The Next Queen of Heaven-SA by Gregory Maguire Page B

Jell-O.”

    “Odd damned Jell-O.” Mrs. Scales knocked the dish on the floor.

    “They all do that,” said Nurse Gompers. “I would too. What’s your point?”

    “Oh I walk through the valley of darkness,” said Mrs. Scales. “Oh, evil shall I fear.”

    “You said she was religious. She’s always quoting something,” said the nurse.

    “The devil can quote scripture for his own purpose. And she the devil’s secretary, in my humble opinion,” said the woman from the next bed. “She works for the Big Snake. Watch your back, Nurse Gompers. She evil.”

    “Marilee, I say unto you,” said Mrs. Scales, “get lost.” She turned to the woman in the bed near the window. “Oh to hell, you.”

    “I call that a sense of humor,” said Nurse Gompers. “I’m not retracting the doctor’s discharge order because you don’t like your mother’s funnybone. Shame on you. How’s tomorrow, when school gets out?”

    “I’m busy,” said Hogan. “I could do two weeks from Thursday.”

    “Have mercy on me, a sinner, and get this vamp of Satan outa my sight,” said the older woman beneath the going-to-church hat. “My eyes sting in their sockets just lookin’ at her.” The next day Tabitha and Hogan came to pick their mother up. Pushing Mrs. Scales in a wheelchair out to the curb, Nurse Gompers seemed a bit harried. “Someone’s in rare form.
    Someone wants to go home in a big way.”

    “I kingdom come,” said Leontina Scales, hitting Nurse Gompers’s fingers with a complimentary satchel of aspirin, plastic shower cap, and thermometer. “I will be done!” Tabitha knew that her mother didn’t like her to drive since, among other reasons, Tabitha didn’t even have a learner’s permit. But Tabitha’s driving seemed of minor concern to Mrs.
    Scales today.

    “It’s so good she has an outlet in her church interests.” Settling her patient into the passenger seat, Nurse Gompers looked more than grateful. “She’s got a lot to offer, I can see that. Now make sure she takes her meals regularly. She seems to be hungry. But she wouldn’t touch her lunch.”

    “Eat us not into temptation.” Mrs. Scales spat on the sidewalk. Her children stared.

    “You’re talking about her as if she’s not here,” said Tabitha.

    “One more moment.” The nurse gritted her teeth. “I’m working to overcome my separation anxiety.” She narrowly avoided getting jabbed in the stomach by the handle of the wheelchair as Mrs. Scales kicked it backward from her place in the passenger’s seat.

    “Don’t be a stranger, dear,” said Marilee Gompers. She appeared to be talking to the wheelchair. “We’re always here for you.”

    “Oh, oh, for Christ’s sake, go,” said Mrs. Leontina Scales, “home, will you? Ill the Nazi bitch.”

    “Learning some new words, Mom,” said Hogan. “Hey lady, you done her some good.”

    “We do our best.” Nurse Gompers sat down in the vacated wheelchair, shooing the car away, away.

    “To hell!” cried Mrs. Scales, waving her hand at Nurse Gompers.

    “Mom,” said Tabitha, “are you trying to like make some kind of point again?” Mrs. Scales spread her hands out wide. She almost knocked Tabitha in the chin. “Ever again. Oh more doctors. Ever again, do you hear me? Odd can take care of me. Odd is my physician, and I’ll kill myself if you take me back there, do you hear me? Ooh you hear me?
    Abby, I’ll kill myself. At’s a promise. Odd is my managed care, no one else. Eave me alone.”

    “You’re talking crazy,” said Tabitha. “What’re you now, nuts? You’re on your way home. This isn’t the time for a tantrum.”

    “I’m to be born!” she cried. “I’m to die! I’m to plant! I’m to pluck up that which is planted! I’m to kill! I’m to heal!”

    “You’re to go home and get some supper, there’s Spaghetti-O’s,” said Tabitha.

    “I’m to get, and I’m to lose,” said Leontina Scales in a smaller voice. “I’m to keep