On Hummingbird Wings Read online

  With a bowl of chicken noodle soup heating in the microwave, she filled the under-the-sink pitcher with water and started watering the geraniums. When the water drained through the dry pots without pausing, she brought the plants to the sink. She put in the plug and after setting the temperature to lukewarm, set the three pots in the sink and gave them a good drenching. Upon closer inspection, the stalks still had a little bit of green to them. As did the violets on the north windowsill in the living room. She moved them to the other side of the deep two-sectioned sink to soak.

  For crying out loud, how long does it take Allie to get here? Surely she didn’t take Sherrilyn out for lunch first. But knowing the time, of course she did. The girl couldn’t go back to school without being fed.

  The microwave beeped, so she dug a spoon out of the drawer and after dividing the soup into two bowls—from the same yellow set she remembered as a child—carried one bowl and spoon down the hall. She stopped at the table to retrieve a napkin from the yellow holder that had sat in the middle of the table ever since she could remember. Back in the bedroom that desperately needed airing, she set the bowl down and pulled the cord to open the drapes. While the horizontal blinds kept out the direct sun, at least she could see to feed her mother.

  “Mother, I’ve brought you some soup.”

  No response.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed and shook her mother’s shoulder.

  A grimace but at least a response.

  “Open your eyes and I’ll help you sit up.”

  Mother shook her head, slowly. “I can’t.”

  “I understand that, so I am going to help you. I’ll help pull you up and put the pillows behind you.”

  “No.” Even two letters trailed off.

  Leave her and let her be came from one side of Gillian’s mind and just do it from the other. She gritted her teeth. She had been called to help and help she would. No matter if her mother wanted it or not. She would not be intimidated like her wimpy sister. Forcing a note of cheer into her voice, Gillian stood and leaned over the bed to pick up the other pillow.

  “All right now, I’m going to put an arm around you to lift your head and add the pillow. Then we’ll get you sitting up comfortably.” In spite of her mother’s shaking head, Gillian did exactly as she had explained. Although lifting someone who didn’t want to move into a sitting position took more strength and determination than she had expected. But her mother was now halfway sitting against the pillows. At least she’d be able to swallow the soup without choking.

  “There, how’s that?” Gillian picked up the bowl and spoon. “Remember when you used to do this for us when we got sick?” She scooped out liquid and held the spoon to her mother’s mouth. To her surprise, Mother did open her mouth and swallow the soup. “There, very good.” You sound like you’re talking to a baby. This is your mother, remember?

  Without opening her eyes, Dorothy ate half the bowl before shaking her head and resisting the spoon against her mouth.

  “Okay, we’ll stop for now. Would you like coffee or tea?” She gently wiped her mother’s mouth with the napkin. Waiting for an answer tugged at the end of her patience. “Mother, coffee or tea? Or if you have juice in the cupboard, I’ll bring that. You have to get some liquids into you.”

  Faded blue eyes peered out of half-opened lids, but the face bore no appearances of a stroke. Not that Gillian knew a lot about strokes, but surely the damage would be visible if her mother were really dying from it. A bath was needed, her nose told her that much. The thought of giving her mother a sponge bath made her want to sigh again. And head for the rental car and the airport.

  “Gillian?” Allie’s voice came from the front door. “What happened here?”

  “In the bedroom.” Keep this light and easy. Do not jump on her with both feet—both spiked heels feet—yet. Her mind heard the warnings, but the rest of her fought going along with it. “Allie’s here.” Bright and breezy. Maybe she should have been on the stage instead of in the boardroom.

  Her mother’s jaw went slack as Gillian watched. In an instant, Dorothy Mae Ormsby was sound asleep again.

  “What happened to the door?”

  “What ever happened to ‘hello, good to see you, thank you for coming’?”

  “Don’t get testy with me; I’ve had a hard morning.” Allie set her leather hobo bag on the dresser by the doorway. “Now, what happened to the front door and why is there glass all over the floor?”

  “There is not glass all over. It’s already been swept up. Since the key did not work and I had to use the facilities and you were not here yet, I hit the glass with a brick and let myself in. Had you replaced the key when you replaced the lock on the door, none of this would have happened.” Gillian stood, wishing for her heels so she could be taller and more imposing, and crossed her arms over her chest. She ignored Allie’s sputtering and continued. “And if you had taken the time to come more often, perhaps things would not be in such bad shape.” She didn’t say, “including Mother,” but she sure thought it loud.

  “Now, I think we should adjourn to the kitchen. Mother has just finished half a bowl of soup and is resting.” She marched forward and out the door. Again wishing for her shoes but wisely not trying to cram her wounded toes back into the fashionably pointy leather, she headed for the kitchen. Even if her mother did not want a cup of coffee, Gillian most certainly did.

  “You got her to eat?”

  “Yes, I fed her.” Gillian opened the cupboard and found the can of coffee right where it had always sat, second shelf on the left. She shook the red plastic container. “How long has this been here?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You said you do all her shopping.” Gillian located the coffeepot in the tall closet beside the stove. The same percolator even. “Couldn’t you buy her a decent coffeemaker?”

  “She didn’t want one.”

  Gillian thought back. “I sent her one for Christmas two years ago.”

  “It’s in the closet of the guest room. Along with most of the other things we’ve all given her. She’s keeping them nice.” Allie clipped her words.

  Gillian turned around to recognize daggers flying at her. She heaved another one of those sighs she so deplored. “All right. That’s enough. We’re not getting anywhere sniping at each other.” Talk about falling right back into old patterns. This was classic Gillian versus Allie. “I suggest that I pour us each a cup of coffee and we sit down at that table and discuss what we would like to accomplish here.”

  “I’ll fix myself some iced tea. I hate that kind of coffee.” Allie reached into the tall pantry cupboard and brought out a jar of peach-flavored instant tea mix.

  “Mother drinks that?”

  “At times, but mostly I keep this here for me. Her coffee is far too strong.” As Allie went about making her iced tea, Gillian filled the white ceramic coffeepot with water to the eight cup line, poured the grounds in the basket, and with all the innards assembled, set the pot on the burner. Later she’d retrieve that new coffeemaker from the guest closet and set it up. Her stomach rumbled at the fragrance of the coffee. She should finish that soup.

  “Have you eaten?” Gillian asked.

  “Yes, Sherrilyn and I stopped for lunch.” Allie glanced at her sister’s face. “Well, I couldn’t let her go back to school hungry. Her lunch period had already passed.”

  “I’m sure.” Gillian set her bowl of soup in the microwave. While it heated she put the dish she’d served to her mother into the fridge. The lack of supplies caught her attention. “I thought you said there was plenty of food here.”

  “There is. Both canned and frozen. I didn’t want things to go to waste. You know how Mother hates that.” She sipped from her glass, her gaze flitting from her sister to the backyard and to the drink between her hands.

  The microwave beeped, and Gillian retrieved the hot soup with potholders and set it on the table. The coffee was beginning to perk, sending the aroma to tease her nose
. The coffeemaker would have finished brewing long before now. She sat down at the table.

  “Why are you shaking your head?”

  “The coffee thing. I try to make life easier for her, and she stuffs the gifts into the closet.” Spooning her soup, she waited for her sister to say something.

  “You could have let me know you were coming.”

  “Oh, Allie. By the time I hit the airport, it was three a.m. here. I spent the evening trying to get flights and packing. Let’s just drop it and try to figure out what to do.”

  Allie rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh of her own. “All right. Just don’t blame me for everything. Mother has a will of her own, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  So much for not sniping. “Look, I don’t have a lot of time here, so let’s make every minute count. First of all, do you know who I should call to fix the window?”

  “The people I know would charge extra for driving clear up here, so look in the phone book.”

  “All right. Do you have her primary care doctor’s phone number?”

  “All her phone numbers are in the book by the telephone. And before you call, they will not give you information because you are not listed as immediate family.”

  “Great, so how do I get listed?” The soup she’d partially eaten only made her realize she wanted something more.

  “They won’t be open over the weekend anyway.”

  “So we have to deal with this today.” Gillian glanced at her watch, glad she’d reset it on the plane. One thirty.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Go over to the clinic and get me on that list.”

  “I think you have to have Mother’s signature to do that.”

  “Good grief.” Gillian tipped her head back and closed her eyes. This was enough to drive one to cocktails. Early cocktails.

  “It’s not my fault; it’s the new privacy laws.”

  Gillian smiled around clenched teeth. “I didn’t say it was your fault. We are two fairly intelligent women; surely we can come to some kind of agreement on how to get help for our mother.”

  “She doesn’t want help.”

  Gillian placed her hands flat on the table, fingers spread. “So, according to you we just leave her here to die?”

  “Yes…no.” Big sigh. “I don’t know.” Allie’s head wagged from side to side.

  “Okay, here’s what I see as the options. One: we leave her as is and she dies. Two: we talk to the doctor and get her opinion. Three: we call nine-one-one and have them take Mother to the hospital.”

  “His opinion.” The words were mumbled into the iced tea glass held at her lips.

  “What?” Gillian got up to pour herself a cup of coffee.

  “His opinion. Mother’s doctor is a man.”

  “Oh, for…” Man, woman, what did it matter? Stick to the point. Gillian set her cup on the counter and crossed to the wall phone with the stand right below it. Funny, why did she feel so strongly that Mother had a woman doctor, and had so for years? “His name?”

  “Isaacs. He’s with the Martinez Medical Clinic by the hospital.”

  “When did you see Mother last?” Gillian picked up her mug of coffee and returned to the table.

  “Yesterday.”

  “How long before that?”

  “I talk to her every day.” Her sister’s petulant tone showed her defenses had sprung to attention.

  “That’s not what I asked you.” Gillian kept her tone mild through fierce force of will. She stared out the glass door to the caricature of the former beauty of the backyard. Surely it hadn’t been so hot here that the plants in the pots had died overnight. “Couldn’t someone have turned the sprinklers on?”

  “We had timers installed, but Mother turned them off. Said her water bill was too high.”

  So why didn’t you pay it? Or ask me to? Things were not making sense. Gillian glanced at her watch again. “Okay, here’s what we are going to do. I will get my bag out of the car, put some shoes on, and we will go over to the doctor’s office and start the process so I can have access to Mother’s medical information. We will see if Dr. Isaacs can fit us in for a quick conference. With you there, he can talk to me.”

  “But I have to pick up the kids at two thirty.”

  “Text them and tell them you will be a bit late. Waiting won’t kill them. Tell them it’s all my fault.”

  “This is not a boardroom with you in charge.” Allie stood and took her glass to the sink, then pulled out her cell phone.

  Gillian drained her mug, opened the dishwasher door, and pulled out the rack.

  “No, you can’t put those in there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mother doesn’t like to use the dishwasher; it wastes too much power and water.”

  “I see. Does it work?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Then I will use it and pay the power bill.” So, that’s another thing we deal with—Mother’s finances. “Don’t you usually take care of her financial things?”

  Allie shook her head. “Oh, no. I offered and she about bit my head off. I’m not going there again.”

  “But has she been paying her bills?”

  “I guess so. It’s not…”

  Gillian whirled around and shook her finger at her baby sister. “Do not say that again.” She huffed a breath. “How long since she took to her bed?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “And before that?”

  Allie shrugged. She glanced down at her sister’s bare feet. “You better put on shoes before you go to the car.” She stared down. “Your toes are all swollen. What happened?”

  “I dropped a brick.”

  Allie stared at her sister. “Give me your keys. I’ll get your suitcase. And we’ll take my car.”

  “But what about Mother?” Gillian wished she could take the words back. After all, her mother had been alone all this time, what difference would a couple of hours make?

  Chapter Four

  He’ll never have time to see us.”

  Gillian swallowed the sigh this time. “Didn’t Mother teach us a verse that said something about it never hurts to ask?”

  Allie shook her head. “There were verses about asking, but that wasn’t one of them.”

  “Well, what is it then?”

  “I don’t remember exactly, but that isn’t it.”

  Gillian turned in her seat. “Do you still go to church?”

  “Of course. Don’t you?”

  She knew that was another strike against her. “Not too often. Sunday is the only day I have off.” She gazed out the window. Things sure had changed in the five years since she’d been back to Martinez. But she knew mentioning that would bring on more recriminations.

  “Surely you don’t have to work every Saturday.”

  “If I want to achieve my goals, long hours are part of the package.”

  “You and Jefferson.” This was muttered under her breath.

  “I thought he played a lot of golf.”

  “Well, he needs some form of relaxation from the pressure cooker where he works.”

  That sounded like a direct quote. What was wrong with relaxing at home? But she knew the excuse most men used. Golfing was also a good place to make contacts and conduct business in a more informal setting. She’d tried golfing but found the same criteria didn’t always work for women. The men didn’t want to golf with a woman, and there weren’t too many women in her sphere of equals. Not that she’d thought much of a game where one hit a little white ball with a club and then hoped it fell into a hole in the grass.

  “Can’t relax with his family, eh?” She knew that was throwing down the gauntlet, but some demon inside slipped it into the conversation.

  “You just don’t know what life with two active teenagers is like. Jefferson is a good father and a great provider. You…” She sputtered as she turned into the clinic parking lot.

  Gillian noticed her sister had not said what a great husband mister perfect J
efferson was. And yet, since his wife was driving a Lexus SUV he certainly was doing well, or was heavily in debt. The peril of going into debt was one thing that her mother had drilled into both girls, and it had stuck with Gillian. But then she didn’t have to consult with a husband as to what to buy and when.

  Don’t go there, Gillian, the sweeter of the two internal voices whispered. “Is it always this crowded?”

  “Yes, Martinez has grown a lot in the last years. Like everywhere else in the Bay Area.” Allie expertly jockeyed the big vehicle into a parking place just vacated by a much smaller car.

  Admiration for her sister’s skill made her smile. One did not own an SUV or any other vehicle in NYC. Not if they had any common sense. New Yorkers rented cars as needed, which wasn’t often.

  “Not a lot of room to open the doors. Sorry.”

  She didn’t sound too sorry. Gillian skinnied through the narrow space, her sister doing the same. Hopefully there’d be more space by the time they returned. She caught up with Allie who clicked the car lock with an over-the-shoulder aim of the key. Cut the criticizing, she ordered herself. She lives this life, you don’t.

  The sisters took the elevator to the third floor, obeying the no talking rule that seemed to dominate elevator users. As they opened the door to the office, she asked, “How long has Mother been this doctor’s patient?”

  “Forever.”

  “I see.” Come on, little sister, let’s quit playing games here. Working together will accomplish a lot more. They waited at the counter for the receptionist to hang up the phone.

  “Hi, Jeanie, my sister is here from New York to help with Mother and we need to fill out the authorization forms for her to be informed about Mother’s health.”

  The woman smiled at them both. “We can do that, but you’ll need Dorothy to sign them.”

  “I was afraid of that. Mother isn’t doing well right now. Is there any way we can get around that?”

  “Nope, sorry. Do you need to make an appointment for her?”

  Allie shook her head. “She won’t come. I tried that.”