The more lively class, held after lunch, involved actual dancing, usually the fox-trot or the waltz.
But Sheila didn’t think she’d be able to hang in there for the second class. She was nauseated and still wracked with awful chills. All of her hand movements and kicking just made her sweat and feel worse. She wondered if she was getting the flu. She usually ate lunch with some of the folks from the classes. But right now, the very idea of eating anything made her stomach turn.
All she wanted to do was go home and lie under a heavy blanket. Instead, she had to keep a smile plastered on her face and wave and kick in time with Bobby Darin. She told herself the show must go on. Several of her students in this class had it a lot worse with their aches, pains, and frailties—and they had forty or fifty years on her. If they could keep waving and kicking, so could she.
She managed to get through another song: Dusty Springfield’s “I Only Want to Be with You.” But the room almost seemed to spin at times. And she couldn’t keep anything in complete focus. Sometimes, everyone was just a blur. She felt clammy and light-headed. At one point, she thought she was going to pass out, but she worked through it and kept moving her arms from side to side.
Then, in the middle of The Beatles’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” she felt her stomach churn violently. She jumped to her feet. “I’m sorry, excuse me,” she managed to say. She bolted across the hall to the women’s restroom off the lobby and ducked into a stall. The door slammed against the wall as she fell to her knees, the sound echoing off the tiled walls. She threw up into the toilet. It was one of those elevated toilet seats. Sheila practically had to stick her head into the opening not to splash vomit all over the place. Her hair kept touching the toilet seat, and the thought of it—along with the smell—made her puke again.
After rinsing out her mouth at the sink, she felt better but still a bit woozy. In the mirror, she saw her sallow, chalky reflection.
Sheila didn’t even go back to her class. She asked Roseann, the pretty, thirtyish brunette at the reception desk, to tell her class and the next group that she was sick and had to go home. She told Roseann she’d pick up her music later in the week.
“God, Sheila, you look horrible,” Roseann murmured. “Maybe you should see one of the doctors while you’re here.”
“No, thanks, I think I just need to get home,” she replied, heading toward the exit.
The drive from the retirement home in Madison Valley to her house in North Capitol Hill was only about fifteen minutes. It was also very scenic, especially this time of year with all the colorful autumn trees along Lake Washington Boulevard in the Arboretum and snaky, wooded Interlaken Boulevard. It was usually a gorgeous, pleasant drive.
But now, halfway home, Sheila felt horrible. She should have listened to Roseann’s suggestion about having one of the doctors examine her. Leaning forward and squeezing the steering wheel, Sheila wondered if she’d ever get home. She was certain she had a fever.
Whenever the kids had the stomach flu, she gave them 7UP and saltine crackers. That was what she craved right now. The combo had gotten her through some pretty bad bouts with morning sickness back in the day.
Whatever plagued her now reminded her of how sick she’d been during her first pregnancy, back in Portland. She didn’t like to think about that period in her life. But lately, she’d been forced to reexamine it. That should have been a happy time, but every day was a struggle. “I’m not having our baby,” she remembered telling Dylan. “I’m having Rosemary’s Baby.”
After two years of marriage, she and Dylan had been ready to start a family, and she’d imagined herself as one of those happy, glowing pregnant women. But she was sick, hormonally unhinged, and haggard all the time. It didn’t help that, during all this, her mother was recovering from a bad stroke and had recently been diagnosed with advanced Parkinson’s disease. So in addition to working full-time as an accountant, Sheila was also looking after her invalid mother—and throwing up two or three times a day.
Fortunately, Sheila’s late father had left her mom well-provided for. She lived in an upscale high-rise in downtown Portland, one of those places with a doorman and a front desk clerk in the lobby. Sheila hired a series of visiting nurses to look after her mom in addition to the physical therapist. But just managing that—along with all her mother’s bills and accounts—was a major headache. Her mother, a very gracious, sweet lady, couldn’t stand half the nurses. She was always complaining about them. This lazy one was asleep on the sofa when she’d needed her in the middle of the night. That one let her marinate in her own pee for four hours after she’d wet the bed. This other one yelled at her, and even slapped her.
From the agency that provided the nurses, Sheila got reports that her dear mom was “difficult” and “abusive.” Sheila didn’t know who to believe.
Her mother was so miserable that she often got uncharacteristically snippy with Sheila. So it was quite likely she dished out the same bile to the nurses. But sometimes, it seemed justified—at least to Sheila. One nurse dressed her mother in some of her most beautiful dresses, outfits her mom had worn to parties and social events. Sheila would come to visit and see her in these expensive clothes, leaning against her walker or in her wheelchair. The clothes drooped over her emaciated frame, and they’d be on backwards because it was easier for the nurse to dress and undress her if the zipper was in front. It was such a small thing, but it broke Sheila’s heart to see her mom like that. She knew it broke her mom’s spirit, too. The apartment began to smell terrible all the time, which didn’t help Sheila’s all-day “morning” sickness. Once, while throwing up in her mother’s bathroom, Sheila noticed several streaks of shit on the wall and floor that the nurse must have missed when cleaning up after one of her mom’s accidents.
Through trial and error, Sheila managed to get a better crew in there. She regularly visited her mom after work and spent several hours over the weekend at her apartment. Every Wednesday night, Dylan would come over with takeout for everyone, including the Wednesday-night nurse, who had a crush on him. Sheila thought they were starting to get a handle on it.
But her mother didn’t think so.
On the top floor of her mother’s apartment building, seventeen stories up, there was a small gym, along with a bathroom and a dry sauna. At the physical therapist’s recommendation, Sheila would take her mom to the gym to stretch or lift the one-or two-pound free weights. There was also a door to a rooftop track that wrapped around the building. Sixteen laps equaled a mile—or so said the sign by the door. The placard also warned:
NO UNSUPERVISED CHILDREN.
NO DRINKING.
NO SMOKING.
RESIDENTS & GUESTS
USE THE OUTSIDE ROOFTOP AREA AT THEIR OWN RISK.
If the weather was nice, Sheila would push her mother in the wheelchair around the track, which was almost like a covered terrace. Beyond a waist-high railing was a spectacular view of the city, the river, and Mount Hood. They rarely encountered anyone else up there.
Sheila was close to six months pregnant that July evening when, during lap number seven, Sheila’s mother begged her to kill her.
“I mean it, I just want to die,” she cried. Her speech was a bit slurred. “I can’t take this indignity. I’m such a burden on you, sweetie. I’m a burden on everyone. I hate this so much. And it’s only going to get worse. I want this to be over with. I’m so sick. If you really loved me, you’d kill me. You’d find a gap in this railing and just push me off the roof.”
Sheila moved around to face her mother, then bent forward so they were eye to eye. “Mom, for starters, there are no gaps in the railing,” she said, trying to make light of the situation. This wasn’t the first time since the stroke that her mother had mentioned wanting to die. “I know you’re frustrated,” Sheila continued. “The therapist said there’d be days like this. ‘Mama said there’d be days like this . . .’”
The little joke and musical reference seemed totally lost on her mother, w
ho gazed at her with that glassy, lifeless look that her face had recently taken on.
“It’s really hard right now, but you’ll get better, I promise,” Sheila assured her. “It’s part of the recovery process. Remember the Patricia Neal autobiography we listened to on tape? This period was really tough for her. But she got better. It’s temporary, Mom. You have a lot to look forward to.” She patted her own extended stomach and smiled. “Don’t you want to be around to meet your granddaughter? I just know it’s a girl. We both have a lot to look forward to—even though we both feel like crap right now. In fact . . .”
Sheila’s smile faded. Bending over like that after those laps had suddenly made her nauseated. “Oh, God. Mom . . .”
Straightening up, she moved around behind the wheelchair and pushed her mother to the door. All the while, her mother kept waving her on. “Just go. I’m fine here, sweetie. Just go . . .”
As she struggled to prop open the door, Sheila felt the vomit coming up toward her throat. “Stay here,” she managed to say. Then she rushed through the little gym to the restroom. She made it to the toilet just in time. She immediately flushed and waited a few moments to make sure there wouldn’t be an encore. Unsteadily, she got to her feet, then wobbled to the sink to splash some water on her face and rinse out her mouth.
For a couple of minutes, she’d forgotten about her mother—and what her mother had been saying earlier. Her hand froze in the air as she reached for the paper towel dispenser. “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered.
With her face still wet, she ran out of the bathroom and through the small gym. Then she stopped dead. She saw her mother just outside the door, slightly slumped over in her wheelchair, tapping her foot and waiting for her.
Still slightly dizzy, Sheila caught her breath. She wondered how she could be so careless and irresponsible. What kind of mother would she be to her own child?
Looking back on it now, Sheila remembered vowing never to leave her mom alone like that again.
As she passed the park and turned down her block, Sheila started crying. She shivered from the chills and tried not to think about throwing up. Now she had a headache, too. She just wanted to be home with a blanket over her. She just wanted her mom to take care of her.
Passing the Curtis house, she noticed that the new neighbor, Leah What’s-Her-Name, had set out the garbage and recycling by the end of the driveway. There on the ground, right beside the two bins, was Sheila’s vase full of flowers. Leah must have poured the water out, because it looked like the flowers were already dying.
Sheila was too sick to let it bother her right now.
She parked in the turnaround beside the garage. Climbing out of the car and walking for a bit helped. She collected the mail at the front door. Unfortunately, there was nothing from FedEx on the welcome mat.
Inside, she kicked off her shoes and headed for the refrigerator in the kitchen. She opened a 7UP and poured it into a glass with ice. She used it to help wash down an aspirin and a Dramamine from the stash Dylan kept for traveling. Since it fought nausea from motion sickness, she hoped it would help keep her from throwing up again. The 7UP’s carbonation and lemon-lime flavor was like liquid heaven. She hadn’t realized she was so thirsty.
She curled up on the sofa in the den. There, shuddering under a heavy throw blanket, she finally fell into a deep sleep.
*
When Sheila woke up nearly two hours later, she felt like a truck had hit her. But that was actually an improvement over her previous condition. She’d sweated through her clothes. So if she’d had a fever, it must have broken during the nap. She was more groggy than light-headed. Her stomach seemed to have calmed down, too.
She wondered if Eden had come home yet. If so, the girl was being awfully quiet. Sheila was too exhausted to get up and check. She remained there on the sofa for another half an hour. But then she decided a shower might help her feel better. Whatever bug she had, she seemed to be over the worst of it now.
Still, Sheila took her time walking up the stairs. Her legs felt rubbery. At the end of the second-floor hallway, she noticed Eden’s open door. She padded down the hall and peeked inside the room. Eden wasn’t there. But she’d left a neat pile of dirty laundry on the floor by her door with a Post-it on top:
That was encouraging. Her street punk stepdaughter had actually shown a little consideration. Sheila’s own kids had never bothered to thank her for washing their clothes. Sheila decided to put a load in the wash, then take her shower.
Down in the laundry room, with the heap of Eden’s dirty clothes in her grasp, she noticed a small puddle of water on the floor, right by the washing machine. “Oh, God, now what?” she said out loud.
She dumped the clothes on top of the dryer, stuck Eden’s Post-it on the side of the washing machine, and inspected the puddle. It didn’t seem to be coming from under the machine. Maybe someone had spilled a glass of water there, although it seemed like a strange place for that. Sheila mopped up the water with a used towel from the laundry basket. As she stood up again, she got a dizzying head rush. Sheila braced herself against the dryer. It reminded her that she was still a little fragile.
She took her time loading the washing machine. Then she poured in the detergent, shut the lid, and turned the setting dial to “Rapid Wash.” At the same time, with her left hand, she pressed the start button.
As soon as it clicked, a surge of current rushed from her fingers up both arms and through her upper body. The shock felt like red-hot razors ricocheting inside her. For what seemed like an eternity, she was paralyzed. Both her hands were glued to the source of all that voltage. Sheila thought she was going to die.
She screamed and somehow managed to jerk her hands away. Recoiling, she staggered back from the shorted-out machine.
Breathless, she fell to her knees. Her head was spinning again. Everything was just a blur. Her arms felt so heavy. With the tingling, throbbing, fiery pain, her hands might as well have been in a vise.
As soon as her vision righted itself, Sheila glanced at both hands. On her left hand, the tip of her index finger was black. On the right, several fingers were blackened. She frantically rubbed her hands and arms, trying to massage the traumatized nerves.
Still dazed, Sheila looked down and noticed the Post-it that had fallen on the floor. It had landed faceup, with Eden’s handwriting on it:
Thursday—5:17 P.M.
Lynnwood, Washington
The wry-faced, sixty-something woman behind the counter at Quality Guns & Ammo on Highway 99 was all business. She walked with a limp as she moved to the register and set the box of bullets on the countertop.
It was a large store, with the weapons displayed on a rack behind the counter or in fingerprint-smudged glass cases. The place looked like it could use a good cleaning, and it smelled like garlic. Up near the ceiling, there was a closed-circuit camera in every corner.
The customer, a slim, attractive, fortyish woman with light-brown hair, had asked for bullets for a nine-millimeter Luger. The saleswoman had chosen an overpriced fifty-count box of 115-grain full metal jacketed ammunition. “That’s twenty-six ninety-six, including tax,” she said.
The woman pulled a pen and a single blank check out of her purse. “Do you take checks?” she asked.
Frowning, the saleswoman nodded. “I’ll need to see a photo ID.”
Leaning over the counter, the customer wrote out the check. Then she dug into her purse again, pulled out her wallet, and pried the driver’s license from the sleeve. She handed it to the saleswoman.
The woman glanced at the license and then at the check. “Thank you, Mrs. O’Rourke,” she said.
Then she started to jot down the license information at the bottom of the check.
Thursday—9:50 P.M.
Seattle
Some black-and-white movie with Humphrey Bogart was on Turner Classic Movies. Sheila had no idea which one it was. She was a bit disoriented. She’d just woken up from another nap on the sofa in the den.
She’d been too tired to cook—and she’d been too nervous about going near any electric appliances, at least for a while. So they’d had Chinese food delivered. Everyone had gotten whatever they wanted—including Eden, who ordered something with tofu. Sheila had managed to eat an egg roll and some wonton soup.
She still wasn’t feeling a hundred percent but figured she was lucky to be alive after that electric shock. Her arms had stopped feeling strange after about an hour. And thank God, the blackness on her fingertips had washed off. But the fingers were still sore from a mild burn.
When Eden had come home in the afternoon, Sheila hadn’t mentioned anything to her about the washing machine injuring her. She hadn’t phoned Dylan about it, either. She’d gone upstairs to lie down again, then shower. She’d left a sign taped on the basement door:
Don’t Go Near The Washing Machine!
It’s shorted out—DANGER OF ELECTRIC SHOCK!
This is NO JOKE—KEEP AWAY.
When Dylan had gotten home, she’d told him what had happened and kept her suspicions to herself. Dylan had switched off the power down in the basement, then unplugged the washing machine and turned the power back on. Sheila had put in a call to an appliance repairman, who was supposed to drop by tomorrow morning.
Maybe once the repairman checked it out, he’d be able to tell her if someone had tampered with the machine.
She kept thinking about the load of dirty laundry Eden had left her—like she was setting her up for the kill. The boyfriend must have had something to do with it. Had Eden left her copy of the house key someplace outside for him? Sheila imagined her phoning him from that record store off Pine Street, giving him the key location, and telling him the alarm code. Brodie could have rigged the washer to short out. He’d probably even made that puddle of water by the machine. If Sheila hadn’t wiped it up—if she’d been standing in that puddle of water when she’d pressed the power button—then she would be dead right now.
The Betrayed Wife Page 19