She pursed her colorless lips. "I feel like going home is what I feel like. Where's Shorty? They told me Shorty was with you."
I could tell she was feeling like herself, all right.
"Shorty's fine," I told her. "He's out in the car, with Tee. They won't let dogs in the hospital or I would have brought him to see you."
"Huh," she grunted, dropping her spoon into the empty plastic dish and pushing it to the back of her tray. "I reckon you come to get me then. If you'd a come an hour ago, I could have saved payin' another day for this room. Now they're gonna charge me who knows what, and I don't even get to eat a free dinner." She fumbled around among the bedcovers. "Where's the buzzer? Let's get that nurse lady in here and get this durned IV contraption unhooked so I can get on home."
I took a deep breath. "Actually, I spoke with the doctor before I came in. They want to keep you here for another day or so. Did they explain that you have a hairline fracture in your hip?"
"Somebody said something about a fracture," Ella Kate said. "But I say, if it ain't broke, ain't no sense in me staying around here layin' in the bed. I can do that at home, just fine, for free."
"It's not just the fracture," I said. "You're dehydrated, and that's why they're giving you fluids. They're also giving you antibiotics because of the cut on your face, and they just want to keep you under observation for a little while longer."
"Observation!" she said, slapping the sheets disgustedly. "That's a fancy way of sayin' they want to get their hand in my pocketbook and keep it there till I'm bled broke."
"I think Medicare probably covers your hospitalization," I said gently.
"Like fun," she said, staring up at the ceiling. "What else did that doctor tell you? What's her name again? Some funny kinda foreign name I never heard of before."
"Her name is Dr. Bhiwandi," I said. "She's very nice. Smart too. One of the nurses told me she has degrees from Duke and Emory Medical School."
Ella Kate snorted. "Emory! What's wrong with the University of Georgia? Does she think she's too good to be a bulldog? I wouldn't give you a dime for a doctor didn't go to the University of Georgia."
"Well, no. I mean, I don't know," I stammered. I'd been with Ella Kate for less than five minutes and she'd already worn me down to a frazzle.
Ella Kate crossed her arms over her chest. "I need to get me an American doctor."
"Ella Kate!" I said. "That's not fair. I'm sure Dr. Bhiwandi is an American citizen. She speaks perfect English. Much better than mine."
"Norbert had a doctor that was a foreigner," Ella Kate said darkly. "And you know what happened to him."
"What?"
"He died, didn't he?" She nodded her head, satisfied that she'd uncovered a grand medical conspiracy.
"But...I thought Norbert was almost a hundred years old when he died," I protested. "And didn't he have a heart attack?"
"He was only ninety-seven!" Ella Kate said fiercely. "Had a mind as sharp as a tack."
But not as sharp as your tongue, I thought to myself.
I sat down, uninvited, in the chair beside her hospital bed. "Listen, Ella Kate," I said. "There's something I need to talk to you about."
She clasped and unclasped her hands. "I'm sorry about the car," she mumbled. "I know'd better, but I took it anyway, got myself lost like the old fool I am, and nearly killed Shorty." She laid her head back on the pillow, and swallowed several times. "I reckon the car's wrecked pretty bad, ain't it?"
"I'm not worried about the Catfish," I told her. "We can get another car. It's you I'm worried about."
"I thought that foreigner doctor told you I was gonna be fine."
"She did. She also told me you have breast cancer."
Ella Kate stared up at the ceiling. "That ain't no concern of yours. And it wadn't any of her bidness tellin' you my bidness." With obvious effort, she grunted and turned on her side, leaving me facing her back.
"I don't think you're supposed to be moving around like that," I offered.
"Go away," she said, her voice muffled.
Lord knows, I wanted to go. I wanted to run down the hall and get far, far away from this hateful old hag. But I stayed anyway.
"How long have you known about the cancer?" I asked.
"Awhile."
"What are you doing about it?"
"Prayin'."
"Is it...I mean, have you had surgery? Or anything?"
There was a long silence in the room. I thought I heard her sniff. Her back shuddered a little.
"They done give me a mastectomy already," she said, her voice quavery. "That was a long time ago. Last year, the cancer come back, on my left side. I seen a doctor in Atlanta about it. Wadn't no need to spread the news around town."
She rolled herself back so that she was facing me now. The IV tube was tangled around her shoulders. I stood and carefully lifted the tubing free of her body. Her bones beneath my fingertips felt as fine and as brittle as twigs.
"I seen me a good, American doctor who went to the University of Georgia. This boy's neighbor's nephew is the vet that takes care of UGA. You know UGA? He's the bulldog mascot. Lives down in Savannah. Those bulldogs, they're all pure white English bulldogs. Same family's been raising them all these years. Norbert cried like a baby when UGA number six died. You know they bury all them dogs right up there at the stadium in Athens."
"I didn't know that," I said truthfully.
"I seen all about it on WSB," Ella Kate said. "This doctor in Atlanta, he was all set to cut on me, but then I told him no. I beat cancer one time. I was younger then. But I'm seventy-nine years old now. If the Lord wants to take me, I reckon I'm ready to go."
Ella Kate narrowed her eyes, steeling herself for a fight.
"Has the cancer spread anywhere else?" I asked.
"They tell me it ain't got any worse," Ella Kate said.
"I'm glad," I told her. And surprisingly, I was glad.
"You ain't gonna fuss at me? Try to make me change my mind?"
"Nope. It wouldn't do any good."
"Durn tootin'," Ella Kate said. Her thin lips crinkled up a little on one side, in what might have been a smile.
44.
When I climbed into the front seat of the Mercedes, Tee handed me a paper sack. I pulled out a still-warm cheese Danish and another cup of coffee. He started the engine and pulled out of the hospital parking lot.
"Now you're just showing off," I said, biting into the Danish.
"How's Ella Kate?"
"Meaner than ever," I told him. "She's pissed off because she has to stay for at least another day, which she's sure is just a diabolical plan by the hospital to steal all her money. She's also unhappy that her doctor didn't go to med school at the University of Georgia, and that she's a 'foreigner.'"
"That Ella Kate," Tee said. "She's just a big ol' ray of sunshine, ain't she?"
"I asked her about the cancer," I said, sipping the coffee.
He winced. "How'd that go?"
"About like you'd expect. She told me it was none of the doctor's 'bidness' and none of mine neither. She had a mastectomy years ago, but she said the cancer recurred on the other side last year. Her doctor in Atlanta wanted to remove the cancerous breast, but Ella Kate told him no deal. She says she's too old to go through surgery again, and if it's her time, so be it."
"So...what's she doing about the cancer?"
"Praying."
"And what are you going to do?"
"Me?" I broke off a tiny piece of the Danish and turned around and offered it to Shorty, who eagerly lapped it up. "What can I do? She's a grown woman. I can't force her to accept treatment she doesn't want. Maybe she'll change her mind, but I doubt it."
"I don't disagree," he said. "I guess what I meant to say is, have you thought about your future? At Birdsong? In Guthrie? Does this change things?"
"Why should it? Ella Kate will be discharged tomorrow, probably. I'll have to fix her up a place to sleep downstairs, I guess, until her hip gets better. But the work on the house is going better than I expected. Bobby is supposed to come today to start tiling in the kitchen. He says he'll teach me how to tile too. Big fun, huh?"
Tee steered the Mercedes out of Macon traffic and back onto the state highway to Guthrie. The only signs that an ice storm had blown through the night before were some stray tree limbs and roofing shingles scattered on the roadside. The morning sunlight had already dried up most of the rain. My hand throbbed, reminding me of everything that had happened.
"Ella Kate is not going to get better without treatment, Dempsey," he said after a while. "My mother died of breast cancer, you know. I don't know the type of cancer Ella Kate has, but I can tell you, things are probably going to get really awful by the end. And here's the thing-you're going to be the one to take care of her. You're it, you know? The only family she's got."
"Yeah. Next of kin. Bummer."
"I told Dad about the cancer," he said. "You know, he's Ella Kate's lawyer too. The old man's a stickler for client confidentiality, but he did tell me that she can afford whatever health care she needs. Doctors, hospitals, round-the-clock nursing care. Whatever. She's not hurting for money."
"Yippee," I said dully. "Maybe we'll both check into the Ritz-Carlton and order room-service chemo. Except Ella Kate would probably refuse chemo."
"Something to think about," Tee said, glancing over at me.
I didn't tell him that I'd been thinking about little else, ever since Dr. Bhiwandi told me about Ella Kate's cancer.
When we got back to Birdsong, Bobby's pickup truck was parked in the driveway. The bright blue tarp tacked to the roof fluttered in the breeze, and Bobby and Trey were struggling to lift an enormous white object out of the truck bed.
Tee pulled the Mercedes to the curb and hopped out. "Let me give you a hand," he called to the men. Even with Tee holding up one end of the thing, the men staggered under the weight of it.
I got out of the car and offered to help, but they bravely declined my assistance. "We got it," Bobby grunted, his knees wobbling crazily. Eventually, they wrestled the thing into the open kitchen door, and onto a set of waiting sawhorses.
"Look here, Dempsey," Bobby said proudly, mopping his brow. "Look what I brung you from the dump."
The thing was a kitchen sink of Titanic proportions. Porcelain over cast iron, it had double basins, and ridged drainboards jutting out from each side, along with a rounded humpback backsplash. The faucet was nickel and the handles were cross-hatched, with porcelain buttons in the center, C for cold and H for hot. The basins were filthy and matted with dried leaves and unspeakable detritus. The sink was absolutely gorgeous.
"Oh, Bobby," I said, running my hand over the cool porcelain. "From the dump? For real?"
"For true," he said, grinning with pleasure. "What do you think?"
"It's spectacular," I said. "Better than a double-glass-door Traulsen."
"Better than an eight-burner double-oven stainless-steel Viking with the griddle in the middle?" he teased.
"Better than a Fisher and Paykel warming drawer or a Miele dishwasher. Better than a brushed-nickel Waterworks bridge faucet, better than custom Ann Sacks tile, better than..." I struggled to come up with another superlative dredged from my extensive knowledge of shelter magazines.
"Huh?" Trey said.
"Got me," Tee told him. "I think they're talking about kitchen stuff."
I went over to the old sink, the old, stinking, battered, stained, chipped pink porcelain sink, and picked up a bottle of Windex from the counter beside it. I tore off about a yard of paper towels, and set to work on the Titanic sink, spritzing and rubbing while the men looked on, bemused.
"This here," I said, patting the new sink, "this is the shit."
Trey nodded his understanding. "Gotcha."
"Was it really at the dump?" I asked Bobby. "Who would get rid of something like this?"
"You'd be surprised," he said. "I get lots of good stuff out there."
"He calls it the Mall of Guthrie," Trey volunteered. "Half the stuff in our house came from there. Mama hollers at him about it, but he just keeps on bringing stuff home."
"Did you mind getting a new bumper for your car when I drug it home from the mall?" Bobby asked.
"No, sir," Trey admitted.
"See, there's lotsa folks round here don't like nothin' old," Bobby explained. "They want shiny and new. Even if ain't nothin' beneath the shine except cardboard and sawdust."
"I saw a sink just like this in the December issue of Elle Decor," I told him. "I think it was in Meg Ryan's house on Nantucket."
Tee looked down at the sink with obvious distaste. "It's kinda gunky, isn't it?"
"You wait," I told him. "It will be awesome. It will be the centerpiece of this kitchen."
"If you say so."
Bobby preened for just a moment. "You right about that, Dempsey. We get this thing cleaned up, this sink gonna be just the thing."