Organ - Chapter 16
ORGAN
Chapter Sixteen
The time for hoping had expired, and the sleepless night left her hungry from results. Mary was going to call Boothe and reach out for more help than she was getting from the failing police of their decaying town. In her mind Boothe knew Oscar very intimately before his last breakaway from his usual self and therefore might be able to offer some inkling of insight into her sons whereabouts. Her disdain for the doctor as a man was obvious to the mother from their various unpleasant phone calls and meetings, his tendency to break her rhythm of thought with useless reassurances that sounded as hollow as she suspected they are left her feeling utterly out of the loop in regard to her sons care before his escape. After cleaning herself up from the previous day’s sweat and stress that laced her body like a disgusting oily sheen, she flicked on the kettle and poured an unmeasured volume of instant coffee grounds into a mug before finding her phone. Thankfully, she did remember to put it on charge before finally getting a wink of sleep last night she thought to herself.
“Good morning Doctor Boothe, it’s Mary Rubens” she politely said as the phones connected between herself and the doctor off somewhere unknown.
“Ah good morning Mrs Rubens, I am assuming you haven’t heard anything?” Boothe asked without delay to get into the meat and meaning of the unexpected call,
“No nothing this morning, are you able to meet with me today at some point? I would like to discuss Oscars last few days in the hospital in a bit more detail to see if anything has been missed” she explained asking for the chance.
The phone was silent for a few seconds before Boothe cleared his throat away from the receiver,
“Of course, can you come in around…..” he paused flicking through a paper diary which she could hear through the receiver “one this afternoon?" he asked,
Mary agreed and took her time getting ready, occasionally checking her phone and emails for any news on her missing son while she paced waiting for some sign of life that Oscar was on his way home or into care. No phone calls came before her meeting with Boothe that afternoon, the police continued their search and as usual promised Mary they would be in touch as soon as they found him, or anything that could give some ideas on his whereabouts. In similar fashion to her last call with the officers at the station she insisted that his wellbeing and not his whereabouts are what she is more concerned about. Mary parked up at the hospital, days before this would have been the last place she wanted Oscar to be found, now she mulled over the idea of this being the best place for him as the warm engine dwindled into a mechanical sleep. Beverly sat at the front desk by the entrance, further illustrating how understaffed the hospital could become considering her constant removal from this floor to that floor.
“Hello, excuse me, I have a meeting with Doctor Boothe” Mary said placing her bag upon the counter and greeting the senior nurse with the most drawn on smile the older nurse had seen in months.
“Okay my dear, his office is on floor two, it’s a short walk from the nurses station in the middle of the floor, if you get lost just ask one of the nurses to point you towards his door” Bev replied gesturing firmly away with her open palm towards the elevator behind the main lobbies desk, “Could you slap one of these on please” Bev asked handing over a paper visitor badge.
Slightly humiliating but Mary was beyond those notions forging her path. Mrs Rubens thanked Beverly with a forced smile and made her way to the elevators following the mental map the nurse had drawn out in the air for her quest.
Boothe waited in his isolated hole in the building, tucked behind the desk in his typical gargoyle tribute,
“Come in!” he greeted loudly as Mary knocked upon the door that wore his name on wooden façade.
“Ah Mrs Rubens, I hope your journey wasn’t any trouble, thank you for coming in” he engaged almost overly enthusiastically.
Mary felt pounced upon with niceness that seemed out of place considering the circumstances they all found themselves swimming in.
“Hello Doctor, the drive was fine, thank you. Could I get a glass of water please? The air in the hospital always dries me out” she asked ever so politely hoping not to impose so early into their appointment.
Boothe shot up from his cheer in energetic animation and hurled himself towards the door in a blurry race, the door swung open and Boothe shouted out into the hallway loud enough to wake the dead.
“Could someone please bring me a pitcher of water and some glasses, thank you!.”
He got no answer, but she assumed it was often like this with the superior laying down the instruction in bellows and those below following blindly, she saw it at her own job, and it was not going to surprise her seeing it here where the stakes felt considerably higher. Boothe slammed himself back down in his chair clumsily, it moved beneath him all too uncomfortably for the middle-aged man, his face showed tiny lines of panic growing every time he had to grip the desk for readjustment.
“How can I be of assistance then Mrs Rubens?” he asked now applying that tactile smile that he wore for every meeting they had shared.
“Well,” she began “Oscar has been missing for two days now and the police are for some reason no closer to finding my boy” Boothe was nodding along with every word vacantly, “basically I wanted you to see if you can retell Oscars last day in the hospital or if anything he said or did might have slipped your mind until now” she asked with expectance but as the words floated across the table they sounded more desperate.
Mary heard the words – hopeless begging – in her mind as she left Boothe space to jump in and save her from the verbal need to plead for his help.
“I did already detail all of this to the police officer on the day Oscar was first reported missing, Mrs Rubens, what I believe could help is if we call in the nurse that was attending to his needs on the day before he disappeared from our care” Boothe explained insisting without being direct that he would not waste his own time having another story time regarding Oscars routine.
“Who was the nurse attending? Is she in today?” she snapped back quickly to stop the Doctor distancing himself even further from her line of questioning.
The idea that she was allowed to come down to his office just for him to say no was lighting fires in the mothers belly that boiled the cauldron of impatience, but the lines on her face froze unmoving, she gave him no reason to dismiss her just yet. Mary was guessing in her mind a name that she was hoping would not be given but honestly given the way life was chomping its way through her last remaining nerves, she could have put her home on the chances of this nurses name being Katie.
“Well, the last nurse that saw your son before he left, or escaped, or ran away, however the police have labelled his choice of action…” Boothe carried on now almost accusing Oscar of being anything but a scared young man who is unwell.
Mary held her tongue but was losing slices of her own temper as Boothe shoved her through the meat slicer,
“..was Nurse Katie, although I know she has already spoken to the police as an aside” Boothe finished.
“I can’t say I am happy at all with that nurse being in charge of my sons medical care, she was responsible for his first accident wasn’t she” Mary said with spite now spilling over to rehash the same argument she seemed to have at every interaction with either the doctor or the nurse.
It was rhetorical, but Boothes ego almost left him with the stones to answer judging by the way his lips trembled at the corners and then fell motionless in puckering angst.
“I understand your feelings towards Katie; however, she was closer to Oscar than any other nurse in our hospital, she will need to be brought in if we are to understand any missing pieces that could help the police find your son and hopefully bring him back to ourselves” Mary paused listening to Boothe his words felt extremely odd, “to finally put an end to whatever medical trouble your son is experiencing of course” he tacked on to the end of his trailing sentence.
“Mrs Rubens, I want to find Oscar safe and sound, just as much as anyone, I think we should meet with Nurse Katie and inform her of our attempts to draw up a timeline of events. We can then pinpoint exactly when we suspect he left, that should bring to light any clues we might be missing” Boothe said, now enjoying his role of controlling patriarch once more.
Mary nodded and gave him a half smile as she gathered her things and went for the door,
“I will call you with the details for our meeting with nurse Katie once I have contacted her today” he added watching the obviously upset mother leave.
“Thank you Doctor, I will wait for your call” she answered with a wobble in her voice, Boothes face remained unmoving but the door clacking behind heavily giving the dismantling nudge to let out a single tear drop down her cheek, as good as she was fighting these emotional sabotages that life insisted on hurling her way in these awful days.
Mary was resolved to fracture as little as humanly bearable. The words she comforted herself with the night before sang out in her head like a summoning choir, Oscar needs you. When she arrived home she went about the formed usual routine, calling the police station to find out any updates and then spend the rest of her day on either socials looking for any signs that someone has spotted her son and left her message or checking with people and business across the town for any news.
It was exhausting but she would never let her tired body and withering mind falter until he was found. What she hadn’t realised, that day before she had been instructed to leave his office, was that Boothe was now in the process of terminating Katies position from the hospital. He had no evidence concrete enough to swing the final death blow but based on what he had scrounged up, he knew that the nurse beneath his nose was involved heavily. Shamefully Boothe fully intended to use Katie as a prop in his interactions with Mary, keeping her around was both beneficial and wildly damaging to his ego, stung from the perceived betrayal and immoral actions in the hospital he claimed to rule over.
“That termination will need to wait” he thought to himself watching the Rubens mothers car leave the hospital that afternoon.
It was an entire day later that Boothe finally called her back, organising the pieces of the plan that he himself had help scatter was proving frustrating and Katie was not an easy person to bring back around. Thanks to some apologising and an unconvincing “Let’s see where we are when Oscar is found” he had managed to keep Katie on the roster for the time being at least.
Oscar had been missing for three days. Her anger on the phone when the doctor finally called was subdued, keeping the line of communication open with the hospital was more important than calling out these utterly disgraceful oversights in empathy from Boothe or his colleagues, the troublesome Katie that Mary despised more with every mention of her name in the same sentence as her boys. Boothe explained that Katie was available later that day to meet and that she would need to meet once again at the hospital with them both, finally she felt the chance to gather pieces of useful information for those in uniform on the ground searching for her boy was within her ability, despite the half-hearted nature of Boothes timing on the urgency before them.
Still the wounded mother at the centre of local sympathies held it together, and after spending yet another unpleasantly undisturbed half day alone without her son slogging through with music blaring from his phone that they could argue about, or him cooking some horrendous smelling spicy food in her, it was a dreadful time to be at home. Nevertheless, Mary gathered her phone and purse, jumped back into her car and headed off for the hospital, for what she imagined would be another memorably unpleasant and unhelpful meetings with two people she was actively holding deep darkening disgust towards. Mary switched off the radio out of acquired instinct, any music that held memories within its lyrics had become too risky a combatant against her sturdy unwavering mental barracks,
“Crying fits served nobody but the devil” she spoke to herself;
Oscar was her only earnest driving force to stand sure and this might be the chance of salvation if Boothe could conjure up some useful information worth chasing
