Thorns of Rosewood

by G M Barlean

  At first Gloria was suspicious. The old woman was trying to get out of being confronted. But then she realized Debbie really did have an ashen pallor and worry on her brow. Gloria had never seen Debbie act tired or sick, or anything but full of piss and vinegar. But as she thought about it, Debbie had only had half of a cigarette throughout the day. Usually she managed two smokes an hour—if not three when she felt particularly irritable. Something wasn’t right.

  “Debbie, can I take you to your room?” Gloria jumped up and went to Debbie to offer her arm. She expected to be shooed away. Heavy concern settled in when the old woman took her hand.

  Gloria guided her up from the chair, waited as Debbie teetered then found her balance. The other women raised their eyebrows and the room fell silent, as though they’d inhaled all the air in a collective gasp.

  Every question Gloria had was no longer important. “Let’s call it a day, ladies. I’ll come by again tomorrow afternoon. It’ll give me time to come up with more questions. Sound good?” She knew Debbie wouldn’t want to look anything less than tough as nails. Regardless of what choices Debbie had made, Gloria really did care about the old gal. She couldn’t turn her affections off.

  “Of course.” Josie quickly stuffed her yarn into a bag and shuffled over to Debbie’s side. “You okay, Debbie?” Her eyes were worried.

  “I’m a little dizzy. Need a nap. Mind your own business.” Debbie’s words were harsh, but her voice was fragile and her face pale.

  Josie threw up her hands. “Fine!” She hurried past them and rounded the corner with surprising speed for a plump old woman.

  “I could use a nap myself.” Tanya passed them in an equal rush, the yellow balls of her walker squeaking along the floor. “Sweet dreams, Debbie.” She gave a little wave as she left the room on Josie’s tail. Gloria had never seen her move so fast.

  Debbie leaned heavily on Gloria’s arm. It seemed as though she might fall down at any moment. Something definitely wasn’t right.

  “You want me to get a nurse?” Betty asked as she came to take Debbie’s other arm.

  “Get me to my room. I need to lie down.” Debbie’s jaw drew tight with strain.

  Gloria put her arm around Debbie’s waist to support her.

  As they entered the hallway, a nurse appeared with a wheelchair and a calm smile. “Hey, Debbie. How ’bout a ride?”

  The nurse pushed the wheelchair under Debbie and helped settle her in, even as Debbie’s eyes filled with gratitude. “That’s better now, isn’t it? You ride and I’ll do the work.”

  Debbie gripped the arms of the wheelchair with trembling hands. “That’s what we pay you for,” she barked, then smiled and quietly added, “thank you.”

  The nurse rolled her eyes and shook her head. Debbie was all bark and no bite. But the “thank you” at the end worried Gloria more than anything.

  The nurse pushed Debbie past Josie and Tanya, who were clearly fretting. They had hurried to get help, Gloria suspected—always taking care of each other.

  After Debbie disappeared down the hallway, Gloria turned to give the other women hugs. “I’ll be back at two o’clock tomorrow,” she said, then hurried out the door before they could see the worry in her eyes.

  Chapter 37

  Ten miles out from Meadowbrook, Gloria pulled over to the side of the road. Something in her gut told her to go back. She couldn’t explain it—she just felt drawn to do so. She wanted to go sit with Debbie. Even if the old woman was sleeping, Gloria could at least hold her hand.

  She laughed at the notion.

  It would actually be best if Debbie was sleeping if Gloria planned to hold her hand. She’d probably get smacked if she tried to do it when Debbie was awake.

  The nurse’s station sat empty when she walked back through the doors of the facility. No matter. Gloria knew where to find Debbie, and she headed to her room.

  In the doorway of Debbie’s room, a doctor visited with the nurse who’d helped earlier. They looked up in surprise at Gloria’s entrance.

  “I came back to sit with Debbie. I guess I’m worried about her. Is she okay?”

  The doctor handed the chart to the nurse, nodded at Gloria, and left the room at a quick clip, flitting away like a moth to another flame.

  The nurse tried to offer a look of assurance but failed miserably. “She’s weak. Doc checked her and, well… she’s old, you know. We never know. She’s probably just tired.”

  Gloria sensed the nurse was holding something back. “I hope I didn’t wear her out.” Gloria meant it. The thought of being the cause of Debbie’s exhaustion troubled her.

  “Don’t you think such a thing for a minute. All the women look forward to you coming. Your visits are the highlight of their week. If anything, we nurses have all been worried about the day you won’t be visiting anymore.”

  It occurred to Gloria that with today’s breakthrough the day would be soon. Maybe that was part of Debbie’s problem.

  “Gloria.” Debbie’s voice barely carried across the room. She lay in her bed, weak, her voice raspy, scarcely loud enough to be heard from the doorway.

  The nurse and Gloria turned. Debbie looked so small and frail, her shaking hand reaching out toward them.

  The nurse walked over. “You okay, Debbie?”

  “No! I’m dying here! Of course I’m not okay!” Debbie tried to shout, then coughed. “Now get out of here and let me talk to my friend.” She waved the nurse away and beckoned Gloria with a crooked finger.

  “Gotta love her.” The nurse smiled and shook her head as she walked past Gloria. “Push the light if you need any help,” she said as she left the room.

  Gloria went to the tiny old woman and took the hand held out to her. What a surprise to see Debbie initiating contact. The old gal either liked her or she was about to cast a curse.

  “Strong grip for someone who says they’re dying.” Gloria attempted to joke.

  Debbie ignored the comment. “Sit.” She patted her bed. “There’s some things I need to tell you.”

  Gloria found a space on the bed and sat down. She could feel her heartbeat dance in her chest. Debbie’s tiny body barely took up any room on the bed. Her hand felt cool and smooth. The hum of the fluorescent lights created white noise.

  Gloria wasn’t sure she wanted to know whatever it was Debbie wanted to tell her. “Debbie, you should probably rest. This can wait until tomorrow. Why don’t you let me sit here with you while you sleep?”

  “That’s dumb. I don’t want anyone watching me sleep, for crying out loud.” She waved a hand in the air. “Anyway, I’ll be dead by morning.” She squeezed Gloria’s hand and gave it a sharp pat. “That’s why I need to talk to you now.”

  “Oh, Debbie, you’ll be here tomorrow.” Gloria tried to laugh, but it didn’t sound believable.

  “Don’t be cute. It doesn’t suit you.” Debbie shut her eyes. “Now, I’m getting tired, so shut up and listen. I’m going to tell you what really happened to Naomi.”

  Gloria held her breath—afraid to say anything to stop Debbie’s revelations.

  The woman took a deep breath and continued. “You need to know we didn’t kill Naomi Talbot.” Debbie’s voice was so shaky and frail.

  Gloria had to wonder if she was in her right mind.

  “I see the look on your face. I’m lucid. Don’t be thinking I’m crazy. Just listen up. This is important.” Debbie made her voice as stern as she could. “We beat Naomi up, trashed her house, and left her for dead. Certainly, of those things we are guilty. And if Doug had cared about his wife, I’m sure we’d have all done some jail time."

  “But he didn’t. If you remember, Doug watched the whole fight. Saw us leave. Didn’t do a thing to stop us or help Naomi. Turns out, after we left, he snuck out from his hiding place to deal with her. He thought she was dead. He told me the first thing he did was pick her up to move her to the tile floor closer to the back door. Then she started moaning. She was still alive.”

  Gloria put her ha
nd up to her mouth. “So Doug killed her?”

  “Hold your horses and listen. It’s actually worse.” Debbie shook her head. “When Naomi moaned, Doug considered choking the rest of the life out of her. He even put his hands to her throat, but she came around all of a sudden, sat straight up, and started screaming. ’Bout knocked Doug backward. Apparently, Naomi began ranting about how we’d come and beat her up and tried to kill her. She was raving and punching at the air, threatening to kill us all. Doug said she was slamming her fists on the ground repeatedly, and he’d never seen her so out of control. He said he was sure she broke both of her wrists slamming them against the tile floor.”

  “What did he do?” Gloria gasped.

  “Well, he let her rant for a while, tried to calm her down, but she couldn’t be contained. She’d gone mad. Possibly the blow to the head jarred something lose in her brain. He told her he had to take her to a hospital because he was worried about how much blood she’d lost and about the gash on her head. At first she wanted nothing to do with it, but the more he showed concern, the more she warmed to the idea. So he managed to clean up her wound, although she never stopped screaming and yelling. Then he took her to the car, where she proceeded to pass out again.”

  “I’ll bet she had a concussion,” Gloria said, interrupting her.

  “I’m sure she did. One way or the other, it was advantageous because it gave Doug time to make a phone call to an old friend.”

  “Phone call. To whom?” Gloria asked, on the edge of her seat.

  “Jack Anderson. Remember how we told you about the homecoming dance? Betty and Jack Anderson were the runners-up to Mari and Doug? Well, over the years Doug had stayed friends with Jack. Jack Anderson knew all about the trouble Doug had been having over the years with his wife. He knew what a neglectful mother she’d been to Doug Junior. He knew how she put her own mother in a nursing home and declared her incompetent so she could get her father’s money. And he knew about all her dalliances over the years. For years, he’d been telling Doug she needed psychiatric care.”

  “But why did Doug need to call Jack? It seems like a strange time to talk things over with an old friend.” Gloria shook her head in confusion.

  “That’s not why he called Jack, dear.” Debbie smiled. “He called Jack because he needed his professional help. Jack, you see, was the director of a mental institution in Texas. The mental institution Doug took Naomi to. The one she lives in to this very day.”

  Chapter 38

  Gloria sat up straight, then jumped off the bed. “Naomi’s alive!” Her words bounced off the walls. She frantically searched the old woman’s eyes.

  Debbie nodded her head. “Yes. She’s at a psychiatric hospital in Houston, Texas. Menninger’s. Has been for the past forty years.”

  “He kept it a secret?” Gloria could barely wrap her mind around this new information.

  “It’s the way Doug wanted it. Besides, whose business was it anyway? And Doug and I had our own little secrets, too. “

  Gloria frowned. She knew what Debbie was alluding to. A secret baby. An unwanted child. Her.

  She crossed her arms and played along. “Go on.”

  “The others told you about how they carried on with their lives. Well, I did the same, but I didn’t have skills like Betty, a rich family like Josie, or a husband, like Tanya. Hell. I was so poor I could barely keep myself in Winstons. Then a strange thing happened.”

  “What happened, Debbie?” Gloria asked, her voice quivering with anger. You had a baby and gave it away, didn’t you? She wanted to scream.

  “Well, Doug Talbot and I fell in love, that’s what happened!” She primped her hair.

  “Excuse me?” It occurred to Gloria who her birth father was.

  “Doug started calling on the phone. He had so much to tell me about Naomi and had to talk to someone about it. Then we started meeting out of town. Soon we had quite the hot little romance going. Eventually he rented a little apartment in Omaha. I moved down there and he’d visit on the weekends. I was a kept woman. Oh, those were the days, let me tell you. Then after a year or so, we decided to move away and be together.”

  “You got married?”

  “Heavens no. We lived in sin.” Debbie winked.

  Gloria burned with anger and then couldn’t take it anymore. She yelled at Debbie, “Tell me the truth already! Just tell me the damn dirty truth! You and Doug had a baby. You had me! And you gave me away like an old coat. How could you do such a thing?” Hot tears ran down Gloria’s cheeks as she shook with waves of sobs.

  Debbie’s face went pale.

  The nurse showed up at the doorway. “Everything okay in here?”

  “Fine, fine. Go away. This is private.” Debbie shooed the nurse out with a weak and trembling voice. Once she’d left, Debbie turned back to Gloria. “Sweetheart. That’s not what happened at all. You’re wrong.”

  Gloria stared at Debbie. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I did not have a baby. And neither did Doug.” She reached out her hand, but Gloria refused to take it. She stood back and waited, barely any trust left in her heart.

  “Gloria. I’m mean as an alley cat, there’s no denying it. And Doug wasn’t much of a father to his son. But darling, if we’d have become pregnant, we wouldn’t have given the baby away.” Wrinkles creased at her eyes and a warm smile graced the old woman’s mouth.

  Gloria stared at Debbie in total confusion. “If not you, then who?” Exhaustion shook her voice.

  Debbie whispered, “It’s Naomi who had the baby, Gloria. Naomi was your birth mother.”

  The room spun.

  Chapter 39

  Gloria’s mouth hung open. Naomi?

  It was more than she could digest. She turned her back on Debbie and ran from the room. Ran down the hallway. Ran out to the car. Then she sat behind her steering wheel, panting and crying until she cried her tears dry. Then she drove home and laid awake most of the night, staring at the ceiling and crying more.

  The next morning, Gloria refused to think about it. Her brain couldn’t handle the concept.

  She dragged her butt to the office at the newspaper by five in the morning. Print day. The Rosewood Press was a weekly paper, and print day was always a bit of a rat race. Everyone ran around in a hurry and loud and frantic was part of the natural process.

  Of course, the chaos of print day held no surprise, but it sure was a pain in the ass after a night of little sleep and the worry on her mind. She had tossed and turned all night, fighting with the information Debbie had told her. When she finally slept, she dreamt Naomi was bleeding all over a white carpet as she gave birth to her.

  At noon, she hit Send on her computer and e-mailed a copy of the paper to the main office in Omaha. She leaned back in her chair, thinking she’d take a little nap before leaving for Meadowbrook to see the women again. She had a hell of a lot more questions, and she couldn’t hide from them anymore. She had to ask everything until she completely understood what had happened.

  Unfortunately, her nap lasted until two o’clock.

  Gloria woke with a start and sprang up from her chair. “Why didn’t anyone wake me?” she yelled at no one in particular.

  “I tried, but you mumbled at me to go away,” the front office assistant answered. “You looked like you needed the sleep.”

  Throwing her hands up in exasperation, Gloria grabbed her keys and ran out to her car. It would be three before she arrived. The women were probably worried and Debbie… Debbie! She remembered Debbie had been sick, had said she was dying. And Gloria had run out on her. What if it really had been her final moments in life? Gloria hoped she wouldn’t get a ticket on her way, because she planned to speed.

  Forty-five minutes later, she swung into the parking lot of Meadowbrook and ran to the entrance. When she saw Tanya, Betty, and Josie sitting on a couch with mournful expressions, Gloria stopped cold.

  “Debbie’s gone?” Gloria asked, searching their eyes for the answer she dreaded.
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  “She’s in her room,” Tanya said.

  “They just left her in her room after she died?” Gloria shivered at the thought.

  “Died? That cranky old thing?” Tanya snorted. “Of course not. She’s too mean to die.” She shook her head and grunted with irritation.

  Gloria’s heart jumped. “Well, why isn’t she out here?”

  “Oh, she has a terrible case of indigestion and gas. Thought she was having a heart attack last night. She’s all bound up, too. I’m here to tell you, when us old folks get irregular, it isn’t pretty,” Tanya said. “It can feel like dying, no joke. But, she refuses to drink any kind of juice. It’s her own fault. A glass of prune juice with breakfast and she’d be right as rain.” Tanya shook her head, a look of frustration on her face.

  Josie commiserated. “No argument there. Remember last year when I had that bout? Oh dear. It’s no laughing matter.”

  Gloria took a deep breath and exhaled with relief. Thank God Debbie was all right. “Well, why does everyone look so upset?”

  Betty put her hand out to take Gloria’s and pulled her down on the couch beside them. “Have a seat, we need to talk.” The look on Betty’s face gave her pause.

  “Debbie told us you came back last night. Said she told you the truth.” Betty looked deep into Gloria’s eyes.

  Gloria held back the hurt and anger. “Yes. She did.”

  “Well. There’s more for you to know, so why don’t we go to the sunroom where we can visit? This is no place for the conversation we’re about to have.” Betty stood, then forged off down the hall, straight-backed and all business. Gloria wondered how in the world she would hold up under yet more information.

  Once they were all seated in the sunroom, Betty took the lead. “Now, we all visited with Debbie this morning. We know she told you about Naomi being your birth mother.” Betty cleared her throat as though the idea tasted bad.

  Gloria had never seen Betty look so flustered. The normally gracious woman fretted like, well, like Tanya. “Betty, ladies, I don’t know what to do with this information.” Gloria looked around into their eyes. She’d never felt so lost.