Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) - Anne Tyler [17]
Another sidetrack: What if she didn't abscond, but broke the news to Ira in a civilized manner and calmly made new arrangements? She could move into Mr. Gabriel's room. She could rise from his bed every morning and be right there at work; no commute. At night when the nurse came around with the pills, she'd find Maggie and Mr. Gabriel stretched out side by side, staring at the ceiling, with their roommate, Abner Scopes, in the bed along the opposite wall.
Maggie gave another snicker.
This was turning out all skewed, somehow.
Like anyone in love, she constantly found reasons to mention his name. She told Ira everything about him- his suits and ties, his gallantry, his stoicism. "I don't know why you can't act that keen about my father; he's family," Ira said, missing the point entirely. Ira's father was a whiner, a user. Mr. Gabriel was nothing like him.
Then one morning the home held another fire drill. The alarm bell jangled and the code blared over the loudspeaker: ' 'Dr. Red in Room Two-twenty.'' This happened in the middle of activity hour-an inconvenient time because the patients were so scattered. Those with any manual dexterity were down in the Crafts Room, knotting colored silk flowers. Those too crippled-Mr. Gabriel, for instance-were taking an extra session of P.T. And of course the bedridden were still in their rooms. They were the easy ones.
The rule was that you cleared the halls of all obstructions, shut stray patients into any room available, and tied red cloths to the doorknobs to show which rooms were occupied. Maggie closed off and , where her only bedridden patients lay. She attached red cloths from the broom closet. Then she coaxed one of Joelle Barrett's wandering old ladies into . There was an empty tray cart next to and she set that inside as well, after which she dashed off to seize Lottie Stein, who was inching along in her walker and humming tunelessly. Maggie put her in with Hepzibah Murray. Then Joelle arrived, wheeling Lawrence Dunn and calling, "Oops! Til-lie's out!" Tillie was the one Maggie had just stashed in . That was the trouble with these drills. They reminded her of those pocket-sized games where you tried to get all the silver BBs into their nooks at once. She captured Tillie and slammed her back in . Disturbing sounds were coming from . That would be a fight between Lottie and Hepzibah; Hepzibah hated having outsiders in her room. Maggie should have dealt with it, and she should also have gone to the aid of Joelle, who was having quite a struggle with Lawrence, but there was something more important on her mind. She was thinking, of course, about Mr. Gabriel.
By now, he would be catatonic with fear.
She left her corridor. (You were never supposed to do that.) She zipped past the nurses' station, down the stairs, and made a right-angle turn. The P.T. room lay at the far end of the hall. Both of its swinging doors were shut. She raced toward them, rounding first a folding chair and then a canvas laundry cart, neither of which should have been there. But all at once she heard footsteps, the squeak of rubber soles. She stopped and looked around. Mrs. Wil-lis! Almost certainly it was Mrs. Willis, her supervisor; and here Maggie was, miles from her proper station.
She did the first thing that came to mind. She vaulted into the laundry cart.
Absurd, she knew it instantly. She was cursing herself even as she sank among the crumpled linens. She might have got away with it, though, except that she'd set the cart to rolling. Somebody grabbed it and drew it to a halt. A growly voice said, "What in the world?" Maggie opened her eyes, which she had closed the way small children do in one last desperate attempt to make themselves invisible. Bertha Washington, from the kitchen, stood gaping down at her.
"Hi, there," Maggie said.
"Well, I never!" Bertha said. "Sateen, come look at whoall's waiting for the laundry man." Sateen Bishop's face arrived next