Finally their turn came to get into the emergency room and Mrs. Markey was helped into an examination room. After another long wait outside that room, a tired looking young intern came out and reported to Barbara.
"Your mother has galloping pneumonia. You can see for yourself from how many people are here, it's going around the city."
"Is it serious?" she asked.
"Very," the intern replied.
Mrs. Markey was admitted to the hospital, but beds were in short supply. She was placed on a cot in one of the hallways, where over a dozen others waited for the next bed to become available, after its occupant left this world in it.
Barbara waited for morning when more attention could be given to her mother. Sleeping fitfully in a chair in the hospital lobby, she was awakened at five o'clock by an exhausted nurse.
"Miss Markey, Doctor Samuel wants to see you in his office," the nurse said. "I'll take you there."
Barbara followed down a hall and then into an elevator to the fourth floor of the hospital. Finally, she met the doctor, a short, thin man who looked like he should have retired ten years before. He asked her to be seated and then began talking about her mother's condition.
"I've never seen so many cases of 'galloping pneumonia,'" he said clinically. "This is a regular epidemic. I'm retired, but was called in to help out here." Then he began rambling on about how the fast-moving pneumonia affects the body, her mother's in particular.
"Doctor, you sound like there's no hope," she interrupted, having been worked up into a state of nervous exhaustion by how depressing he sounded.
"I'm afraid your mother may not last through the morning," he replied.
Barbara bolted up from her chair. "Then I want to see her, immediately!" What was he wasting her time for?
He tried to discourage her. "She could be contagious."
"I don't care!" Barbara insisted. "I want to see her, now!"
The doctor agreed to a very short visit to the room where her mother had been brought on the next floor above. First she had to wear a surgical mask and promise not to touch anything, especially her mother.
Barbara hardly recognized her mother, her face was so pale and drawn. She pulled up a chair and sat beside the cot her mother lie on, covered by a sheet because the hospital had run out of blankets.
"I hate leaving you, more than I hate dying," Mrs. Markey said barely above a whisper. "I don't think I have much time, so I have to tell you something. ... Should have told you this long ago... I just couldn't."