Love Letters from Ladybug Farm (18 page)

“They say it’s routine,” Lindsay explained to Bridget. “The surgery should only take an hour and a half. She might be able to go home in five or six days. But she’ll be on crutches for the rest of the summer.”

“Thank God,” Bridget said, her shoulders sagging with relief, “that it wasn’t more serious. Of course”—her gaze went to Cici, immersed in forms at the nurses’ station—“nothing is routine when it’s your baby going under the knife.”

“They call it ‘pedestrian versus scooter,’ ” Cici informed them when she returned. And although her face was still tight and her eyes anxious, her expression was wry as she sank down into a hard plastic chair. “Apparently she was texting and walking, and she walked right out in front of an oncoming motor scooter. Can you believe that?”

Both Bridget and Lindsay winced. “She is so lucky,” Lindsay said.

“It could have been so much worse,” Bridget agreed.

Cici nodded. “It happened on campus, where the speed limits are low. Still...” She trailed off with a subdued shudder.

“Pedestrian versus moving vehicle,” observed Lindsay, “never turns out well for the pedestrian.”

Bridget called home with the report, and Cici called Lori’s father in California. He did not answer, of course, so she left a message. Lindsay brought up the first round of coffee from the cafeteria, and they settled down to wait.

“Hospitals,” Cici said, sliding down in her chair so that her head rested against the back. She cradled the coffee cup against her chest, warming her hands. “They all smell the same.”

“You’d think someone would invent something for that,” Bridget said.

“Like that hotel scent,” offered Lindsay. “Hotels all smell the same, too—or at least the high-priced ones do. Why can’t hospitals smell like that?”

Bridget wrinkled her nose. “Then no one would ever want to stay in a hotel, because it would smell like a hospital.”

“Funny how that smell triggers such vivid memories,” Cici said.

They were silent for a moment, each of them revisiting their own unhappy memories of hospital corridors, hospital beds, hospital smells.

Then Bridget smiled softly. “Not all the memories are bad. Sometimes being in a hospital reminds me of my babies.”

“Yeah,” Cici agreed. “When Lori was born, being in the hospital for three days was the first vacation I’d had in five years. Lying in bed all day watching soap operas, twenty-four-hour room service, three thousand calories a day ... I begged the doctor to let me stay over the weekend, but he wouldn’t sign off on it.”

“I don’t know,” Lindsay said. “I think there’s something wrong with a society that makes women give birth in the middle of its most disease-infested population, like having a baby is such a high-risk behavior that mother and child have to be isolated from the healthy people.”

“That’s why they send women home the next day now,” Bridget said.

“Unless of course it’s more convenient for the doctor to slice the mother open to take the baby out.”

Cici said uneasily, “Please, less said about slicing open?”

“Sorry Cici.” Lindsay reached across and squeezed her hand.

Bridget smiled and patted Cici’s knee. “Routine surgery,” she assured her.

Cici managed a faint, but grateful, smile.

Half an hour passed. They watched the minute hand on the clock.

Bridget said, “When I called home, Noah was mowing the grass. Ida Mae said he had already finished the back and had the front half done.”

Lindsay smiled. “He is a good kid.”

“I love the way the air smells right after the grass is mowed,” Cici said. “Especially in the evening, when the dew starts to fall.”

“I don’t love the gnats though,” Bridget said.

“They’ll be gone by tomorrow afternoon.”

“I hope Noah ate some supper,” Cici said.

Bridget made a move to rise from her chair. “Do you want me to go down to the cafeteria and bring up some sandwiches?”

Cici shook her head, sipping her coffee. “I was just thinking about the way the kitchen smells at suppertime. I like Ida Mae’s meatloaf.”

“Especially when she makes apple pie with it,” Lindsay said.

“And remembers to peel the apples,” said Bridget.

“Either way, the kitchen smells wonderful.”

Cici sighed wearily and closed her eyes, resting her head against the back of the chair. “I hate this place,” she said.

Bridget and Lindsay sipped their coffee, and didn’t say anything else at all.

The surgeon came into the waiting room precisely on schedule and reported that all had gone well, just as he had expected. Lori was in Recovery, and would be taken to her room in an hour, at which time they could see her. While Cici bombarded the doctor with questions, Bridget stepped aside to make telephone calls, and Lindsay went to the nurses’ desk to make certain that Lori’s room included a cot for her mother, and two comfortable chairs for those who would be staying by her side. When the nurse informed her that visiting hours were over at eight p.m., Lindsay just smiled and thanked her for the information. She then reminded her, firmly but pleasantly, to make certain the cot and the chairs were set up by the time Lori was brought to her room.

Bridget persuaded Cici to have something to eat while they waited to see Lori, and the three of them went down to the cafeteria. The decor was orange and beige stripes, the tables and chairs were antimicrobial plastic, and the whole place smelled like cooked cabbage. Cici pushed around a salad and nibbled on crackers, and Bridget and Lindsay shared a tuna salad sandwich and a bag of potato chips. The tuna was oddly tasteless, no doubt due to fat-free mayonnaise and low-sodium seasoning, so they bought an extra bag of chips.

Bridget said, “We’ll get you settled into a hotel first thing in the morning. I’ll go down and talk to the auxiliary ladies about which ones they recommend as soon as we see Lori. I packed three changes of clothes for you, but it’s no problem to go home and get more.”

Cici said, “You guys don’t have to stay over.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lindsay replied.

“I’m not driving back tonight,” Bridget insisted. “You know I can hardly see in the dark. I brought our toothbrushes,” she told Lindsay.

“But we’ve got Catherine and the crowd coming this weekend,” Cici remembered suddenly. She sank back in her chair in despair. “I don’t know if I can be there. How can I leave Lori? And that stupid brochure, and all the cleaning and painting and cooking...”

“We can handle it.” Lindsay opened the second bag of chips and poured a measure onto Cici’s plate. “I’ll get Noah to help me with the brochure. And you’ve already done the hard part. They’ll just have to use their imaginations about the paint that needs to be freshened.”

“Ida Mae can help me with the cooking,” Bridget said. “I have the recipes; all she has to do is follow them.”

Cici picked up a potato chip, looking uncertain. “Are you sure?”

“Ida Mae is a good cook,” Bridget said firmly.

“Who sometimes forgets to wash the vegetables,” Cici worried.

“She won’t this time. She knows how important this is to us.”

“Say!” Suddenly Lindsay beamed a smile. “I just realized—with a broken leg, Lori won’t be going back to the dorm. And she’s going to get awfully bored just sitting around at home with nothing to do ...”

“So, blogging and researching local food sources will definitely help her pass the days,” Bridget volunteered, with a smile in her voice.

“Not to mention cutting fabric and putting together centerpieces and about a thousand other things none of us knew where we were going to find the time to do,” Lindsay said, pleased. “There, you see? Every cloud has a silver lining.”

Cici suddenly pressed her hand to her mouth and burst into tears.

“Oh, honey! We’re sorry!” Lindsay and Bridget swooped in on her, their arms around her shoulders, their hands petting, their voices comforting and contrite. “We didn’t mean it. Sweetie, it’s okay. We didn’t mean to make light of this. Lori is our princess, you know that, we’ll wait on her hand and foot...”

“No, no ...” Cici choked on a sound that was part sob, part laughter. “It’s just that ... I’m so lucky. When I think about how this might have ended—I’m so lucky.” She extended her arms and drew them into her, heads on her shoulders, hands entwined. “And I love you guys so much!”

Lori was pale-faced and groggy when the three of them tiptoed into her room. The bruise that had closed her left eye was rainbow colored, and her right leg was elevated on several pillows and encased in plaster from ankle to knee. She murmured, “Hi, everybody. Where’s the goat?”

Bridget smiled as she bent over her, smoothing back her hair. “We decided to leave her home this trip.”

Lindsay added, “It’s the drugs.”

Cici pulled a chair close to the bed and took her daughter’s hand. “How’re you feeling, sweetie?”

“Like I’m going to throw up.”

Lindsay discreetly placed a small blue basin on the pillow next to her. “Do you want some ginger ale?”

“Okay,” Lori whispered, and closed her eyes. Within seconds she was asleep.

Cici smiled at Lindsay. “Maybe not.”

The next time Lori woke she seemed a little more coherent. “How bad is it?” she croaked, as Cici fed her ice chips from a spoon and Bridget gently blotted her forehead with a damp cloth.

“You’re going to be fine,” Cici assured her. “Just a tiny broken bone in your leg. The doctors put a pin in—”

“So, be careful going through airport security.” Lindsay smiled.

“No, no,” Lori said miserably, and her hand fluttered to her bruised eye. “My face. How bad is my face?”

The three women shared a look that spoke volumes about the values of twenty-one-year-old women, and Cici assured her daughter that, with a little pancake makeup, she could still win the Miss America pageant if she chose to. And, safe in that knowledge, Lori fell once again into a deep and untroubled sleep.

Lindsay and Bridget retreated to their chairs with the magazines they had bought in the gift shop, and Cici fell asleep holding Lori’s hand. At two in the morning, Lindsay gently extricated Cici’s hand from Lori’s and replaced it with her own while Bridget guided Cici to the cot on the other side of the room and covered her with a blanket. At six a.m. Bridget took Lindsay’s place while Lindsay went down for coffee, and when she returned Bridget was spooning ice chips to a fretful Lori and Cici was demanding that the nurse give her daughter something for the pain now, not in twenty minutes as scheduled.

The following hours were spent proving that it requires at least three family members, two orderlies, a physical therapist, a nutritionist, an orthopedic resident, three interns, and the full-time attention of the entire nursing staff to properly see to the needs of one temporarily indisposed college student. Cici engaged in long question-and-answer sessions with the medical professionals while Bridget and Lindsay supervised Lori’s interaction with the staff and made certain her personal needs were attended to.

They called Lori’s roommate and asked her to pack a bag with some of the essentials—pajamas, toiletries, makeup, iPod—and left messages for her professors. They made a reservation for Cici at a nearby motel. When Lori only grimaced at her lunch tray, Bridget volunteered to go out and get her a hamburger. She only ate a bite or two of the hamburger, but finished all of the strawberry milkshake, which made Cici happy, and which they all agreed was proof positive that she was well on the road to recovery.

While Lori napped, the three of them made a quick trip to the orange-striped cafeteria for rubbery grilled cheese sandwiches and Cokes. “This place is exhausting,” Bridget said, sinking down into her chair. Her makeup, like that of the other two ladies, had long since worn away, leaving her face colorless and puckered, with bruised spots under her eyes and wrinkled lips. Her hair, pulled back from her face in a short, flat ponytail, looked more gray than platinum. She peeled open a corner of her sandwich. “And I don’t think there is a real food product in this entire building.”