Isabelle Day Refuses to Die of a Broken Heart by Jane St. Anthony

Author:Jane St. Anthony [St. Anthony, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000 Juvenile Fiction / General
ISBN: 9780816697991
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2015-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

12

Hospital Bound

On the following Friday, Miss Flora sat at the dining room table upstairs and cried softly into her handkerchief, a few tears barely missing the tuna casserole on her plate.

“It’s just that we’ve never been apart for long,” she said. “And I’m so worried about her.”

When Isabelle had arrived home from school two days earlier, the lower duplex was silent—no Miss Flora chattering, no pans rattling, no needle scratching a phonograph record. That evening, Miss Flora’s daughter called to tell Mom that Miss Dora had slipped in the backyard and broken her hip. Until then, Isabelle hadn’t realized that one McCarthy might be more trouble than two.

“You see her in the hospital, don’t you?” Isabelle said.

“Oh, yes, dear. But only during visiting hours.” She blew her noise delicately. “Dora is on pain medicine and barely recognized me today. I’ll go tomorrow.”

“It’s so hard on both of you,” said Mom. “You need all your strength. Dora will depend on you when she’s alert.”

She turned to Isabelle. “You’re going to Margaret’s, aren’t you?”

“Now don’t stay here on my account,” Miss Flora said. Stray hairs had wriggled out of her bun, and her nose looked shiny under the overhead light. “You run along to Margaret’s.”

She must know that I don’t want to stay and watch her cry, Isabelle thought. Of course, that hadn’t stopped her from kidnapping me for the cemetery disaster.

“Mrs. Day,” said Miss Flora between sniffles, “I hope that you won’t think me greedy, but one bite of this chocolate cake might cheer Dora up—if she’s alert tomorrow. May I wrap a small piece?”

“I’m going now,” Isabelle said, pushing away from the table. Miss Flora could be such an optimist, imagining that a piece of cake could make Miss Dora whole and happy.

Mom walked into the kitchen and returned. “I hate to think of you busing to the hospital in this weather,” she said as she ripped off a sheet of wax paper. “I’d drive you if I had a car.”

“I’ve taken the streetcar—I mean the bus, now—in all kinds of weather since I was a little girl. I like getting around on my own as much as I can. But my own Margaret is going to pick me up tomorrow. I only hope that Dora will be home soon.”

Dad’s mom had died of pneumonia in the hospital after breaking her hip. Grandma Olive had never gotten out of bed, much less walked, after she fell.

“Say hi to Miss Dora from me,” Isabelle said. She walked to Mom and gave her a hasty peck on the cheek that she offered.

Miss Flora would probably be upstairs regularly. Yesterday Mrs. Underwood across the street had sent a Dutch oven of beef stew for dinner. Miss Flora had insisted on sharing it with Mom and Isabelle. Food arrived from other neighbors today, the tuna casserole and a chicken potpie. Miss Flora, who said that she couldn’t eat it all if she lived for a hundred years, asked Isabelle to carry the food upstairs.

The phone rang, and Isabelle answered.

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