Page 28 of Grounded (May Hollow Trilogy #1)

Beulah pushed herself up in the bed and tried to get more comfortable without moving her leg. The growling coming from the bed on the other side of the room was near deafening. She was surprised a small, elderly woman could snore loud enough to vibrate the water glass on her tray.

What did hospital people think, calling this type of room “semi-private” when there was no privacy to it? A mere piece of shiny polyester fabric hung between her and this roaring bear with whom she was doomed to share the night.

At least all that ICU rigmarole was behind her.

It ended up being a little reaction to her medication, that was all.

Just another excuse for the hospital to make a little more money out of the whole deal, is what she thought, or avoid some kind of liability.

Anyway, it had all been fine. The worst part was she couldn’t get any sleep.

A snort from her roommate’s bed caused Beulah to jump nearly out of her skin.

There ought to be a noise ordinance in the hospital.

It seemed to her there was a competition on who could make the most noise, what with the nurses chattering like magpies at their station, the public address system blaring a lullaby every time a baby was delivered, and equipment rolling in and out of the rooms, banging into beds and carts as they went.

They had put her on the old people’s floor, that was obvious, and Beulah resented that not a little, what with all the yelping and hollering that went on in the other patient rooms. Beulah couldn’t wait to get home.

She never had liked spending a night away from home, even on the few vacations she had taken in her life.

How Annie flitted from one hotel to the other in her years of flying, Beulah could never understand.

She reckoned you had to get used to it when you were young.

Beulah had always been a homebody, and that was a fact.

She liked knowing what her bed was going to feel like when she got into it at night, and she liked waking up in her own house.

“Mrs. Campbell, how are you?”

Beulah looked up to see a pretty nurse with a blond ponytail and a belly protruding from under her blue uniform. There was something familiar about the face, the small, upturned nose, and the blue eyes.

“All right, and you?”

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” The ponytail swung as the nurse reached over the bed for the blood pressure cuff, attached by a black coil cord to the wall.

“You do look familiar, but I can’t place you,” Beulah said, studying the girl’s face.

“I’m Sandy Sallee, except now I’m a Turner. I cheered with Annie at Somerville High.” She wrapped Beulah’s arm in the cuff. “I saw your name on the chart up front, and when I saw you were from Somerville, I knew you had to be Annie’s grandmother.”

“Now I remember. Your daddy is Everett Sallee from over on Cedar Hill.” Beulah remembered Sandy. She was one of the pack of girls Annie ran around with after she got her driver’s license.

“How’s Annie doing? She got any kids yet?” Sandy hit a button and waited.

“No, she’s not married.” Beulah watched the cuff slowly expand and squeeze her arm.

“You’re kidding! I thought she’d have a litter by now. I’m on my third and due any day!” Sandy rubbed her stomach and turned sideways, giving Beulah the full view of the last days in her third trimester.

“I see,” Beulah said, not caring one bit for the younger generation’s urge to show their swollen bellies in every conceivable way.

Sandy stuck a thermometer in her mouth. “I thought Annie would marry Brett, as crazy as they were about each other. I guess you never know.” The thermometer beeped and Sandy pulled it out.

“Normal, and so was your blood pressure.” She threw away the sanitary wrap and put the thermometer back in her pocket.

“Give her my best, Mrs. Campbell, and if you need anything, just ask for me. I’m on shift until seven tomorrow morning. ”

“Thank you, Sandy,” Beulah called as the young woman left the room. Well, it helped to know someone. It might get her a quicker trip to the bathroom if necessary.

Of all the things to ponder in the hospital, why did she have to be reminded of Annie’s high school boyfriend, Brett Bradshaw.

Those Bradshaws were good-looking as Hollywood actors, but a bad lot, heavy into drinking, and some said, drugs.

She tried to warn Annie away from him, but Beulah saw right quick Annie wasn’t hearing any of it.

When the warnings didn’t take, she and Fred talked about it and decided not to say anything else for fear of pushing her in his direction.

Looking back on Jo Anne’s situation, their dislike for Ed might have made Jo Anne more set on seeing him, but who knew?

All they could do was the best they knew how at the time.

Instead, she bit her tongue when Annie talked about Brett and brought him around.

She had been pleasant to the boy, fed him meals, soda pop and chips.

Annie had dated him until they went to college.

He finally broke it off with her in college, and Beulah was never so relieved.

Better heartbreak now than later, when she was saddled with little children.

Beulah fiddled with the plastic bracelet on her left hand.

Come to think of it, that was about when Annie and Jake quit being so close.

When Brett Bradshaw entered the picture, everything between Annie and Jake changed.

Jake found a girlfriend after that, and even though the families still got together for special occasions, it wasn’t like before when the kids were younger.

It was a disappointment for both her and Fred and the Wilders because Jake’s personality suited Annie.

It reminded Beulah of how Fred had balanced her out.

Annie tended to be high-strung, a little like the thoroughbreds Fred used to trade for from time to time, but Jake was easygoing and cool as a cucumber.

Once when the kids were eleven or twelve, Annie flew into the house all in a dither.

“Jake’s arm, it’s broken,” she had said, barely able to get the words out.

Jake trailed behind, holding his arm and studying the strange angle as if he were looking at it under a microscope.

Of course, he might have been in a bit of shock, but that incident had impressed Beulah.

He didn’t cry or complain one bit, at least as long as he was in her care.

Compatible as two peas in a pod, they had all thought.

When they went out to dinner on Saturday nights, as had been their tradition for nigh on twenty years, Fred and Charlie teased that if the kids married, it would join their two farms and make a nice big plantation for Annie and Jake to keep up, but they never went on like that in front of the children.

No, the kids never knew how they all felt, and it was better that way, with how things turned out.

Jake had found his way and Annie would too, Beulah was sure. It all worked out good in the end for those who loved the Lord, like that verse in Romans said.

Eleven o’clock. She turned on the television and flipped through the channels to see if anything was worth watching.

She found a local channel playing round-the-clock sermons.

She listened first to the Baptist who had a tendency to screech.

Then there was the Presbyterian who took a whole hour preaching on two verses—“unpacking,” he called it.

Now, she was in the middle of a breathless preacher laying hands on people right and left.

Her knee exercises the nurse was teaching her would go particularly well with the cadence of this preacher.

Hold, two, three, four … “And God said,” five, six, seven, eight, “Do not fear!’”

At the end of a sentence, he made a mighty groaning noise, sucking in a lungful of air before he went on to the next sentence. He ought to have an X-ray, she thought. Her cousin sounded like that, and he was eaten up with the emphysema.

After that she switched off the television and hoped desperately for sleep. When it did not come, her eyes rested on a sign below the clock. It read, “Dial-A-Prayer.”

“Well, now,” she said aloud, “I could sure use a prayer right now.” She picked up the receiver and dialed the number posted on the sign.

The line was busy.