CHAPTER FORTY TWO
T
hey were knitting.
I’d met most of the women, although it looked like one of them—Candice, or
maybe Barb—wasn’t there. A new girl sat next to Joyce, a skein of navy blue
yarn tangled around her fingers.
The rest of the women’s projects seemed to have progressed
in varying stages and equally varied expertise. Judging by the size and pastel
colors, scarves and baby blankets seemed to be the preferred choices. Joyce was
the exception, an intricate cabled sweater pooling on her lap. Blood red yarn
spilled from the needles like she’d hit an artery.
I shuddered as the image of Regina’s strange manner of death
intruded my thoughts.
“Did you want something?” Joyce asked.
“I just . . .”
She waited, staring dully at me.
“Um, Astrid mentioned there was a craft class going on so I thought
I would peek in and say hi to everyone.” I took a seat next to Jan, who was
wearing the same pjs she’d had on during the self-defense class.
“Crafts are an integral part of the community here. It gives
the women something to do with their hands and builds a sense of accomplishment
and pride in their work. We talk, too, while we work. Sometimes it’s more
therapeutic than the regular groups.” Joyce spoke in a bright, chirpy voice. It
was the longest speech I’d heard from her.
The new girl was across from me, fumbling with the shiny
knitting needles. It took me a minute to realize her awkwardness with the tools
was because she was shaking hard enough to rattle the metal chair she perched
on. She was a skinny little thing, fresh bruises adding the only color to her
face.
“My name is Letty,” I told her. “I’ve been helping out here
the last couple of weeks. I’m kind of new, too.”
Her eyes darted away from me, circling the group and landing
on Joyce as though waiting for a cue. Joyce, looking only slightly less
strained than she, nodded grudging permission.
“I’m Maureen.”
“Nice to meet you, Maureen. I’m going to have a new form for
you to fill out. In fact,” I included the group in my glance, “We’re putting
together a questionnaire to help us keep track of our performance. Hopefully,
that will get some more grant money rolling in here. That would be a good
thing, wouldn’t it? I’m going to be passing it around for everyone here.”
Dead silence.
Joyce cleared her throat. “Everyone?”
“Not staff. I’m looking to get current and past residents’
opinions on how helpful they found the services here. It’s called an efficacy
study. Then we can use those results as evidence of need when we apply for
grant money.”
“Well, I
am
a former resident,” Joyce said. She
looked at Maureen. “That’s why I stayed. Even though the memories of what I
lived through are awful, I won’t let myself forget. I’m on disability, but I
don’t like the idea of not contributing to society. I’d go crazy if I had to
sit around and do nothing. Working here keeps me safe. I know what to look for
now, and I know what to do if I’m in danger. I’d be dead if it weren’t for this
place.” At the last statement she looked directly at me. Her eyes, a curiously
flat shade of muddy brown, stared deeply, almost challengingly into my own.
“Right,” I finally said. “It’s always important to, um, stay
alert. Regina taught me that. Some of you knew her, right? She used to work
here?” Well, duh. Of course, they knew that. I pressed on. “By the way, did she
knit?
Joyce gasped. She, at least, was aware of how Regina had
died. The others just looked confused. And scared. No one answered me. Maybe it
was time to go.
“Okay, well, it’s been nice sitting and chatting with you
all. I guess I’d better be scooting for home. I’ll, um, let you know when I
have those questionnaires ready.” I babbled my way across the floor, heaving a
whooshing sigh of relief as the door shut behind me.
The hallway was dark.
I’ve never been a big fan of dark hallways, which have been
a frequent feature in many of my more vivid nightmares. Anybody versed in dream
analysis will start prattling on about “life paths” or “transitional phase,”
but I wasn’t worried about symbolism at the moment. Regina had died a very real
death at the other end of this hall. To get to my car, I either had to grope my
way past that very spot—in the dark, may I repeat—or go outside—and walk around
the outside of the building.
Outside, it was.
O
ctober is the
right month for Halloween. Even though we were weeks away, the night felt
eerie, laced with menace. Or maybe it was the company I’d just left. Since the
shelter was situated on a corner lot, the sidewalk ran perpendicular along two
sides. The smart thing would have been to use it, but that would mean taking
the long way. I wasn’t in a long-way mood.
Instead, I cut across the lawn, skirting the edge of the
house, keeping a wary toe out for the writhing root system of the overhanging
fir trees. As I passed behind the sign for the shelter, I realized I was
treading on the same spot where Lachlyn, Clotilde, and Astrid had stood on
opening day for the shelter so many years ago.
Creepy.
The whole night felt creepy. I froze as the feeling of being
watched swept over me. The fear didn’t grow. It was just
there—
a thin,
hot liquid eating away at rational thought.
Holding my breath, I strained to listen, analyzing each
sound of the night for clues. I could almost feel my pupils dilating: eyes lemur-wide,
scanning the different shades of darkness, searching for the danger. A slight breeze
rattled the leaves.
Time felt wonky, too, both racing and leaden. Or maybe that
was my heart. I stood still a few moments, then took a tentative, shaky step
forward. If anything had rushed me at that moment, I’d have wet myself. Not an
especially effective deterrent against crazed attackers, but you use what you
got.
When I appeared to be both safe and dry, I took another
step. And then another. And then I ran my ass off.
Which unfortunately activated the run-your-ass-off
floodlights, illuminating the entire property.
Light exploded, slamming into my eyeballs like a sledge
hammer. I skidded to a stop, one foot sliding wildly on the fallen leaves. For
one fleeting, tantalizing moment I managed the Warrior pose that had so eluded
me in my one brief attempt at yoga. Then I landed on my butt, one leg stretched
forward and the other twisted underneath, as a particular knobby tree root
introduced itself to my tailbone. Pain zinged up my spine.
I slowly rolled to my knees, forcing myself to stand. I hurt
so bad, if anyone wanted to kill me they were welcome to it.
When I finally made it to the car, I cranked the heater up
to seventy-eight and told myself that I was shivering from the chilly air, not
from post-hysterical stupidity.
I decided to stop off at Gordy’s Market for a fresh carton
of Epsom salts and some groceries. Woman could not live by chips alone.
Besides, I’d eaten them all. As I hobbled up to the deli counter, I noticed a
guy setting up a ladder under one of those purple-black domes that hide security
cameras.
Duh. I
had
been watched. Astrid’s fancy,
state-of-the-art security system included exterior cameras in addition to the
floodlights. Darting through the side yard and lurking behind the sign now
seemed especially stupid choices.
My stomach dropped as a new kind of fear welled up.
Had I
set off the alarm?
It would be just my luck to have triggered a full-scale
safety drill, with the residents panicking, thinking they were under attack,
and the staff shifting into protection mode. Clotilde would kill me.
And what about the police? Would they have been called? I
grabbed my purchases and scooted through the checkout line as quickly as I
could. All the way home, I kept glancing in my mirror for cop cars.
Ten minutes later, I pulled into my apartment’s parking lot,
relieved I hadn’t been pulled over. Even though taking a shortcut across the
yard seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to do, it didn’t feel like that
anymore.
I slammed the car door and scurried up the sidewalk toward
the front entrance of the apartment unit. Just as I passed the smelly garbage
dumpster, the shadows shifted and the floodlights—this time in my head—exploded
again.
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
H
ow did
the ground get here?
The sidewalk had shifted from under my feet to under
my back. A worried, vaguely familiar face loomed over me, blocking most of the
dark sky, which was also strangely misplaced. Instead of hanging over my head,
I seemed to be facing it. The woman above looked so concerned that I wanted to
reassure her.
“The walk did a wrong thing,” I said.
She looked even more scared, but my head hurt, so I closed
my eyes.
L
ight squeezed
past my clenched eyelids, daggering into my brain, which had its own problems
going on. I forced myself to open my eyes, a poor choice, but necessary. Everything
was white or horribly reflective stainless steel, and blurry from the tears
streaming down my face. My head ached so badly that my stomach heaved in. I
turned my head to vomit, which triggered more blinding pain, starting a pain-puke,
pain-puke cycle that threatened to never end. It did, though, just in time for
the inquisition.
“What’s your name?” a guy asked. His green smock was
repulsive so I puked again.
“Do you know your name?” he asked again.
Of course I knew my name. Duh. I knew it. I was pretty sure
I knew it.
“What day is it?”
Now, that was just stupid. I had enough going on without
some ding-a-ling using me for his day planner. “Get a thing,” I said. “One of
those cucumbers.” OK, “cucumbers” was a mistake; I knew it, and it pissed me
off even more.
“OK, one more,” he said. “How about where you are? Do you
know where you are?”
“The hospital, you moron.” Ha! Got him there.
“Well, Ms. Whittaker, I’m sorry to say you flunked our
little test. How about we take some pictures of your brain and see what’s going
on in there?”
Anger flooded me, spiking my headache up a few notches. I
never
flunk tests.
My world morphed to a softly humming, white tube, encircling
me. It moved me along and for a moment I was convinced I was in a car wash.
Only that would make me the car, and I wasn’t quite
that
confused. A
teeny red light above my head flashed and a spinning thing whirled next to it.
The car wash slid me out. A nurse smiled down at me.
“What happened?” I asked.
I
was lying on a
bed. A hospital bed. A wave of relief washed over me as things started to make
sense. “Calendar,” I said, which scared me all over again, because it made no
sense to say that. Thankfully, the nurse, swooshing the curtain back, didn’t
appear to have heard me. The curtains made an unforgivably loud ratchety sound
as they slid along the U-shaped pole ringing my bed. I was still in the ER, it
appeared.
“Dr. Billingsley will be right back,” she said. “He’s got
some things to go over with you. Do you know when your ride will get here?”
“My ride?”
“You gave us the phone number. Don’t remember that, do you?”
She smiled sympathetically. “Don’t worry. That’ll get better. You’re going to
have quite a headache for a while though. Kind of like a long-term hangover.”
“That is
so
unfair,” I mumbled.
“Hmm?” She’d crossed over to a cabinet and was removing a
blanket from it. Tossing it over me, she twitched it in place and gave my knee
a pat. “Hit that button if you need anything. Oh, and try to stay awake. Rest
is the most important thing, but you’ll need to be awakened every few hours for
tonight and maybe tomorrow.”
“How am I going to rest if I keep getting woken up?”
And
who
is going to wake me?
I would have asked her who was coming for me, but
she’d already trotted away.
I
might have
slept. Or maybe my brain did one of those skip things again. The doctor was
sitting next to me on his little round rolling stool. I’d never seen a nurse
use one of those and wondered if they were reserved: Physicians Only.
“You’ve got a whopper of a concussion, Ms. Whittaker. What
we like to call a Grade Two concussion, although I’m on the fence about bumping
you up to a Grade Three. And trust me: this is not an area where you will want
to overachieve. We’ll see how this week goes. If your symptoms persist or
worsen, we’ll want you to get right back in here. The good news is the CT scan
shows no bleeding or serious injury to your noggin. At least not yet.”
“What’s the difference between Grade Two and Three?” I
asked.
“It used to be whether you were unconscious. Grade Two meant
no loss of consciousness; getting KO’d meant automatic upgrade to Three.
Nowadays, we recognize there are more individualized responses to head trauma.
We’re more concerned about the degree of injury and the length of post-injury
symptoms.
“You can think about the brain as being the consistency of
gelatin,” he continued. “When you receive a knock on the head, it sloshes
around, bangs up against your skull.”
Ugh.
“When we’re talking about Grade Three, there’s the danger of
bleeding in or around the brain and possibly tearing of the nerve fibers.”
Eek!
He produced a handout with all kinds of instructions and
things to watch for. The text was blurry and I started seeing double so I just
pretended to read it. He ended up repeating what the nurse had said about rest
being the only real treatment, and suggested I take some time off work. He also
suggested not getting hit on the head again anytime soon.
No shit.
At least I wouldn’t have to stay in the hospital. All I
wanted was to be home, curled up in bed with Siggy purring in my ear.
Unfortunately they wouldn’t release me until someone showed up to drive me
home. I’d given them somebody’s number apparently, although I had no
recollection of it. I didn’t want to admit the lapse in case they rescinded my
release.
I knew who I was hoping for, but would I have given them
Marshall’s number? I’d called him for help before, one night when I was, let’s
say . . . incapacitated. Not that I wanted to see him, I told myself. Except
I’d just admitted that I did.
I closed my eyes. My head hurt too much to lie to myself.
What if it was Sue? I could just as easily have given them
Sue’s number, and frankly, I didn’t think I could survive her abrasive attitude
in the shape I was in. I loved her like a sister, but I had not picked her to
be my sponsor for her gentle and endearing nature. Staying sober, for me, meant
needing someone who would call me on my own shit, and Sue fit the bill.
Sue was like a rabid porcupine.
I didn’t have long to wait. Within ten minutes, the double
doors in the main room opened and my ride walked in.
Made me wish for Sue.