Her Mother’s Hope

why it wasn’t her favorite anymore. Hildie told her. Mama had scraped it off and plunked it down on the table. “There. How’s that, Miss Nightingale?”

Hildie wanted to explain. “You’ve never seen people sick with food poisoning.”

Cloe glared. “As if Mama’s cooking would make anyone sick!”

Mama appeared in the doorway. “What are you two arguing about?”

“Nothing,” Hildie and Cloe said in unison.

“Well, keep nothing to yourselves!” She glared at Hildemara and went out the back door with a basket of laundry. Hildemara knew she had heard everything.

Hildie hardly spoke the rest of the time at home. She went to church with the family and sat with Elizabeth and Bernie. She walked home with Papa.

“You seem to have a lot on your mind, Hildemara.”

“Too much to talk about.”

“I know how that is.”

Mama drove Hildemara to the bus station. Hildie felt edgy with guilt. “I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean to insult your cooking or your housekeeping or-”

“I’m sorry; I’m sorry; I’m sorry.” Mama put her foot down harder on the gas pedal.

Hildemara almost said she was sorry again, but bit her lip. “Old habits are hard to break.”

Mama let up on the gas. “The world is dirty, Hildemara Rose. It’s never going to be as clean and neat as you want it to be. You’ll have to find a way to live with that.”

Hildie sat up straight, blinking back tears, staring out the window as the vineyards and orchards flew by. She sat within two feet of her mother and felt a million miles between them.

Mama parked behind the bus station. She kept her hands on the steering wheel, the car idling roughly. “Will you be home for Easter?”

“Would you like me to come home?”

“What do you think?”

Hildie thought Mama would like it a whole lot better if she stayed in Oakland.

30

Now that probation had ended, Hildemara had moved upstairs to the higher realms of student quarters. Her new accommodations consisted of two rooms sleeping four each and divided by a bathroom with one toilet, one basin, and one bathtub. “Paradise!” She hardly had time to get to know her new roommates. Another washed out after a month, packing and disappearing quietly after a night shift.

Weeks passed in a flurry of eight-hour duty shifts, doctors’ lectures, classes, and examinations. When Hildie came down with a sore throat, Mrs. Kaufman checked her into the hospital for a tonsillectomy. It gave Hildie the excuse she needed not to go home for Easter.

Once back on her feet, she was assigned to work with Mrs. Jones on the general ward. “She’s a warhorse,” Boots told her. “Old as Methuselah. Served in the Great War and probably knows more about medicine than half the doctors in this hospital, but I’m warning you: Jones will expect you to be busy all the time. When you finish your duties, look for something to do to help out or she’ll skin, skewer, roast, and eat you alive for breakfast. Or lunch. Whichever comes sooner!”

Hildie found backs to rub, pillows to fluff, bedpans to scrub, cupboards to clean, linen cabinets to straighten.

A new patient arrived and pressed his buzzer within minutes. Hildie went running. He waved his hand frantically. “A bowl.” She held it for him while he coughed violently and gagged, spitting into it. He collapsed back. “I’m so tired of this cough.” He wheezed, his face white. Hildie made a notation on Mr. Douglas’s chart.

Another patient buzzed and Hildemara helped him with a bedpan. As she carried it to the utility room, Jones appeared. “Let me see that.” Shocked, Hildemara handed over the bedpan, wondering why anyone would want to look at such an oozing mess. If that wasn’t surprising enough, Jones lifted it and took a whiff. “Smells like typhoid to me.” She looked grim. “We’re sending a sample of this to the lab.”

“Don’t we have to have a doctor’s order?”

“He’s away right now, isn’t he? I’ll fill out the lab slip. We’ll get it down before he can make a fuss.” She took the sample to the lab herself.

The doctor stormed onto the ward and asked who she thought she was to fill out lab slips and give orders. She wasn’t a doctor, was she? Jones waited for his tirade to wind down before handing him the lab report. His face reddened. Without an apology, he handed them back. “He’ll have to be quarantined.”

“It’s already taken care of, Doctor.”

He stormed off the ward.

Boots laughed when Hildie told her about it. “She’s gone horn-to-horn with more than one doctor. She can’t abide fools, no matter how well educated. If she sees a hint of blood or pus, she’s on it. And thank God she is. Have you ever seen a doctor hang around to look in a bedpan? Ha! That’ll be the day!”

Mr. Douglas buzzed again the next morning just as Hildie came on duty. Hunched over, wracked with pain, he coughed. Exhausted, he could barely spit into the bowl she held for him. She rubbed his back and said comforting words. Jones stood in the doorway. As he flopped back in bed, gasping, she drew the curtain around the bed. She didn’t have to ask this time. Hildemara held out the bowl. Jones barely glanced at it. “How long have you had this cough, Mr. Douglas?”

“Couple of months, I guess. Can’t remember…” He panted.

“Too long. I can tell you that much,” his roommate grumbled. “Keeps me awake all night coughing.”

“Sorry about that.” Mr. Douglas started to cough again.

“Can’t you do something for him?” his roommate called out.

Jones edged Hildemara back from the bed and took her place. She put her hand against his back. When he finished coughing, she let him spit into the bowl again. “Try to rest. We’re going to move you to a private room.”

Hildemara wiped Mr. Douglas’s forehead while Jones read the chart hanging on the end of the bed. She put it back, eyes bright with anger. She hid her emotions quickly and patted Mr. Douglas’s foot. Motioning Hildemara away, she closed the door behind them as they left. “If that’s bronchitis, I’ll eat my nursing cap!”

“What do you think he has?”

“Full-blown tuberculosis.”

The next morning, another doctor appeared, livid and ready for her blood. “I hear you quarantined my patient.”

“I’m protecting my patients and nurses from contagion.”

“Can you read a chart, Mrs. Jones?” He thrust it in her face. “Can you read bron-chi- tis?”

“If Mr. Douglas has bronchitis, no one will be happier than I. But until I see his test results, I’m taking precautions.”

“You’ve overstepped your authority, and I intend to have you fired!”

His white jacket flapped as he headed down the hall. Jones turned calmly to Hildie and the two other nurses hovering at the station. “All contagion safety measures stand until such time as Mr. Douglas is removed from our ward or I’m proven wrong. Is that clear, ladies?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jones went about her business without so much as a wrinkle on her brow.

Mr. Douglas disappeared from the ward a few days later.

* * *

Tension mounted and tempers flared among the roommates. “You have a dresser, Patrice. Use it!”

“My tennis racket won’t fit.”