"SPRING"ING AHEAD... Better days? (Part 170l)

“SPRING”ING AHEAD… Better days? (Part 170l)

It was hard not to think about Ruthe and her situation for the rest of the weekend. So as not to keep Elle’s concern down I made sure not to do/say anything about it to the point I made no further attempts to get any more information. It was hard. In bed at night I kept going back to the my initial sighting of her lying on the couch with all that blood. Even today, in writing this part, it still bothers me as I dredge it out of the recesses of my mind. I was really looking forward to getting to the bank on Monday to talk with Lynda and to see if Bret any any information on the ex husband.

Bret was walking up to the back door when I pulled in. He reversed course and headed to where my parking space was located. Walking up to the car he had both hands up and was shrugging his shoulders. I rolled the window down and he spoke the words that his actions had already indicated… nothing new on Eddie. With that out of the way it was on to calling Lynda. I apologized for not calling her over the weekend and she told me there wasn’t much information other than Ruthe was to be evaluated that morning. Lynda told me she’d established a bit of a relationship with Ruthe’s roommate and the only news she had was that she’d had a good night of sleep. One of my favorite (but trite) sayings is (…little victories…) and, to me, this was one.

My mind was somewhat occupied that morning by Bert (the president) calling me to his office to find out just how “close” I was to my college fraternity brother who was in business just down the street from the proposed branch. The reason was it now appeared there was going to be some problem (other than parking lot ingress and egress) in getting building permits. My friend’s father had ‘connections’ in the township’s governance and Bert wanted me to see if I could find out anything that might help Morris (the consultant hired by the bank to guide it to making a better branch selection than had been made for the first one) get through the process. In hearing what he wanted/expected from me I wanted to shake my head. On the one hand it was somewhat rewarding to be the one asked to take on projects like this but there was a limit on just how much I could handle. We talked for a few minutes and I assured Bert that I’d do what I could. It wasn’t like my friend was easy to contact and interact with so that was to be the first hurdle.

When Lynda finally called I was waiting on a customer so had to wait to talk with her. I decided to go up to the Board room to make the call to have some privacy. It’s hard to describe Lynda’s frame of mind… excited, concerned, puzzled or all three mixed together. Even though I had the presence of mind to make notes they turned out to be more like hen scratchings. Trying to decipher them I remember I struggled with them from a sequential basis. When I wrote them up I could only hope they made sense. We were on the phone for at least a half hour and at one point Bret came up to check on me.

The first thing Lynda told me was that it was hard to understand Ruthe because of her broken jaw. So, she ‘qualified’ what she was about to tell me as being what she understood and could be wrong. Her evaluation, on a pass or fail, basis was a “pass”. She was to be released the next day and that was the first of her new problems. She told Lynda that under no circumstances was she going back to her house unless her ex husband was in jail. Next… her mother and father had taken her kids and gone to Connecticut to make sure her ex husband couldn’t get to them (which had been her greatest fear after she regained full consciousness) so she couldn’t go to their home. Bill, her boss, had volunteered for he and his wife to take her in during the early recovery period but… he'd had to go to Baltimore where the company’s headquarters were located. The next problem was she had no clothes she could wear upon her release. There were other minor problems as well. I knew from the sound of Lynda’s voice that she was not the person to decide on a course of action. Bill, her boss, would’ve been the most logical one but from what Lynda indicated to me the meeting he was attending was “critical” as far as the future of the branch office was concerned so he couldn't get involved. I was into the ’situation’ far deeper than I wanted to be and as I sat there after hanging the phone up pretty much knew I was going to get in even deeper.

That was when I tried to make sense of the notes from Lynda’s phone call. Going back to my grandfather’s ‘mantra’ “first things first”, I wanted to identify just what that should be before I headed back to my desk. To me that was to have Lynda confirm that Bill’s wife would be the one to pick Ruthe up upon her discharge. Next would be clothes for her to wear. Both of these, thankfully, fell on Lynda. I decided that it would probably be best to go over to her office. There was no chance for her to go to lunch with both Ruthe and her boss out of the office. I called and asked if she wanted me to bring something to eat but she said Stan, her boss had ordered something from Michael’s Lounge, across the street. When I walked in things were a bit hectic as Stan was handling not only his clients but Bill’s as well… and Lynda having to process all the transactions herself. I wondered if I should leave but Lynda motioned for me to stay.

It was probably twenty minutes before things slacked up a bit. I knew what I had to say to her and gave it to her as fast as I could. She was able to confirm that Bill’s wife would come and pick Ruthe up at the hospital. But… when it came to getting clothes for her, Lynda just shook her head from side to side saying she wanted no part of going into the house and seeing Ruthe’s blood. I hadn’t thought of that and when she said it I couldn’t help but agree. I hated to say it but threw out the idea of buying some new things for her. I remember looking at Lynda’s face and seeing her reaction. She took a deep breath or two and kind of shrugged her shoulders as if to say ‘if we have to but…”. I stood there feeling a bit foolish with nothing to add. Stan had overheard our conversation and turned to us and suggested that maybe I could go to the house with Lynda. She started shaking her head again. The phones were ringing and she had to answer them. I told her I’d get back to her after the bank and stock market closed. I remember her smiling and giving me a wave as I walked out the door.

It was Lynda who called.  I could hear the hesitation in her voice when she asked was it possible to get to Ruthe’s clothes without her having to see blood. I didn’t really know but I told her I thought she could. She said she’d call before leaving which left me ‘hanging’ as to my role in the retrieval process. Thinking about the blood it came to me that I could drape a blanket or something over the couch. I wasn’t sure if there was any blood from when they took her out of the house to the ambulance. It seemed like the more time that passed the deeper I was getting into the whole thing and I wasn’t looking forward to Lynda’s call.

To be continued…