Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler Read Free Book Online Page B

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 to Bertha's, breaking into a smile. "You goofball, Maggie! What will you get up to next? Most folks just takes baths," she said.
"This was a miscalculation," Maggie told them. She stood up, batting away a towel that draped one shoulder. "Ah, well, I guess I'd better be-" But Sateen said, "Off we goes, girl." "Sateen! No!" Maggie cried.
Sateen and Bertha took hold of the cart, chortling like maniacs, and tore down the hall. Maggie had to hang on tight or she would have toppled backward. She careened along, dodging as she approached the bend, but the women were quicker on their feet than they looked. They swung her around handily and started back the way they'd come. Maggie's bangs lifted off her forehead in the breeze. She felt like a figurehead on a ship. She clutched at the sides of the cart and called, half laughing, "Stop! Please stop!" Bertha, who was overweight, snorted and thudded beside her. Sateen made a sissing sound through her teeth. They rattled toward the P.T. room just as the all-clear bell sounded-a hoarse burr over the loudspeaker. Instantly the doors swung open and Mr. Gabriel emerged in his wheelchair, propelled by Mrs. Inman. Not the physical therapist, not an assistant or a volunteer, but Mrs. Inman herself, the director of nursing for the entire home. Sateen and Bertha pulled up short. Mr. Gabriel's jaw dropped.
Mrs. Inman said, "Ladies?" Maggie laid a hand on Bertha's shoulder and climbed out of the cart. "Honestly," she told the two women. She batted down the hem of her skirt.
"Ladies, are you aware that we've been having a fire drill?" "Yes, ma'am," Maggie said. She had always been scared to death of stern women.
"Are you aware of the seriousness of a fire drill in a nursing home?" Maggie said, "I was just-" "Take Ben to his room, please, Maggie. I'll speak with you in my office later." "Yes, ma'am," Maggie said.
She wheeled Mr. Gabriel toward the elevator. When she leaned forward to press the button, her arm brushed his shoulder, and he jerked away from her. She said, "Excuse me." He didn't respond.
In the elevator he was silent, although that could have been because a doctor happened to be riding with them. But even after