Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg Read Free Book Online Page A

bathroom because by the time he got back, she would have made the bed. He said she must have come out of the womb with a can of Lysol in one hand and a rag in the other. But with all of her little quirks, Norma had a heart of gold. Her biggest problem was that she cared too much about people and wanted to take care of the whole world. If there was anything in town that needed to be done, Norma did it. There wasn’t a single old person that didn’t have a hot meal or a visit from someone once a day, thanks to Norma. So with all of her little faults and her nervous fits, underneath she was one of the most loving people around.
    After about another half hour went by, and nobody came to get her, Elner suddenly thought of something. Maybe Norma didn’t even know she was here. Maybe the green-smock people didn’t know who she was or who to contact. That had to be it, or else they would have been there by now, so Elner figured she better get up and go try and get somebody to call Norma to come get her and take her home. She sure did not want to stay overnight. Elner sat up and slowly and carefully got out of bed. “That’s all I need, to slip and break my neck after I survived the first fall.” But after she stood up, she was surprised at how easy it had been, and how light she felt. She figured she must have lost a little weight while she was waiting. “Norma will be glad of that.” Norma was always worried about the fact that Elner was a little on the heavy side, and Norma ran over to her house every day to take her blood pressure. Norma had even cut off Elner’s bacon, to no more than two pieces at breakfast, and none at night. Of course, when she had gone over to Merle and Verbena’s for dinner the other night, and had had liver and bacon, she had not mentioned it. No use to get Norma upset.
    Elner was now standing by the bed, but the room was so dark that she could not see a thing and had to feel her way around the room. She headed in the direction of the voices, and located the door, groped around, found the handle, opened it, and walked out into the bright light of the hall. She looked up and down, but she didn’t see a single person anywhere.
    She walked down the corridor past a lot of empty rooms. “Yoo hoo!” she called out, but not too loudly because she didn’t want to disturb any sick people trying to sleep. She had wandered all the way down to one end and then down to the other end when she saw the elevator. There wasn’t a soul on this floor, as far as she could tell, so she guessed she’d better go to another one and try to find somebody. She pushed the button, and after a moment the elevator stopped with a jerk and the doors opened. She stepped inside and turned around, but before she could push another button, the doors closed, and up she went.

The Doctor’s Report

    10:20 AM
    N orma and Macky had been in the hospital waiting room for over twenty minutes, and they had been told nothing yet. Three other people, two women and a man, were there in the waiting room as well, waiting to hear news of their mother’s hip replacement. Norma informed them in great detail who she and Macky were, where they were from, why they were there, and how she had warned her aunt over and over again to be careful on that ladder, a fact Macky was sure the hip-replacement family couldn’t have cared less about. And that may have been the reason all three decided to go to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee. After another anxious ten minutes a young doctor walked in with a chart and looked around the room. “Is there a Mrs. Norma Warren here?” Norma jumped up. “Yes, that’s me.”
    “Are you Mrs. Shimfissle’s next of kin?”
    Norma was a complete wreck by this time and began to babble uncontrollably. “Yes…she’s my aunt, my mother’s sister, is she badly hurt, Doctor? I’ve told her a hundred times not to get on that ladder, but she won’t listen to me, I said, ‘Aunt Elner, wait until Macky gets off