Winnifred

Winnifred

By Hollis Martin

Winnifred Marshall has been here before and she always hates it. Deadlines. Why must there be deadlines? Pacing back and forth in her office, a panther in a cage. Desperate for an idea. Plopping onto the chintz loveseat, kicking off her sandals and tucking her feet under her bottom, nothing. ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ plays in her headphones. She sways to the music letting it fill her mind. Soon she is up and dancing until ‘Rocket Man’ replaces it. She goes to the window. It’s a beautiful summer day and the lake is inviting. She longs to walk barefoot in the grass down to the shore and toss pebbles in the water. She can feel the foam wash over her toes, hear the birds chatter in the trees, smell the fragrance of sweet grass. 

‘Hotel California’ lifts her out of her daydream. She takes out her earphones realizing the music just replaces her creativity with someone else's. The room is now silent. She can hear herself drag air into and push it out of her lungs. If she breathes through her nose the sound is different from breathing through her mouth. She never knew that before. Counting her breaths, Winnifred picks up a pencil placing it hopefully to paper.  In a moment of disconnect she imagines the pencil will produce the idea needed for the project. All she has to do is focus on the air in the room and let the idea flow onto the paper. She indulges in this fantasy losing track of time. Her activity tracker buzzes “Time to Move” bringing her out of her trance. Looking at the paper, instead of a lovely idea in orderly sentences, she has written several pages of squiggles.

Giving up, she drops the pencil, leaving the room and heading to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Maybe the stimulant will motivate her. The Keurig dribbles the coffee into her canning jar mug. Watching the dark brew dribble in spits and spurts, some strong coffee, some water dance in the mug. The cream blooms up from the bottom to produce the light tan color she likes. Winnifred realizes she is becoming hyper aware of her surroundings. Absently reaching for a vanilla custard filled chocolate frosted bismarck her waistline doesn’t need, she carries both out the back door to the deck. 

Sitting in the Adirondack chair she reasons a little break can’t hurt. Leaning back, slowly savoring the bite of bismarck in her mouth, she lets her mind float on the warm breeze. Was it just two months ago? Seems like a year that Winnefred walked out of the hospital without Bill. They always knew this was a possibility. Cancer doesn’t discriminate. Just a routine checkup, just a small procedure, no big deal. In the waiting room it had turned into a long slide off a cliff. In the three weeks it took him to die, she never caught her breath. First it was his heart. It was more damaged than they thought. They worked to get it back on track Unfortunately the drug they used,  Bill had an adverse reaction to. It wasn’t anyone's fault. They were all so sorry but the drug damaged his kidneys. He stopped producing urine. You never gave pee a second thought. Your whole life, it was just pee. In reality pee killed Bill. 

That next week Winnifred doesn’t remember. There was a funeral and burial. Friends and family gathered to lend support. They brought casseroles, cakes, dips, pies, every imaginable food item. Her refrigerator was jam packed, chip bags festooned her counters, bags containing every conceivable cookie and cracker littered the kitchen floor. She could feed an army, in fact she did. An army of friends and relatives. When they all left and she was at last alone in the house she and Bill had shared for twenty six years, the food was mostly gone. Now she shares her home  with the bills that pour in. Cancer, aside from stealing those you love, also decimates bank accounts. 

There was enough to cover the funeral. The hospital, doctor, care providers and consultant fees were another story. After working twenty five years, Bill had a nice 401k. When he first got sick and couldn’t work the premiums and the deductibles were more than her salary alone could cope with. They robbed his 401k enduring the thirty percent penalty figuring he would go back to work when he was better. The first round of treatments were a success and Bill went back to his job after a year. He was in remission for the next seven years. Then came the yo-yo years as Winnifred likes to think of them. Bad test results, another round of chemo and recovery and remission for months. Another bad test and another round of chemo and remission. The remission time got shorter each time. His ability to work was cut with each successive round until he was too sick to go to work. His 401k was used to stay afloat.  Sadly, there wasn’t much left. She had her own 401K that she can’t touch for another nine years without stunning penalties. 

Work saved her. Going back as soon as the funeral crush was over. She made a point to see all the people she supervised the first day and then go home. Winnifred figured she could take the ‘so sorry for you loss’ hugs and pats for one day only. She came home and cried herself to sleep. That day was worse than the funeral or the day he died. The next day her work flow progressed as if nothing happened. The paycheck was welcome even if the first one went entirely toward hospital bills. There would be another every two weeks. She didn’t care that it might take her ten years to pay off the bills. As the bills started rolling in she noticed inaccuracies. She became a Gladiator, requesting then demanding a copy of Bill’s Chart. She quickly learned the invoices from the insurance company and the hospitals were filled with inaccuracies. So began the long process of requesting original invoices and matching them up, removing the duplicates, applying payments to the invoices they paid etc. 

Although the bills took up time, they didn’t take up enough time. The evenings and weekends were the worst. So much time on her hands to remember Bill in the good days and in the tragic times. She had to fill it up with something new. An old friend called to ask if she could write a piece for his publication. Over the years she had written two to three humorous fluff pieces a year for various publications, just to keep her hand in. As a new journalism graduate from college, it didn’t take long to realize she would never make a living writing. Even though she loved it, she didn’t love the deadlines or the inability to give her stories proper research and polish. Marketing, on the other hand, gave her everything she wanted including time with Bill and a nice paycheck. Now, as the VP of Marketing she was still in love with the marketing game but regretted the divorce from writing mandated by her rise to management. So when the call came, she accepted the challenge. Now she was regretting it. Her life, just now, was more tragic than humorous. The phone rang.

“Hello. Yes this is Winnifred Marshall.”

“Mrs. Marshall, My name is Melody and I’m calling from Trans Global Health Insurance. I see you have a disputed bill. How can I help you.” 

Winnifred felt her anxiety level rise. This bill was for laboratory tests that were ordered but Bill had died before they could be carried out. 

“The tests in the invoice were never done. The dates and times are after my husband died.” 

“Do you have proof?” the operator asks. Winnifred rattles off the time and date of her husband’s death. 

“As you can see he was dead before the echocardiogram and the samples for the blood panels were taken.” 

“We’ll need a notarized copy of the death certificate. That should clear everything up.” Melody announces cherrily. 

“I checked with the hospital. They sent you a notarized copy of the death certificate.” 

“Well I don’t have it here with my notes. As soon as I get it we can deal with this. In the meantime what part of this bill would you like to pay?” Winnifred begins to giggle. The absurdity of the conversation is not lost on her. 

“Nothing at this time.” she hangs up knowing this will be revisited in a few days. She suspects the insurance company has lost her husband’s chart. Looking out at the lake she sees a path forward. How many other people in her situation are going through the same thing? She tried being reasonable, she tried being serious and fair. A smile touches her lips. This is theater of the absurd in all its glory, in that macabre there is light in the very ineptitude.  This is what she will write about. This is her humorous piece that might do some good.