Mistaken for the Mob. Ginny Aiken

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      While she doled out cake, Maryanne watched her father from the vantage point of the activities hall stage. The stack of small gifts from his friends thrilled him. Then, after they’d finished eating, with his favorite Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo and Jimmy Dorsey tunes on the new stereo, he drew each ambulatory lady near and twirled her around his wheelchair.

      “I told you not to worry,” Sherri Armstrong told Maryanne as she tied off another bag of trash. “He practically begged you to move him here.”

      “I know. But it was hard.”

      “He’s busy, and he’s happy. And he wants you to build a life for yourself. That’s your next assignment, you understand?”

      “Not you, too. First Dad, now you.”

      Sherri, happily married mother of two, nodded. “We know what we’re talking about.”

      “We’ll see.” Maryanne gathered the empty punch bowl and headed for the kitchen. “Right now, we have a mess to clean.”

      No sooner did she enter the vast, equipment-filled white room, than Dean Ross, Peaceful Meadows’ director, called her name. Her middle knotted. The busy man rarely found time to discuss the library cart she brought twice a week to the home. She doubted he’d come for the birthday party.

      “How are you, Dean?”

      He grimaced. “Same as always. You’re going to have to cancel Audrey White’s library privileges.”

      “Oh, no. I missed her at Dad’s party and meant to stop by her room to see how she liked the last historical novel I suggested.”

      “The ambulance just took her to the hospital. She slipped into a coma a little while ago, and she won’t be back.”

      “Are you sure?”

      “As sure as I can be. You saw how weak she was when you brought her books.”

      “You’re right. She couldn’t even sit up when I came…was it day before yesterday? The day before, maybe. Rosie, Audrey’s nurse, was getting the other bed in the room ready for a new patient. I helped her…I had to push the meds stand out of the way to get to Audrey’s side of the room. And Audrey mentioned she was headed to another floor.”

      “She was. Intensive care. And the new patient did no better.”

      Maryanne winced. “Audrey didn’t say a thing. Now…can’t they do anything more?”

      “Cancer at that stage is merciless. Morphine for the pain is the best we have. Nature helps and lets the patient enter a coma toward the end, but I’m afraid Audrey—”

      “I understand,” Maryanne said around the lump in her throat. “I’ll take care of her library card.”

      “She’s not the only one.”

      She bit her lip. “Who else?”

      “I don’t think you had a chance to meet him. Mr. Papparelli, the patient who moved into Audrey’s old room. He passed on, too.”

      “You’re right. I never did meet him.” His death wouldn’t hit her as hard as Audrey’s decline. “I set up his privileges as soon as I got word he was coming—I never knew he was the one moving into the bed I helped make. Then day before yesterday Marlene in Admissions called to say he’d gone into cardiac arrest and wouldn’t need books. He wasn’t dead yet, but close. I terminated him right away.”

      Dean sighed. “It’s never easy, you know.”

      Maryanne nodded and again tried to swallow the knot in her throat. “I know, and I’d better say good-night to Dad. I have to be at work early tomorrow.”

      She fought more tears—these hot and painful by comparison to her earlier tender ones—on her way back to the activities hall. As usual, a bevy of aged belles surrounded her father’s wheelchair, smiling and chatting with the unrepentant flirt. Maryanne sighed in relief. It was foolish to need the reassurance just because a sweet woman she had befriended was near the end. And yet, she did.

      She donned a bright smile and made her way through his admirers. “I’m going home now, you party animal. Some of us have to work.”

      “You work too much,” he countered. “But I won’t keep you. You need your rest. Thanks for everything, Cookie. Just don’t worry about me. I’m in my element.”

      Feminine laughter tittered around them. Maryanne swooped down for her good-night hug and kiss. Then, before she broke down and cried for real, she rushed from the building and into her car.

      She was going to miss Audrey. Just as she missed Mary Margaret Muldoon and her love of mysteries, Helmut Rheinemann’s armchair travels and Toby Matthias’s penchant for art books. She loved to serve the nursing home residents. She felt called to bring the joy of books into their often lonely and frequently pain-filled days. If only she could learn the art of detachment. Each loss broke her heart.

      Tomorrow she would order Audrey’s termination. Then she would work surrounded by sadness. And she counted on the Lord to see her through the day she had to terminate her own dad.

      Maryanne wiped her eyes with a tissue and then typed the curt e-mail first thing the next day. Terminate Audrey White. She expected a visit once Sandy Rodriguez, the card privilege clerk, downloaded that morning. The young man had learned that each message was written with a fresh batch of tears.

      She clicked the Send icon and received the message sent confirmation. Before she signed off, however, the screen went blank. “Rats.”

      The system was down. Again. The glitch, no matter how short-lived, would only make what had started out as a crummy day even worse. Since the county library system joined the information superhighway a couple of years earlier, it had become close to impossible to operate without the computers.

      She set her sad thoughts aside and reached across the desk for her correspondence folder. She might as well wade through it while the equipment stayed down. Who knew how long it would take to get things up and humming again.

      A short while later her door swung inward and two men in jeans, white shirts and navy ties, brass nameplates over their pocket, stepped in.

      “Hi,” said the shorter of the two, his brown eyes as warm as his smile. “We’re from Uni-Comp. I’m Dan Maddox, and this—” he glared at his companion “—is J.Z. Prophet. We’re here to fix the system and check the machines.”

      Surprised by that odd look, Maryanne took note of the names on the plates and stood. “Be my guests. I can’t do a thing until you do yours.”

      Dan Maddox went right to her desk, but the other man, J.Z. Prophet, stayed in the doorway, his gray eyes fixed on her.

      “Maryanne Wellborn?” he asked in a deep voice.

      “Yes, and if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to your work.”

      Maryanne stepped out to the hall. What an intense man. His eyes…so cold. She shivered. With a deep breath, she regained her composure.

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