in on you when you get home?  Do you have someone or do you need us to send someone out for the first few days at home?” 

    “My grandson’s friend is coming down from Tennessee to visit me for the first few days.”

    “I didn’t know you had a grandson.  What’s his name?” 

    “He died years ago.  I cannot talk of him without weeping.  Such a sad loss.  You must go ahead and do your tests on me.  I do not wish to talk of him right now for fear you will think me an idiot and keep me here in this place.”  She blew her nose on a tissue in her room.  “I am ready now.  You can finish.”  She leaned back on her bed and closed her eyes as if she were in a psychiatrists office, the old fashioned kind complete with the reclining couch.

    “Mrs. Riseman, I’m not a psychiatrist.  I just want to ask some basic screening questions to see if you need a more thorough evaluation.  Studies show that a person with a previous heart attack might become depressed and medication for this could prevent depression and reduce the chance of another heart attack.  That is the only reason I have to ask you questions.  Have you ever been diagnosed with depression? 

    “No, I never been called depressed before.  Just when my grandson die, but that was okay, I think, to be sad.  Right?

    “Yes ma’am, that’s normal.  Anyone in your family ever diagnosed with depression or anyone every ended their life? 

    “You mean kill themselves.  Maybe.  I think maybe.  You hear what they say about me here? 

    “Well, only that you know everyone.  I’m not sure I believe the rest, seein’ as how gossip gets around this place.  What do you think they say about you? “

    “I don’t think, I know.  They say I talk to the dead.  You hear that?  Oh, don’t answer that, you talk to Annie, you know already.  She your friend, right.  She no like me, you know.  Say I scare her.  Told her a departed man say she don’t need to go out wit dat man she dated last night. He tell me this man, he’s bad, you know.  So, I felt I should tell her.  I ask her last night before her shift was ending, who was it close to you that died?  She say, her grandfather.  I say, must have been him.  He say don’t go wit dat man so I tell her.  She looked at me crazy like and said that old bastard needed to mind his own business, she could date who she liked and he was too dead to stop her. 

    “What did she say to that? Margo enjoyed getting the residents in conversations to make sure they could follow the conversation.  Eerie as this subject was, Mrs. Riseman seemed as mentally competent as she was before the heart attack. 

    “I tell her, yes she a grown woman, can date who she please.  But I say too, she don’t need say mean things to ghost men, they don’t like dat.  She just say, fine, believe what you will.  I don’t buy your hocus pocus.  You go wid dat boy but don’t you go home wit him and don’t you go to his house.  I tell you, your old man ghost warn you.  Heed my words, miss, you best stop.  But your friend, she no listen to me.  She went anyway, and I hear it was not what she expected.  I tell her this last night but she no listening.  Tell me, did she go?  You tell her come back before I leave.  I do a reading for her.  Maybe she let me.  I can do for you too. 

    “Well, maybe after you get out.  My boss would kill me for letting you give me a reading while on duty.  Maybe when you get home, okay. “ Margo did actually want to ask her a few things but not there and not that day.  She had a lunch date with her son and Mr. Wade had a phone call to make.  Anyway, they talked so long she still had a few more questions to ask.  . 

    “Mrs. Riseman, it’s time for your tray to come.  I have to see more people but I will come back this afternoon.  Will that be okay? I promise I won’t ask you to share your entire past with me.  In fact, you will find my questions as easy as telling me today’s date, who the president is, and what are the names of your immediate family. Now, that’s not so bad, right?” 

    “You got a little one, right?  Is he a good boy?”

    “Yes ma’am, he is.  I will have to bring him by to see you soon.  He loves talking to people.  Do you mind me asking what country you are from?  You have a very distinct accent.”  Margo didn’t want to pry but found the residents opened up when she asked them about the traits that made them special, wars they fought, hobbies, or grandchildren.  Like most people, they also enjoyed talking about themselves. 

    “If you have to know, I am from a little town just outside the Russian border but I spent my early years in Western Russia, what is now the Ukraine. We moved to the US when I was twenty and I had my family here.” 

    Margo was finally getting something out of Mrs. Riseman when she saw the clock beside the door to her room.  I hate to cut you off but I really do see the lunch trays.  I will see you this afternoon.  Enjoy your lunch.” 

    “You too, hon.  Say hi to Mr. Wade and that boy of yours.  He sure is a handsome boy.  Mr. Wade brought him by today, he is very curious boy.  He reminded me of my grandson.  Don’t know why I was thinking of him but I see your boy and poof, I think of dat boy when he was young.  They favor, you know?  Well, never mind this old woman, I be here when you return and we talk.  You have fun at lunch, okay?  Oh, and watch out for Mr. Wade.  He set you up with blind date too.  It’s okay but not Annie’s boy.  You stay away from dat one.  No, you get one but not so blind. You meet him soon.  You just wait.  I’m not crazy old bat, you know.  You tell that boy, keep coming back with Mr. Wade, he learn much from the old fool.  You’ll see. 
wait.  I’m not crazy old bat, you know. You tell that boy, keep coming back with Mr. Wade, he learn much from the old fool.”

    "I know.  I'm lucky to have him.  I think Aidan will learn a lot this summer." Margo was trying to end this line of discussion as she was starting to feel her neck hairs stand on end.  She started to head toward the door to the hall. 

    "Now go, you be late for your boy’s lunch.  Tell Mr. Wade I want to see him tonight, by himself.  I have something to tell him.  I see you soon.” Mrs. Riseman waved goodbye slowly, as if her joints were aching.  Margo left her pen and turned around to fetch it.  Mrs. Riseman was dialing her cell phone quick as a nimble teenage girl.  Margo just turned back around, and kept walking toward the nurse’s station, not wanting to disturb Mrs. Riseman’s urgent call.  Noticing something out of place, she lingered just outside the room, pretending to tie her shoelace.  That was it, Mrs. Riseman.  She strained to hear more clearly.  Margo listened to Mrs. Riseman and realized she was now speaking in a clear American accent, devoid of Yiddish undertones. 


SWPoet
6-17-08    (2969 wds)