The hours dragged by, and somehow, Della lingered on.
Slowly, slowly, her heart rate crept up – first to thirty-three beats per minute, then to thirty-seven. But this scarcely rejoiced Perry. Dr. Hawley's warning that her pulse could plunge at any time rankled too deeply in his mind.
At four o'clock, the physicians returned and reassessed her, and decided that it would be safe, for the moment, to relieve Della of the unpleasant oxygen mask. The young lady did not stir when they pulled it off. Then they tried to rouse her.
Unlike the previous morning, she did not wake easily. After repeated, loud, and insistent pronunciation of her name, her eyelashes did flutter open, but she only blankly looked at them for about three seconds before falling back asleep.
Dr. Hawley and Dr. Liao gravely told Perry that her extreme weakness did not surprise them. The poor girl had been at death's door twice within the span of forty-eight hours, and that circumstance had, unsurprisingly, taken a toll on her body. They left him alone with her again after issuing the same nearly-hopeless prognosis which they had offered the previous evening. When they were well out of earshot, Jeremy Liao muttered to his colleague:
"It's times like this that I really despise my job. Your friend is clearly heels-over-head enamored with that pretty creature, more in love than any man I ever saw, in fact, and he is going to lose her. As a cardiologist I've seen more than my share of death, but I'm sure that Della Street will be one of those patients whose name and story I remember for the rest of my life."
"Between you and me," Bill Hawley answered in a very low voice, "I am starting to fear for Perry's sanity. I have never seen him like this – wearing his heart on his sleeve, refusing to work at his law practice. When she dies, he might very well go stark raving mad. And just like you cannot do anything about his secretary's heart condition, I cannot do anything to protect his mind." The two physicians shook their heads at the sad situation and their own helplessness, and parted ways to see their other patients.
…..
Two hours later, the neurologist made his appearance. Della's drowsiness made it difficult for him to perform his examinations, but with a good deal of persistence he managed to keep her awake for enough time to ascertain that she could feel and slightly move her arms and legs, and that she knew the month and the year and where she was. After the patient had sunk back into her exhausted slumber, he informed Perry that while Ms. Street appeared to have been spared any brain damage so far, she might not be so fortunate the next time her pulse descended into the twenties.
No sooner had the most recent addition to Della's rapidly expanding team of medical professionals made his exit, the day nurse Janice made her appearance.
"Oh Mr. Mason!" she exclaimed in a soft voice, so as to not wake Della. "I could barely believe my ears when Annette told me what happened overnight. What a shame! She was doing so well!"
"Yes, I know," Perry Mason whispered, gazing mournfully at the face he loved. "A great shame."
"I'll let her rest for a few hours, and then I'll come back and try do something with her hair," Janice kindly said, touching the mussed strands which were scattered all over Della's pillow. "Having her hair properly arranged always makes a woman feel better," she added with a hopeful smile. Perry met her eyes and returned a shaky smile.
The nurse was as good as her word. Around noon, she came in with a comb and gently brushed out the soft brown locks, despite the fact that her patient slept through the vast majority of the experience. Perry watched as Della's curls reemerged from the tangled mess. How often he had seen those curls falling around her shoulders, or bouncing up and down as she walked with a sprightly step, and had taken the moment for granted?
After giving Della a few more hours of respite, Janice came in with a food tray. Setting it on the nightstand, she addressed Perry:
"I'm getting quite worried about Ms. Street's lack of nutrition. She's getting enough hydration from the intravenous fluids, but she hasn't had anything to eat all day, and dinner was the only meal she had yesterday."
"She did not eat much the previous day, either," Perry recalled. "We were in court all day, and gave up our lunch hour to chase a lead."
"Considering how lethargic she is, I am hesitant to give her any solid food lest she fall asleep while chewing and choke on it, but if we could get her to drink a few calories it might go a long way to helping her regain her strength." As Perry expressed his understanding and approbation, Janice took a carton of milk from the tray, opened it, and inserted a straw. Turning to the bed, she asked Perry to help prop Della up on some extra pillows, which he gladly did, relieved to be useful. Then the nurse approached the bed and gently shook Della's shoulder. "Wake up, Ms. Street. I need you to drink a little milk for me." Della murmured something unintelligible, and did not open her eyes. "Come on now, it will do you good, Ms. Street!"
The only response she got was a slightly annoyed shrug of Della's shoulders, such as sleeping people make when they wish to be left in peace. Janice took a deep breath and was about to try again when an alarm went off in the hallway. Glancing at the blinking light through the door, she sighed and set the cartoon back on the tray.
"That is my other patient calling for me, Mr. Mason," she said. "I will see what they need and then come back and try again."
"Of course," Perry replied.
When Janice had gone, Perry gazed at Della again, his heart breaking anew. How many times had he flaunted her requests to go get something to eat? How often had she worked, hungry, at his side till midnight? How could he have been so thoughtless and cruel?! Just because he lost his appetite when he was working on a case did not mean that everyone around him should suffer as well! Now, he would give every cent he owned and then some to see her drink a mere eight ounces of milk and get some nourishment into her quickly fading form.
He found that he did not have the patience to wait for Janice's return, nor did he have much hope that she would manage to convince the weak Della to expend her strength to consume the beverage. However, he felt certain that he might be able to succeed. Surely, Della would respond to his voice and touch more readily than to that of a stranger. She would drink if he asked her to. The dear girl had always done whatever he asked of her.
Repressing memories of happier times, when Della would take female clients to her apartment at his request to keep them out of Tragg's way, or stay late to type up a stack of documents because he had told her that it was important to him that they be finished, Perry picked up the container and carefully seated himself on the edge of the hospital bed. With his right hand, he tenderly caressed her cheek and murmured in a loving voice,
"Please, Della, take a sip. For me."
It was obviously difficult for her, but his beloved dragged her eyes open. Giving the straw and carton a tired look, she regardless picked up her head from the pillow, leaned forward, and placing her lips on the straw, drank half a mouthful before falling back and closing her eyes again, exhausted by the effort.
"That's my girl," he praised. Before he could decide whether he should give her a moment to rest or insist that she finish the milk right then and there, he suddenly became aware that someone was watching them from the hallway.
Janice stood in the threshold, an overjoyed look on her face. She seemed beyond delighted – indeed, almost gleeful, to find him feeding Ms. Street.
"You are much better at this than I," she exclaimed, almost as soon as he locked eyes with her. "You could take up a career in nursing."
"I believe you will only find me successful with certain patients, such as this one," Perry rebutted, nodding at Della.
"Well, if you have no objection, sir, I will let you finish giving Ms. Street her dinner, as you have been having more luck in the endeavor than I."
"Not at all," Perry replied.
As soon as she had left, he tried to rouse Della again. She partially opened her eyes, but they closed again against her will before she could take another sip. Perry did not have the heart to prod her any further for the moment. He would let her sleep for a few minutes before trying again.
An unhappy frown upon his lips, Perry Mason admired Della's beautiful countenance and let his thoughts wander. He thought of how he missed hearing her strong, steady, sure voice. He remembered the wonderful day he had hired her – within hours he had known that he had found a gem of a secretary. Before he knew it, he had spent almost an hour wrapped up in his memories.
The thought occurred to him, then, that Della seemed to be growing slightly paler before his eyes. Instinctively, he glanced at the printout from the electrocardiograph machine, and was surprised to find it registering merely thirty-four beats per minute. For most of the afternoon, her pulse had been holding steady at forty-two.
With bated breath, the lovesick man watched as her heart rate dropped to thirty-three, then thirty-two. He made up his mind that if it reached thirty, he would call for help. He knew that, for Della's condition, a heart rate above thirty had been relatively acceptable to the doctors over the past two days. Besides, he knew that any help the medical professionals would try to provide would be practically pointless. At best, they would put the oxygen mask back on Della's face and give her some additional intravenous fluids. He would be shooed away to the perimeter of the room again, or worse.
Trying to savor and imprint in his memory what might be his last moments with Della, Perry desperately grasped her hand and fervently prayed that her pulse would stabilize. It dropped to thirty-one. Perry started eyeing the call button, preparing himself for the deluge of people and equipment that it would bring into the room. He took one last look at her, and, just in case he would not get a chance to say another farewell, he raised her limp hand to his lips and pressed a tender kiss upon it.
But it never dropped to thirty. It hovered stubbornly at thirty-one, went up for a few minutes to thirty-two, and then settled back down at a steady thirty-one beats per minute. After half-an-hour of torture, Perry remembered how to properly breathe.
Collecting his thoughts, the attorney was suddenly struck by a very strange coincidence: twice, now, Della's heart rate had dropped relatively shortly after eating, despite having been stable for the rest of the day.
It had just been about an hour since she had sipped the milk. Last evening, her bradycardia had been discovered about three hours after she had eaten – but Annette had noticed it during a routine vital-sign check, and that meant that it could have been lower for a long period of time beforehand. Thinking back, Perry remembered that Della seemed to have gotten unaccountably tired just about an hour after finishing yesterday's dinner – but as she had simply gone to sleep without a nurse checking her vitals, they had been in ignorance of what had probably been a decreasing heart rate. At that point, she had not yet been constantly strapped to the electrocardiograph machine.
Could it be that the sheer effort it took Della to eat sapped energy from her heart and caused it to fail? Why then, did it take almost an hour before she developed symptoms? One would expect a more immediate decompensation if that were the case.
It was almost like she needed time to digest…something…and absorb it into her bloodstream before the effects manifested themselves.
In a moment of providential inspiration, Perry suddenly remembered the peculiar expression Janice had had on her face when she had caught him feeding Della. She seemed to be a nurse who cared deeply for her patients, but the tiny sip of milk that Della had taken scarcely seemed to be a reasonable justification for such a gleeful and immensely satisfied look.
And, it had been Janice who had been on duty when Della had consumed yesterday's dinner.
A million questions and thoughts swirling in his mind, Perry brought the nearly full container of milk he held closer to the light.
Inspecting it intently, he noticed the faintest streak of clear, dried glue on the upper edge of the thick, waxy carton.
It was just as if someone had opened the carton and put something into it, before sealing it again with glue to make it appear unopened when it was served.
Is Perry finally onto something?!
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