A gathering in hope, p.7
A Gathering in Hope, page 7
part #11 of Harmony Series
Herb walked slowly through the trees, pausing now and then to listen for Precious, before realizing that Precious running away was an unanticipated blessing, so he quit while he was ahead, returned home, hauled the trash to the curb, and went inside to report that Precious had run away.
“What do you mean, he ran away?” Stacey asked, alarmed. She didn’t like Precious, either, but felt a deeper obligation than Herb, having promised her dying aunt she’d look after him. “We can’t just let him go. You watch the kids, and I’ll go look for Precious.” She snagged the dog’s leash on her way out the door.
She found Precious at the end of the meetinghouse lane, tearing into the trash bag, a bat clamped in his mouth, shaking it to ensure its death, then proceeding to eat it, leathery wings and all.
Stacey clipped the leash onto Precious’s collar, then nudged the bag open with her foot, recoiling in disgust when the bats fell out on the ground. How disgusting! What were the Gardners doing with a bag of dead bats? She didn’t know much about Quakerism, but was reasonably certain it didn’t involve animal sacrifice.
She pulled Precious away from the bag, then reached down to wrest the bat away from the loathsome little poodle and was bitten soundly on the hand. Precious clamped down, piercing Stacey’s skin, digging into tendon and muscle, rupturing capillaries, grazing bone. The dog hung on, snarling, grinding down harder on Stacey’s hand, until in desperation she drew back her foot and shoved him squarely on the rump, forcing him to let go.
She stumbled home, pulling Precious behind her, who continued to snarl and snap at her, baring his evil fangs. Lord, she hated that dog. She began calling out for Herb as soon as she entered their yard. He hurried out their front door, a crying baby in each arm. If her hand hadn’t hurt so much, she’d have laughed at the absurdity of their situation. With commendable agility, Herb took the leash in one hand, and placed a baby in her good arm.
He deposited the dog in the garage, hoping it would lick up antifreeze and die, then hurried to collect the other baby from Stacey, who was now turning pale from shock. He carried the twins into the house and placed them in their cribs, grabbed a roll of paper towels, and hurried outside to help Stacey into the kitchen, where he sat her on a stool in front of the sink and ran cool water over her hand, wincing as the blood swirled away to expose white bone.
Although he was a doctor, he had never cared for the sight of blood, and felt woozy, but collected himself, and dialed 911.
“I’m getting an ambulance here. We need to get you to the emergency room,” he told Stacey with a calmness he didn’t feel.
He gave their address to the dispatcher, described the problem, then hung up the phone and turned back to Stacey.
“We need someone to come watch the babies. I’m going to call the Gardners. Sam gave me his cell number this past Sunday.”
He began scrolling through his contacts, looking for the Gs.
“No, not them,” Stacey said.
“Why not? They said to call them if we ever needed help.”
“I don’t trust them.”
“What do you mean, you don’t trust them? He’s a Quaker minister and she’s an elementary school librarian. What’s not to trust?”
“I found a bag of dead bats at their curb,” Stacey said. “Precious was eating one and he bit me when I took it away from him. I think they’re involved in animal sacrifice, possibly Satan worship.”
“A bag of dead bats? Are you sure? People just don’t have bags of dead bats. Are you sure that’s what they were?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I know what a bat looks like.”
“And Precious was eating one and then he bit you?”
“Yes.”
In the distance, he could hear the ambulance siren. “Stay here. Don’t move. Don’t touch the babies.”
He ran to his car, opened the trunk, rummaged around, and found a box of latex gloves. He pulled one on each hand, ran back in the house for a sandwich bag, then hurried to the Gardners’ curb, where he did indeed find a garbage bag full of dead bats, one of them partially consumed.
“I’ll be darned, it is a bat,” he muttered. He picked up the chewed-on bat and placed it in the sandwich bag, pressed the two sides together until the bag sealed, then shoved it in his pocket.
The ambulance pulled up in their driveway and Herb showed the EMTs into their house, introduced himself, then described his wife’s injuries.
“I want her taken to the university hospital. When we get there, I want someone to meet us from the lab who can run a rabies test on a dead bat.”
“Your wife was attacked by a bat?” one of the EMTs asked.
“No, she was bit by a dog who had just consumed part of a bat. I want to make sure the bat wasn’t rabid.”
“Where’s the dog?”
“In our garage,” Herb said. “It’s not going anywhere.”
Ezra and Emma were still howling.
“I’m going to get my children and meet you at the hospital,” he said.
He threw a half-dozen diapers and two bottles into their diaper bag, carried the twins outside, and secured them in their baby seats. The ride to the hospital quieted them, giving him time to think. The Gardners were Satan worshippers? He didn’t believe it. Then again, it was an odd world, and he had heard of stranger things.
26
Sam’s reputation was taking a thrashing.
“Did you know your son had an alcohol problem?” Gloria Gardner said to her husband.
“Oh, don’t be silly. Sam doesn’t drink. He hates alcohol.”
“No, he hated alcohol. Past tense. But now it appears he’s developed a fondness for it. He got drunk today at Bruno’s.”
“Did you hit your head when that car hit you? You seem a little off,” Charles Gardner said.
“No, I did not hit my head. And I know what I saw. Barbara and I practically had to pour him onto the couch.”
“Well, I’ll be. I never would have figured Sam for that. Roger, maybe, but never Sam.”
Gloria began to weep. She had worked so hard to shepherd her sons through the perils of life, and was so proud of both of them. Now, just when she had begun to relax, had begun to breathe easy, Sam had spiraled out of control.
“Maybe we ought to do one of those interference things that they do with alcoholics,” Charles Gardner suggested.
“What’s that?”
“It’s something I saw on television once. You get all the family together, and some friends and maybe people from the church, and you set the alcoholic down and interfere with him.”
“How do you interfere with him?”
“Well, you try to make him see that he’s hurt people, and try to make him cry, and admit that he’s got a problem.”
They sat quietly, contemplating the sad twist their lives had taken.
“We need to call Ruby Hopper and let her know what’s going on,” Gloria Gardner said. “After all, she’s the clerk of the meeting.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
They phoned Ruby to report the bitter news. Ruby was shocked, and said she’d not seen the first indication that Sam had a drinking problem. “I’ve not smelled it on him. Barbara’s not said a thing to me.”
“His great-grandfather was a boozehound,” Gloria Gardner reported solemnly. “It’s in his genes.”
“I just can’t believe it,” Ruby said. “Sam is the last person I would ever have suspected of that.”
“Believe me, we’re shocked, too,” Gloria said. “I suppose you’ll have to tell the elders.”
“No, not yet. I need to speak to Sam first. I’ll do that tomorrow,” Ruby said, then paused a moment before saying, “Boy, when it rains, it pours. I suppose Sam told you about the bats.”
“What bats?” Gloria asked.
Ruby sighed. “There’s a nesting colony of Indiana bats in the meetinghouse attic. It’s the mating season, so they can’t be removed. The Department of Natural Resources has put a stop to our building project and prohibited us from entering the meetinghouse for three, maybe four, months. Didn’t Sam tell you?”
“He didn’t say the first thing about it.”
“Well, I did ask him to keep it under his hat until we’d lined up another place to worship,” Ruby said. “But I just assumed he’d tell you, since you’re his parents.”
“Apparently, he’s kept quite a few things from us,” Gloria Gardner said, her voice catching.
“What a day,” Ruby said.
“I woke up this morning and everything was wonderful,” Gloria said. “Then I got hit by a car, my bike is ruined, my son is a lush, and we can’t have church just when I need it the most. I wish I’d never woken up this morning.”
“You got hit by a car?” Ruby asked. “How dreadful.”
“Hit by a bimbo who was texting and ran a stop sign.”
“Oh, Gloria, I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
“Just sore is all. Nothing broken, thank God. The doctor gave me some pain medicine. I think I’ll take one before I go to bed.”
“Yes, soak in a nice, warm bath, take a pill, and go to bed,” Ruby advised.
Which Gloria did. And she did feel better. She took two pills instead of one, thinking if one pill was good, two would be better. She lay in bed, positively glowing, warmth washing over her body. Except for her knees, where she still felt a residue of pain. She hoped she wouldn’t need a knee transplant or replacement, whatever it was they did with knees. She’d like to get her hands on the girl who hit her. Just one minute, just long enough to shake her and smash her phone. She decided to take two more pills, to be on the safe side, so she wouldn’t wake up in the morning unable to move her knees.
Falling asleep, she felt at peace. Talking with Ruby must have helped, she thought. She liked Ruby. Ruby always knew what to do. She reminded Gloria of her mother, a wise, kindhearted Quaker woman. She thought maybe she’d call Ruby in the morning and invite her out to lunch. That was the last thought she had before falling to sleep. Lunch with Ruby and maybe her mother and the girl who hit her. Just the four of them.
27
Herb arrived at the hospital a few minutes after Stacey. He gathered up the twins and hurried inside, where he was met by a young lady in a lab coat who asked if he was Dr. Maxwell.
“Yes, I am,” he said, handing her a twin, then reaching into his pocket and retrieving the sandwich bag with the bat inside. “I need you to have this bat tested for rabies. I’d like the results as soon as possible, please.”
“Do you want me to take your babies to the nursery, so you can be with your wife?”
“Yes, thank you, I’d appreciate that.”
She summoned an aide to help carry the bat and babies. He handed off Ezra and Emma, slung the diaper bag over the young lady’s shoulder, kissed each baby good-bye, then hustled through the emergency room doors to be with his wife.
Hospitals would never admit it, but the family members of medical workers went to the front of the line. Stacey was already headed to an operating room, a doctor trailing behind her gurney, talking on his cell phone, assembling a surgery team.
Herb caught up to him as he was finishing his call. “I’ve got the state’s best hand surgeon on her way over,” he told Herb. “And a plastic surgeon is coming over to tidy things up. Her hand is pretty mangled. It’s amazing the damage a dog bite can inflict. What kind of dog was it?”
“A poodle named Precious. It belonged to her aunt and we inherited it when she died,” Herb explained.
“Precious. Wouldn’t you know it. Poodles can be vicious little monsters.”
“It was eating a dead bat,” Herb said. “I brought it with me. The lab is testing it for rabies.”
“Now wouldn’t that be a nice complication.”
“Can I gown up, and watch the operation?” Herb asked.
“Probably not a good idea. Why don’t you go back to the waiting room and I’ll keep you updated.”
Herb returned to the waiting room, sorted through the magazines until he’d found a year-old Field & Stream, and began to read about fly-tying and Lyme disease. After reading the article, he was pretty confident he had Lyme disease. He had a tendency toward hypochondria, worrying he had every illness he read about—smallpox, anthrax, ovarian cysts; though he knew the latter was impossible, he occasionally felt painful twinges about where his ovaries would be if he had a pair.
An hour passed. A nurse came out to tell him everything was going well, that the hand surgeon had just arrived and was preparing for surgery. He went to the nursery to check on the twins, who were sound asleep. He spent a half hour there, rocking babies, hoping to ease his mind, then went back down to the emergency waiting room. An hour passed, a nurse emerged to tell him the surgery had begun, that the doctors were hopeful Stacey would regain full use of her hand, but it was too early to tell. There had been extensive damage to the muscles and some smaller bones, and they were worried about fine motor control.
“About another hour, and she’ll be out of surgery and in the recovery room. You can see her then,” the nurse promised Herb.
Herb had never cared for Precious, even though he was a dog person. But there was something about that dog he’d never quite trusted. He certainly didn’t want it around his children any longer. He closed his eyes in thought, wondering who he might give it to, an enemy perhaps, someone evil, with whom Precious could feel a kinship.
28
Sam and Barbara’s telephone rang as they were crawling into bed. It had been a long day and they were exhausted.
“Let the answering machine get it. It’s probably the Finks,” Sam said.
“No, you better get it. It might be one of the boys.”
Sam picked up the phone and said hello.
“Get over here quick, something’s wrong with your mother,” his father said.
“What do you mean something’s wrong? What’s she doing?”
“Nothing. That’s the problem. I can’t wake her up.”
“We’ll be right there,” Sam said, then remembered his mother’s accident from earlier in the day, though it seemed like a month ago. “When I hang up, call an ambulance.”
Charles Gardner felt about medical personnel the same way he felt about hiring someone to work on your house. Why waste your money? Instead, he got a cup, filled it with water from the bathroom tap, and poured it on Gloria’s face.
“Can you hear me?” he yelled.
She could indeed hear him, but her answer was garbled and incoherent because there was water in her nose and she was choking and sneezing. When she tried to form words, they wouldn’t come, and then she began to panic. She’d watched an Oprah show on near-death experiences and suspected she was having one. She felt outside herself, as if there were two of her, one living and one observing the living.
Then she heard Sam and Barbara. What were they doing here? She felt herself lifted from the bed and carried outside to a car. It was dark, the streetlights were smears of little suns in the dark, one after another, and then she heard voices and felt strong, strange hands lift her from the car and put her in a chair. And there were more suns, now constant, and she felt peace cover her like a blanket, just like the people on Oprah had talked about.
29
Why’s she wet?” Sam asked his father.
“I poured a glass of water on her.”
“Why in the world did you do that?”
“It was cheaper than an ambulance. You know what they charge for an ambulance? Eight hundred dollars! Now you tell me why I have to pay eight hundred dollars for an ambulance and an EMT I’ve already paid for with my taxes. Anyway, she’s here, so what difference does it make?”
Sam, Barbara, and Charles Gardner were seated in the hospital emergency room, bickering. First, about the ambulance, then about the DNR shutting down the church.
“I tell you one thing, I wouldn’t have stood for it. I’d have climbed up in that attic and killed those bats and not given it a second thought,” Charles Gardner said.
The waiting room was full of people trying not to stare at them. There were all kinds of people in an emergency room at eleven o’clock—mothers with sick kids, drunks, druggies, seemingly normal families squabbling about the most curious matters.
It was the squabbling that caught Herb Maxwell’s attention. It was coming from behind him. He wanted to turn and stare, but didn’t want to be obvious. He rose to his feet, faked a stretch and a yawn, then turned to survey the room as if bored, and saw Sam and Barbara, who also saw him.
They jumped to their feet and hurried over to Herb. “What in the world are you doing here?” Sam asked.
Herb was leery of Sam. Who wouldn’t be? No normal man killed a bagful of bats for no good reason.
“Stacey got bit by our dog,” he said, leaving out the bat part.
“Where are Emma and Ezra?” Barbara asked.
“They’re in the hospital nursery.”
“You should have called us,” Sam said. “We’d have been happy to watch them.”
Fat chance of that, Herb thought.
“Is she going to be all right?” Barbara asked, concerned.
It was hard to believe a woman as kind and thoughtful as Barbara Gardner was involved in the ritual slaying of animals. Herb didn’t want to believe it, but he’d seen the bats. Then again, maybe it was all Sam’s doing. Maybe Barbara didn’t know the first thing about it. Maybe Sam was like those dirty old men who kept girlie magazines hidden in their workbench, their wives never suspecting a thing, until one day they went looking for a pair of needle-nose pliers and found Miss March instead, posed on the hood of a ’57 Chevy. Yes, Herb was starting to think Barbara didn’t know the first thing about Sam’s sordid appetites.
Then again, Herb couldn’t be sure. Sure, she was an elementary school librarian, but wouldn’t that be the perfect job for a Satan worshipper? Who would ever suspect her? He wondered if she had a pentagram tattooed on her rump, where no one could see it. He’d read about a family, he couldn’t remember where they were from, maybe Wisconsin, who’d been devil worshippers and no one had a clue. The father was a Rotarian, the mother taught Sunday school, the son played Little League, and the daughter was a Girl Scout, but at night they sat in a circle and lit candles to Lucifer. The neighbors hadn’t suspected a thing, until one evening the lady across the street knocked on the door to borrow an egg and their secret was out. Yes, now that he thought about it, Barbara was probably right in the thick of it with Sam. In fact, the more Herb thought about it, the more he suspected Barbara had been the one to lure Sam into it. That’s the way it usually worked, the crafty woman enticing the not-too-bright, naïve man.
