Part 42 If Oak Trees Could Talk!
Welcome back to my Video Blogs of If Oak Trees Could Talk! I hope that you are having a wonderful and productive week! My week has been awesomely blessed to be able to do what I do! When your passion and your profession meet there is such a wonderful coupling to walk in. I hope that as you read along with me or “tune in” that you are enjoying this story!
Today we pick back up in Chapter 19 Henry the Spy!
Nurse Applegate was startled. She had read Henry’s charts which read that he was diagnosed with amnesia. Henry’s amnesia was also classified as amnesia with functional causes which meant that his type of amnesia was psychological in nature. Henry’s type of amnesia occurred because his brain put up a defense mechanism to forget the painful and traumatic experience of Helen’s leaving him. The good thing about Henry’s type of amnesia however, is that his type could possibly mean a full recovery. Earlier today when Nurse Applegate had met and talked with the family Henry seemed much more alert. She considered his actions now to be caused by a lack of his medications.
“Mrs. Tyler, I will bring Mr. Tyler his medication back first, before going to the cafeteria, as it seems as though he may need them now.” Nurse Applegate stated.
Helen agreed with Nurse Applegate even though she didn’t really understand what Henry was up to. She was as surprised herself when Henry suggested that he go with Nurse Applegate. Helen didn’t like it. She never wanted Henry to leave her sight again for his safely, nor did she want to be alone without him for hers.
“I’ll go with you, Nurse, Henry stated. Henry rose up immediately from the bed. He walked around the side of the bed and was ready to go with Nurse Applegate to get his old friend which was his picture of course, that Amelia had gotten for him. Nurse Applegate did not know about his friend. Henry thought that it would still be in his old room. He wanted to go and get it to assure that it would not be lost. However, once he had gotten this reaction from Nurse Applegate, he decided to take full advantage of the opportunity to let the staff at Glenview continue to think that he was not at all well. Henry knew that he wasn’t completely well, but he was well enough to know exactly what he was doing now and what he needed to do to try to trap Mr. Hodges in his dirty dealings. It worked out exceptionally well since Nurse Applegate did not know him. She assumed he was talking out of his head, which played right into what Henry hoped would happen. He wasn’t going to reveal that he had gotten a lot of his memory back to her. He intended for Mr. Hodges to still think he was very ill.
As Nurse Applegate walked out of Henry and Helen’s room, Henry went in the opposite direction pretending to not know where he was. He then turned and followed along beside of her. Nurse Applegate tried to carry on a conversation with him but he let on that he never understood her. It was actually very difficult to act, for Henry knew that he was in a dark place like the one he was portraying for far too long. He was ready to talk, whether it was to a stranger or not. He longed to shout and let the world know that he was coming out of a dark tunnel into the marvelous light. Henry never enjoyed deceiving anybody, but he felt this gave him an advantage over Mr. Hodges. It let him roam and investigate without really drawing a lot of suspicion.
Soon he and his new nurse rounded the corner to a corridor of rooms where he and his sweet Helen had lived for what seemed an eternity. He ran into his old room ahead of Nurse Applegate to find his old friend hanging right where he left her! He grabbed the picture off of the wall and began laughing like a school boy. “There you are my old friend! I am so glad I got to go home and see you in person. You helped me so much!” Henry said as he was hugging the picture like it was a real live friend. Just as he was hugging the picture Nurse Applegate come in. Yes, again she concluded that he was definitely an amnesia patient or at the very least a mentally challenged patient. Henry wanted to explain to her that he wasn’t crazy, well not as she considered him to be crazy, but again it was best if he let her assume that he was.
“Want to go on with me to the cafeteria?” Nurse Applegate asked, “Or do you want to walk back to your room first?”
Henry just shook his head, as he thought he needed to investigate the cafeteria area to see if there was anything in there that he could possibly use or need to get into Mr. Hodges office. He walked along beside her and never said a word. Occasionally he would look up to the ceiling for no reason because he had seen other mentally challenged patients do it a lot in Glenview. Nurse Applegate pushed open a set of double doors and Henry followed. He judged from the distance they walked that the cafeteria was almost parallel to Mr. Hodges office. There was one long hallway of patient’s rooms that separated them. He looked up to the ceiling again, but this time it was to see if he could find any heating or air conditioning ducts running through the ceiling. Sure enough there was. Henry took note of where they were placed, how many of them there were. He also noticed that in the far wall there was a huge built in pantry shelf with a huge ladder to make the top shelves accessible. Perfect he thought. He could actually use that to do what he needed to do. He noticed the cafeteria staff. All of them that worked the line were wearing white. They were all women, however as he walked through the line with Nurse Applegate, he noticed the workers in the back who were wearing black and most of them were men. They were loading supplies from a back door into a back room that must have served as a supply closet. He could see what he thought was extra uniforms folded neatly on the shelf in the entry way of the supply closet. He felt like he had seen enough to at least formulate a plan to find out what Mr. Hodges was up to. Because he was looking around so intently he never drew any attention from Nurse Applegate. She knew that patients such as Henry were prone to look confused. His trip was very productive indeed, Henry thought!
“Are you ready to go Mr. Tyler?” Nurse Applegate asked as Henry walked forward but was still looking back. She had no clue that he was actually counting how many steps it took him to get to the door. Again she just assumed that it was the behavior of someone with his problem. Every step represented seconds. Henry calculated how many seconds it would take him to get from the door to the counter. He was spying out the land so to speak and without any suspicion. Of course Henry was still carrying the picture of his old friend with him and it somehow seemed perfectly natural to all of the staff at Glenview. He was grateful that he could remember what he learned when he was in the service. He was overwhelmed and grateful that he wasn’t just another patient at Glenview, but that he was going to help his neighbors and friends who had been placed in Glenview for various reasons. Henry thought it sad that their families probably were deceived by Mr. Hodges just as He and Helen were. He hoped that he could help get Mr. Hodges out of Glenview before anyone of them would ever have to find out how ruthless he was.
When Nurse Applegate left the cafeteria she then walked a little distance down the hallway to a closed room with windows to where you could see everything and everyone inside. This was the room where all of the medications were housed. She took keys out of her pocket. She turned to Henry.
“Mr. Tyler, you must stay out in the hallway. Do you understand? You cannot follow me in here.” Nurse Applegate tried to explain, but Henry did not let on as to whether he did or didn’t understand. He pretended as though he would go in with her, but had no plan to really follow her. Nurse Applegate put her hand out and placed it on Henry’s chest as he acted as though he would go in. She held him back and he obeyed her. He then waited patiently until she came out. He was becoming a little nervous as he did not want to be caught out in the hallway by Mr. Hodges. He had no clue what time Mr. Hodges left for the day. That was something he made a note of in his mind that he needed to follow up on. Nurse Applegate opened the door and she and Henry walked around the corner and down the hallway where he and Helen was now staying. As they had walked, Henry surveyed the front desk in proximity to their room, then to Mr. Hodges hallway, and then the distance to the cafeteria. He was formulating and calculating as he walked merrily along with Nurse Applegate. She was none the wiser and neither was anyone else. The “Ghost” roamed the hallways of Glenview!
Thank you once again for “tuning in” or reading along with me! It is my hope that you have been enjoying my Romance/Suspense novel, If Oak Trees Could Talk, for it has been my pleasure to share it with you! As always I would love to hear from you. I want to thank all of you that have begun following my WordPress blogs. Please continue to “tune it” as we are moving right along through the book.
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