Queen Bee (Lowcountry Tales #12)(12)

“You okay?”

“Obviously not. My plan isn’t working out as I’d hoped.”

“I’ll get help,” I said.

“Damn it,” she said.

I hurried along to the nurse’s station thinking to myself that it would be so nice if my mother knew how to behave herself. She was always right. She always had to have the last word. But this time, there was clearly something wrong. All this falling business had to have a cause behind it. And normally, whatever our definition of normal was, she enjoyed the hospital. She got lots of attention and she didn’t have to lift a finger. Maybe she was afraid. Maybe the doctors had given her really bad news before I got there, and her first impulse had been to run.

“Excuse me,” I said. “My mother is Katherine Jensen, in room 311. Well, I’m afraid she’s had a fall . . .”

The nurse all but sprinted from her desk toward my mother’s room, grabbing two others along the way to help her. I got there just as the thinnest health care worker in the world was inching herself inside through the available space.

“Now, just what’s going on here?” one of them said.

They pressed the call button and asked for two orderlies to come help. Inside of a few minutes they had Momma back in bed.

“Does anything hurt, Mrs. Jensen?” the head nurse said.

“I’m fine and I’d like to go home, if that’s all right with everyone,” she said.

“Well, Mrs. Jensen, we have to get the doctor’s okay for that. He’s got to sign papers to release you.”

“We’ll see about that,” she said.

The nurse looked at her square in the face and said, “Now, Mrs. Jensen. You gonna be trouble for me? My shift ends at five o’clock. Why don’t you be trouble for the next shift and I’ll bring you all the chocolate pudding you can eat? How ’bout it? Deal?”

My mother, who needed an all-you-can-eat deal like she needed another hole in her head, considered endless chocolate pudding and said sheepishly, “Oh, all right, but only because you asked me so nicely.”

The nurse nodded to another nurse, who hurried along to bring my mother the reward for her bad behavior.

“Now, let’s get your IV back in place,” the nurse said.

Momma held out her hand as though she was offering the nurse an opportunity to kiss the ring of Saint Peter.

The nurse looked at me and said, “She’s something else, your momma is.”

“You’re telling me?” I said.

“You can run along now, Holly,” Momma said. “I’m in good hands here.”

Peace was restored. I went home to call Leslie.





“I’ve got another great bee quote for you,” Archie said. “ ‘Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.’ ”

“Hmmm,” I said. “Who said it?”

“Robert Green Ingersoll, known as the Great Agnostic. Born 1833, died in 1899.”

“He was an idiot. Any beekeeper will tell you there’s a God.”


Chapter Four



Now What?

I left Momma in the hospital and was driving back toward the island. She was a funny bird, cutting a deal with the promise of good behavior for the reward of chocolate pudding. But the doctors still had to get to the bottom of her issues. Then I remembered one of the nurses asking her how much exercise she got.

Momma looked at her and proudly said, “None.”

The nurse said, “Well, you know, a little exercise is good for you. If you just sit around all day, your muscles atrophy and your mobility becomes really compromised.”

Someone else suggested she give herself a couple of daily tasks, like going to get the mail, taking out garbage, or picking up the newspaper. “You know, start slowly.”

Momma rolled her eyes heavenward and harrumphed loudly. She was having no part of exercise, if I knew her. And also, it would be a bitter cold day in hell before Katherine Jensen took advice from anyone. But the nurse had offered a point to consider. Maybe balance was the devil behind her falling. That would be considerably better than a brain tumor, which was what I had been thinking she had. Then, in a moment of optimism, I had a thought that maybe her other tumors didn’t mean anything. Maybe she’d been born with them. I had heard of that happening. And I wondered how she was feeling about her diagnosis. If it had been me, I’d be terrified to know there was something growing inside of me that would most assuredly kill me eventually unless something else got there first. If I was possibly facing radiation or chemo or surgery I’d be terrified. Cancer was very scary stuff. But perhaps this terrible news would make her realize she wasn’t really living her life. If she would begin moving herself even in the smallest ways, it could lead to getting out of the house to go places besides the hospital. Like, maybe she’d like to go to Gwynn’s or to Croghan’s Jewel Box just to have her diamond washed. Maybe she’d like to go to church, which would be my first stop if a doctor told me I had the smallest tumor of any kind.

Traffic on the way home was miserable. All through Mount Pleasant, it was bumper to bumper, and I caught every single red light. I decided to stop at the Publix to buy something to make for supper, and on a lark, I took the plunge and filled out a job application. Something told me there was a job waiting for me and that I should seize the moment. I was like the scout bees, seeing what was out there within range of the hive. Sure enough, Publix was hiring and I was given a part-time position in the bakery. Should I take this job? Why not? I thought that it was the fastest interview in history. The pay was only minimum wage, but there were other advantages, like flexible hours. But first and foremost, it was going to save my sanity. Second, I could add the money to my Maserati fund. I had a pipe dream about someday owning a gorgeous sports car.