Things Remembered by Georgia Bockoven Page B

even for Anna. “She sounded okay to me. Why do you ask?”
    â€œOh, nothing,” she said unconvincingly. “It’s just that Grace has been so busy the past couple of years she doesn’t call very often. When she does, it usually means there’s a crisis brewing.”
    â€œWhat you really mean is that she only calls when she wants something.”
    â€œWe can talk about this later. I’d like to leave a little early to stop by the grocery store and pick up my Lasix before we head downtown.”
    Karla didn’t want to talk about Grace any more than Anna did and followed her lead. “I think we can manage that.”
    Anna’s cardiologist’s office was on the top floor of a building that overlooked the historical landmark of Sutter’s Fort. Like most locals without school-age children, Karla had driven by the park for years without ever stopping. Now, she stared down at the crudely constructed shelter from the richly appointed waiting room of the man entrusted with keeping Anna alive as long as possible. She would have given the Gucci watch she’d received from Jim for her thirtieth birthday to be one of the women herding a group of five-year-olds out of a big yellow bus rather than the woman waiting to hear in clinical detail how much more her grandmother’s heart had failed since she last saw her doctor.
    When the nurse called Anna, Karla walked her to the door, then picked up a magazine and headed back to the chair by the window.
    â€œI’d like you to come with me,” Anna said.
    â€œI think it would be better if I waited here.”
    â€œOh, it’s all right,” the nurse said. “Dr. Michaels doesn’t mind if someone accompanies the patient.”
    Karla didn’t care about the doctor; she was thinking about herself. She no more wanted to stand around in a cramped examining room than she wanted to walk back into her house knowing Jim had been there with another woman.
    â€œI know you have questions,” Anna said. “Now is the time to ask them.”
    Reluctantly, Karla dropped the magazine on the table and followed Anna and the nurse. Curious, she tried to see the weights when Anna stepped off the scale, but the nurse swept them back to zero before she had a chance. It was the same with Anna’s blood pressure: the cuff was on and off and the numbers written in the file and the file closed before Karla could make them out.
    A short time later, Anna looked up expectantly when she heard her chart being removed from the wooden pocket outside the examining-room door. Several seconds passed. When the seconds became a minute, she glanced at Karla and then the door. “He probably hasn’t had a chance to go over the tests he ordered last month.”
    â€œWhat kind of tests?”
    â€œBlood tests.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œI don’t know. He didn’t say.”
    The answer angered Karla. She believed medical care was a team effort, with the patient being the most important member of the team. “It’s your responsibility to ask.”
    â€œWhy? What good would it do?”
    Before Karla could answer, a man with a shiny bald pate opened the door. Dressed in a generic white lab coat, tailored dark brown slacks, striped shirt, and paisley silk tie, he looked like an expensive German chocolate cake with canned frosting. He was halfway into the small room before he noticed Karla pressed into the corner and held out his hand. “My nurse didn’t tell me Anna had someone in here with her. I’m Mrs. Olsen’s doctor—Harold Michaels.”
    Karla liked the firmness of his grip. “Karla Esterbrook—Anna’s granddaughter.”
    â€œThe actress?”
    â€œThe businesswoman.”
    â€œAh, the one with the coffee shop in Solvang.” Having categorized her, he focused on Anna. “Any new problems since you were here last?”
    Anna shook her head.
    â€œWhat