💞Now and Forever💔~Chapter 13~Drowning~😢




Poirot had been awakened at the ungodly hour of six-twenty-five in the morning by Virginie.
Her voice was so calm and relaxed that he expected to wake up in their bed. Instead, he woke up in the hospital chair;  amazed he'd gotten any sleep at all.  Still,  Virginie was standing over him.  "I'm sorry,  sweetie, for waking you. You looked so peaceful I didn't want to. But the nurse came in to let me know I'd be going down for surgery soon, and so I got up to brush my teeth and send you home for a proper rest."
   Getting  up from the chair, Poirot folded the blanket and set the pillow atop of it in the very chair he slept in. "I am fine. I am fine. It is you I am concerned about.  May I borrow your tooth brush, Virginie love?  My mouth tastes like a furry little thing crawled onto my tongue and died."
In spite of the graphic description,  Virginie only feigned cringing before she burst out in giggles. "Go on, Mr. Sunshine, and then get yourself home.  I think I'll get more rest today than you will."
In spite of wanting to assure his wife,  Hercule could make no promise of sleeping until he knew she was out of surgery and all would be well.
"I'm confident, love. Dr. Doyle has been on top of this from day one,  Hercule.  I have every good feeling that the next time we hear from the good physician,  it will be to tell me he's bored with my presence, and could I and my husband just get on with the rest of our lives."
"If not hearing from the good doctor means you are well, then I hope our phone, it never rings again!"   He stole a quick peck to his wife's right cheek before heading to the private bathroom to brush his teeth. After which, he just about sterilized the toothbrush before replacing it next to her dental powder.  He wasn't in the room for a minute before the nurse arrived to prepare Virginie for surgery.
"May I stay and...?"  Poirot began,  only to have Virginie shake her head.  "You need a proper rest, Hercule.  A good rest and you'll hear from the doctor or nurse...."
"Ada Marsh,"  the nurse introduced herself.  "I will leave myself a note to call you the minute your wife is out of surgery. Girl Scout's Honor."
Poirot heaved a long sigh and nodded slowly, as if it took every last ounce of strength he possessed to do so.  He didn't want to be anywhere but here, in his wife's room at the hospital.  Comforts be hanged.  Then again,  what good did it do to stay up and worry himself sick over unknowns?  The lack of a proper sleep made people testy and almost hallucinogenic;  reacting to issues that didn't exist.  At least,  not at present.
"I will go home.  Whether I will sleep,  that is another matter."
"Fair enough. But at least, at home, you have a choice.  Here, the nurses have their work to do.  Patients'  families;  pacing around and demanding to know if they've heard anything, every five minutes.  gets in the way of their duties."   

  This Virginie Poirot said,  understanding, full well, her husband's keen sense of duty.  He'd divulged stories of parents, calling the station in a blind panic over a lost child.  Hardly half an hour after the police arrived, the parents would call again;  pleading to know if they had found the child.
"Remember the story you told me about the frantic mother, who call you just about every five minutes,  when her child went missing?"
Hercule thought,  "Oui.  The mother, she was in a panic that was the equivalent to a five alarm fire.  I don't think I took a breath before the phone, it would ring again. "
"When did  you finally find the child?"   Virginie asked,  knowing full well what the answer was.
"We did not.  She did.  The child and his brother,  they were the game of Hide and Seek. The boy, he hid in the clothes closet and fell asleep.  She apologized for the wasting of our time. She even giggled with the relief of finding the child after his brother forgot they were playing the game and went off to do something else."
"See?" Virginie kissed her husband on the nose.
"You are going to hide in the closet?"
Virginie giggled even as she shook her head.  Oh, how he loved her laughter!   "No.  Only that you are going to feel mighty silly when all of this turns out fine but you forced half the nursing staff to need a week off work.  Isn't that how you felt with that anxious mother?"
The nurse cut in on the conversation,  "I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist you go home, Mr. Poirot.  You need the rest and we need to tidy up.  Protocol.  Your wife will be tired and she will be receiving visitors in the next few days.   I won't show them an untidy room."
Forced by an official authority,  Poirot acquiesced.  Kissing his wife's hand, he then kissed her on the cheek and whispered,  "I love you."
"And I love you. Now go home and sleep and look refreshed when you visit this afternoon."   Another point scored.  Hercule Poirot was seldom seen anywhere disheveled.  Most certainly NOT in public.
"And you will call?"  Poirot reminded the nurse.
"The second I see your wife wheeled back into her room,  you will be called. I PROMISE."
Poirot nodded, stole one last kiss from his wife as she got into her hospital bed and then left the room in a hurry.
"Sorry about that."  Virginie said,  turning her head away from the needle that contained the mild sedative.
"About what?"  Nurse Ada Marsh asked,  placing the needle in a steel pan and set it on the bedside table before she fluffed up Virginie's pillow.
"I do love my husband,  but he is a bit ...over-protective of me."
Ada Marsh smiled briefly,  "Be thankful,  my dear.  Your hubby is worth a million of the other sort women end up with.  More than worth.  Some men marry so they can have help without having to pay.  Others marry for .....favors .  Again, without having to pay.  And then there are women like you, who are blessed.  If your husband enjoys taking you out to dinner,  or remembers your birthday without being reminded,  you are one of the blessed few.  Be thankful."
"Thank you,"  Virginie Poirot said,  beginning to doze off.  "I am."

 

                               ~~~~~


In spite of his protestations,  Poirot did sleep when he got home.  He arrived home by cab to find Hilde cleaning the sitting room.  Every single book on the shelves was in absolute order. This impressed and puzzled Hercule, who realized that the women of the home were tidy but not overly organized.   The house was just about immaculate.  Only the age of the house, itself prevented absolute perfection.  Not that he cared.
Upon seeing him, Hilde halted the dusting of the lamp tables at the side of the sofa and set upon him with questions.
"Oh, Hercule!  How is Virginie?  She's out of surgery? What did the doctor say?  When is she coming home?"
Taking her hands,  Poirot lead Hilde to the sofa.  "Virginie was just being prepared for surgery and I was scooted out of the hospital and told to come home and get some rest.  I was not sure I would shut so much as one eye-lid.  Now, I wonder if I would awaken if a war were to break out on our front porch."
"But how....?"
"A nurse,  Madame Ada Marsh, she will telephone our home as soon as Virginie is in her room. I made her promise that she would call as soon as she knew."
Hilde heaved a sigh of relief.  "I know that much anyway.  I don't think I slept for more than five minutes, all night long.  I tried reading. Praying. Nothing was helping.  At around seven, I gave up trying to sleep and came down for breakfast and decided I needed to DO something! So...I began cleaning."
"I can tell."  Hercule looked around.  "And now,  Madame Hilde,  it is time for you to rest.  I will sleep in the ..."  Poirot pointed to the lounge chair, with it's matching footrest.
Hilde shook her head, with her  tied back hair,  somewhat disheveled with all the house-work she was doing.    "Oh, no you won't!  You were probably in a chair all night.  You don't look like you got much more sleep than I have. And the house is clean enough so you have no excuse for doing anymore.  So UP to bed with you.  My chair and foot rest are for ME.   I've spent years, breaking it in.  I will hear the phone ring and you will know right after.  My word of honor. "
"I want, very much, to argue,  but I lack the energy to even spell the word. Merci. "
He was heading toward the stairs when Hilde asked if he wanted breakfast.
"No  Not now.  When we hear from the hospital, I will eat.  For now, I need sleep.  I will bathe and eat after I hear..."  Hercule's words drifted off as he ascended the stairs with all the determination of a mountain-climber,  who wasn't sure he'd survive the remainder of the climb.
In their bedroom,  Hercule could not find the strength to even dress for bed.  He was emotionally, physically exhausted.  Turning down the bedspread on his side of the bed,   Poirot sat down,  untied his shoes , took them off and set them at the foot of the bed.  Then he got into bed,  covered himself and took hold of his wife's pillow.  Alternating between sobs and words of desperate prayer,  Hercule Poirot cried himself to sleep.

                                                                           ~~~~~~~~~~

    The phone call came at 10: 45 a.m.  Even in spite of her own fatigue,  Hilde jumped at the sound of the first ring and had picked up the phone by the time the third ring died out.
   The nurse was pleasant and informed Hilde that Virginie was in her room resting.
"Visiting hours are in effect til eight p.m.  Come after lunch.  Chances are,  Mrs. Poirot will still be pretty logey.  For the rest of the day, really."
"That's fine. Just so long as she's out of surgery.  Did her doctor give any information to pass on to us?"
"Ummmm.... No. Only that the surgery lasted a few hours.  But she came through the operation well, so I'm sure Dr. Doyle dealt well with whatever the problem was."
"Thank you,  Madame Marsh.  I'll let Mr. Poirot know."
Upon receiving the news,  Poirot set speed records for brushing his teeth and getting into his shoes.  "Call for us a cab, Hilde, please."
"Done.  Just before I came up."
"Merci."

                                 ~~~~

Upon seeing Virginie,  however tired she was,  her husband felt the weight of the world slide off his shoulders.   He even read the second chapter of the book Hilde had brought for her.  Whether Virginie understood or heard half of what was read didn't matter.  She was safe.  That was all that mattered.   The fact that they could not have children anymore was a small matter.   So many children needed a good home. They would adopt.  But that was for another time.  They'd deal with that as soon as she was up and around.   How much he missed her around the house.  THAT was what Hercule wanted.  The rest would happen in its time.
The next day,  Virginie was more lucid and was delighted by the sight of Hide's little picnic basket.  The three were in the middle of a picnic when Dr. Doyle walked into the room.
"Hello, all!"  the man said, sounding upbeat.  "WOW!  A picnic!  Nothing too spicy,  I trust.  Recovering from surgery does not go along well with over-spicy food.  It's like splashing cologne on shaving cuts. Ouch."
"Egg salad sandwiches and coffee. Would you like some?"
"Are you trying to tell me you don't like hospital food, Mrs. Poirot?"  Dr. Doyle teased.
"It wasn't my idea. Hilde came prepared.  Hospital stays bring the picnic chef in her.  Would you like a sandwich. I'm sure..."
The good doctor waved the invitation aside.  "No,  thank you.  My wife treats me to a proper breakfast every morning. Comes with having kids who have a day of school to get through.  Anyway,  if you're up to it,  you can go home tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?"  Poirot wasn't sure who was happier; himself or Virginie.
"I'll make every effort.  Did surgery go well?"
"Apart from my assistant's bad jokes.   Anyway, I have some post operative instruction to give, about foods and ...other things,   but that can wait til later.  I'll leave you to enjoy your meal.  I have another patient to see, who is leaving this afternoon.  Enjoy. And no fried chicken."   He left the group on a cheerful note and headed on his rounds.
"I don't have any fried chicken."   Hilde puzzled over that caution.   The physician's statement quickly forgotten,  the family enjoyed their meal and then Hilde excused herself.  "I am going to get some shopping done so you have a lovely dinner for tomorrow.  Nothing spicy, just something pleasant,  to welcome you home ;  never to return here again."
"Amen!"   Virginie and her husband declared.

    Eventually,  Hilde left with Poirot,  who offered to help her with the shopping.  "I may purchase for you,  a lovely dessert."  Virginie's husband informed her.
"I'd come home with you if you didn't buy any dessert at all."
Poirot and Hilde left and Virgine read away the afternoon until she got bored and pressed the call bell and asked if she could take a walk.
"You're in an awfully big hurry to get up and around.  I'd be happy  for the chance to lie in and relax."   The young nurse said as she walked with Virginie down the hall and back.
"If I could,  I'd fly out of here. I just want to be home.  Sooner I get home, and recovered, the sooner my husband and I could go to the process of adopting a baby."
The nurse nearly asked why they needed to adopt when she recalled reading her chart.   Instead,  she asked if Virginie wanted to take another walk up the hall.
Scanning the hall, Virginie decided against another lap. "No.  I think I'll return to bed.  Finish the chapter in the book I've been reading and take a nap.  I cannot believe I'm thinking this, but I want to  get home and do some housework. Tackle the living room windows or at least pay someone to clean them."
Virginie and the nurse were returning when they were spotted by the doctor,  who was on the way out of Virginie's room.  "Hello, ladies,"  Dr. Doyle greeted them. " And what do you think You're up to,  Madame Poirot?  Training for the Olympics?"
Giggling, Virginie  cheerfully refuted the good doctor's teasing assessment. "Unlikely.  At best,  I want to be able to get up and down the stairs at home without being fussed over by Hilde or my husband. They've done enough for me. I want to fuss over them as soon as I can."
"Will your husband by coming by again today?"
As casual as the good doctor tried to sound,  Virginie wasn't convinced that he simply wanted to chat about post-operative care.  They'd been down this road already.  Hercule could recite Dr. Doyle's instructions, back to front.
"He didn't say he would,  but then, he didn't say he wouldn't."  Virginie tried to sound casual when she said, "Anything you can tell him, you can tell me.  I am the patient after all."
Dr. Doyle said nothing for a moment and then smiled,  "And an excellent patient you are, unless the nurses have been lying to me.  Anyway,  I'll check in tomorrow for last minute instructions.  Meaning no offense, Madame Poirot, but I've been seeing too much of you.  People are beginning to talk."   His tone was light and good humored.  "Let's not keep meeting like this.  Now,  if you ladies will excuse me,  I have sick people to see."
He headed off, leaving Virginie with the nurse,  who shrugged the matter off with a flippant retort.  "You really like hospitals so much?"
Virginie made a show of replying,  "Oh yes.  My husband suspects nothing.   He thinks I've been unwell.  In truth,  I just like single hospital beds.  I've been using my inheritance to rent a room here and asked Dr. Doyle to call with ....plausible cause for admittance."
"In that case, my dear,  you don't need surgery,  you need psychiatry,"  the nurse teased  and Virginie burst lout laughing.  She was still giggling as she settled back into her hospital bed.  Once the nurse was sure her patient was comfortably tucked in, with her book,  she offered,  "Anything you'd like?  I'm making up a pot of tea in the nurse's lounge. I could bring you down a cup.  A good book and a mug of tea does a soul the world of good."
" Oh, that DOES sound lovely. Yes, please."
"Cream and sugar?"
"Two sugars and a dollop of cream."
"Be right back."  The squeaky sound of rubber-soled shoes and the rhythm of the nurse's steps were somewhat assuring.  No emergency to attend to, just tea. By the time the nurse returned with the tea, Virginie was already deeply involved in her book.
"I feel a smidge guilty;  sitting here, reading while you're working."
"In a week or so, you're going to be so wrapped up in day to day living you'll wish you had this day back. So enjoy it."
"I'll force myself."   Virginie teased.  "Thanks, again, for the tea."
She read for a while longer;  sipping between pages.  Eventually, the words began mingling together and Virginie gave up trying to read anymore,  dog eared the page and set it on the bedside table. Closing her eyes,  she was asleep hardly five minutes later. In her dreams,  Virginie relived her wedding day....and NIGHT;  falling asleep in Hercule's arms after sharing their first night together as husband and wife.

Voices brought Virgine out of her sleep.  Familiar voices and laughter and she recognized both voices.  Ada Marsh and Virginie's good husband. Hercule came armed with the same travel case she'd packed to bring to the hospital.  Ada was armed with a breakfast tray.
"I am offended, Mrs. Poirot!"  Ada 'scolded'  with a smile on her face and in her eyes. "Here, we give you a lovely room and a nice cozy bed,  not to mention three meals a day, and you want to leave?"
Virginie made a show of apologizing but added,  While the bed IS nice it's a single.  I'm a married woman.  Single beds are lonely."
"All right, married lady,  get that down you and then vamoose your married self out of my hospital."   Ada nodded to the very nicely arrayed breakfast tray, complete with a pink rose in a small vase.  "Enjoy, sweetie, and don't come back here anytime soon.  Summer is in full bloom early this year. Fill your lungs with some good fresh air.  That, and a walk around the neighborhood, when you're feeling up to it, will do you all the good in the world."
"Do not give to my wife the ideas, Madame Marsh.  She has already conveyed her desire to catch up on the spring cleaning.  It will take Hilde and myself all the energy we have to keep her from having a go at the windows."
"NO WINDOWS!"  Ada Marsh declared.  "Dust your bedside table if you have to but that is as much as you..."
"Not to worry,  you two.  I will see my home and my bed and it will take all three of you and a brass band in the sitting room to keep me from just...relaxing in my own home."
Ada was nearly out of the room when she returned with a note in her hand.  "Just about forgot this."   She handed Virginie the note.  "Virginie Poirot,  room 405,  please see Dr. Doyle before leaving hospital."
"Did he say what it was about?"  Poirot asked.
"No doubt to brag about his handy-work.  By the time he's finished telling you about the miraculous turn-about he accomplished; snatching you from the jaws of certain death,   you'll sign your life's savings over to him.  Doctors can be SUCH show-off's."
"I've never known Dr. Doyle to be a bragger,"   Virginie replied.
"You've never heard him after a major surgery.  Oy!  Sherlock Holmes looks shy and modest by comparison."  She waved the exaggerated criticism aside. "Just say THANK YOU in a flood of happy tears. Between that, and financial compensation and he'll be content."
Nurse Marsh left the room and the couple shared the hospital meal which was, to Poirot's amazement, tasty, in a good way.  "The sausage, it is nice and brown, and the eggs, they were not produced by the powdered chicken."
Virginie just managed to swallow her coffee before laughing aloud.  "WHAT is a powdered chicken?"
"The poultry that is legally contracted to make the eggs for hospitals.  The farmers that feed those chickens, they should be sued. And the chickens, they should be broiled."
Her laughter subsided into snippets of giggles before Virginie Poirot kissed her husband.  "I love how you can make me laugh."
"I am happy to make you smile.
Virginie finished her breakfast while Poirot packed the few changes of of clothes ,  mainly bed clothes and under garments, once he had laid out her dress for going home.
The egg-shell white dress she liked to wear to church.
"Why this dress?"  Virginie asked her husband.
"I think that may have been the dress you wore when we went to the concert., when we began courting. But then,  you were beautiful anyway.  Or perhaps it is the closest to the color of your wedding gown.  Yes. I think that is it.   I am not even certain why I had to take home the suitcase."
"Because a lot of patients get too nervous and try to leave the hospital, bag and baggage, if they have a change of clothes."
"Would you?"
Virginie considered it. "It would have been a temptation. Anyway, all that's done.  Take me home, Hercule."
Picking up the flower from the vase, Virginie immediately accompanied her husband from the hospital room , where they headed to the lift in the middle of the long corridor.  They got friendly 'goodbyes'  from the two nurses at the desk and Virginie returned the greeting with a  'Thank you'  for the rose.
At the reception desk for Dr. Doyle,  the physician's receptionist went to his office as soon as they walked through the door and they were immediately admitted.  While punctuality was something Hercule Poirot generally approved of,  the quickness of their admittance to a doctor's private office made him at least antsy.  That the doctor was the one who opened his door to them caused Hercule Poirot to question his own judgement.  And he wanted,  more than anything else in the world, for Nurse Marsh to be correct in her assertion;  that the good Dr. Doyle was a bit of a braggard when he was successful in a medical endeavor.
"Let him brag"  Poirot thought.  "Let Dr. Doyle sing his own praises to the high heavens. If that self-congratulatory back-patting meant that Virginie was well and healthy,  he could claim to be God if he wanted.  Blasphemous though it might be.
"How are you feeling, Mrs. Poirot?"  Dr. Doyle made eye contact with Virginie before opening the file folder in front of him.
"Good.  Tired,  but I suspect that's from the surgery and the lack of anything to do around here except sleep."  She stopped herself from talking about mundane household chores. "Doctor,  I asked you, yesterday, how surgery went and you gave me what amounted to a non-answer.  Something to do with your assistance and his bad humor."
"My assistant has a bit of a blue sense of humor and he can't tell a straight joke to save his life. He doesn't know how to deliver a punchline.  It's like being subjected to a bad Vaudeville act while being strapped to the electric chair."
"So we know that you would sooner die by electrocution than listen to your assistant tell bad jokes. But that wasn't what I asked."
The doctor nodded. "True. I apologize for that ...stall tactic but I needed to be sure of my prognosis rather than upset you without cause."  The physician stared at the open file folder on his desk. "When I scheduled you for this surgery,  Virginie ,  I did so on the assumption that, once I removed that part of your ...reproductive area that was affected,  we would have eradicated the malignancy.   I'm afraid that assumption was proven wrong.  The tumor moved a lot further and faster than myself or the others on my team anticipated.  It's unusual though not unheard of, for....Cancer to advance so quickly."
Clearing away the dryness in her throat that was quickly filling with tears,  Virginie asked,  "So, what now? What else is there to do?"    She was aware of her husband's eyes on her, and that those eyes didn't blink.
"Mrs Poirot,  Mr. Poirot, I regret that there is NOTHING more we can do.  Believe me, I wish there was.  I spent better part of that same afternoon, arguing with those other men. I insisted there was SOMETHING that could be done. There HAD to be.  But they pointed out, plainly, though with the same regret, that there was nothing else that could be done."

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