by Joy Fielding
“Wonderful,” she said, the same thing she said every time I asked, and I laughed. She laughed too, although the sound was weak and segued quickly into a cough.
Still, in those few seconds, I saw traces of the beautiful, vibrant woman Myra Wylie had been before her body began its slow, insidious betrayal. I could also make out the face of her son Josh in the sculpted lines of her cheekbones, the soft bow of her lips. Josh Wylie would be a very handsome old man, I couldn’t help but think as I pulled up a chair and sat down beside his mother. “I understand you’ve been asking for me.”
“I was thinking maybe we could do something different with my hair next time we wash it.”
I smoothed the fine gray hair away from her face with my fingers. “What style do you think you’d like?”
“I don’t know. Something more with it.”
“With it?”
“Maybe a bob.”
“A bob?” I fluffed out the fragile wisps of hair that framed Myra’s face. Her skin was sinking, the heavy lines around her eyes and mouth becoming folds, caving in around her. Slowly, the living tissue was morphing into a death mask. How much longer did she have? “A bob,” I repeated. “Sure. Why not?”
Myra smiled. “That cute little nurse with all the freckles was in last night. The young one, what’s her name?”
“Sally?”
“Yes, Sally. She brought me my medicine and we got to talking, and she asked me how old I was. You should have seen the look on her face when I told her I’m seventy-seven.”
I searched Myra’s eyes for signs she was teasing, saw none. “Myra,” I told her gently. “You’re not seventy-seven.”
“I’m not?”
“You’re eighty-seven.”
“Eighty-seven?” There was a long pause as Myra’s trembling hand reached for her heart. “That’s a shock!”
I laughed, stroked her shoulder.
“Are you sure?”
“That’s what it says on your chart. But we can check with your son next time he visits.”
“I think that’s a good idea.” Myra’s eyes fluttered to a close, her voice growing faint. “Because I think there has to be some mistake.”
“We’ll ask Josh on Friday.” I eased out of my chair and walked to the door. When I turned back to check on her, she was sound asleep.
The rest of the morning was uneventful. I tended to patients, fed them their breakfast and lunch, changed soiled sheets, helped those who could still walk to the bathroom. I looked in on Sheena O’Connor, the nineteen-year-old rape victim who’d been transferred from Delray Medical Center, filling the room with idle chatter as I surveyed the scars and bruises that made a mockery of her once innocent face, but if she heard me, she gave no sign.
Normally, I eat lunch in the hospital cafeteria—the food is surprisingly good and you can’t beat the price—but today I was anxious to check on Alison. I thought of phoning, but I didn’t want to wake her in case she was still sleeping, and besides, I didn’t think she’d answer my phone. So armed with two Imitrex tablets I’d bought from Caroline—“I’d give them to you, but they’re so damned expensive!”—and the names of several doctors in the area I thought Alison should contact, I used my lunch hour to drive home and see how she was doing.
Pulling into my driveway, I saw a young man with a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead lurking behind a corner tree, in almost the same spot where I’d seen the man yesterday, but by the time I parked my car and came back to look, he was gone. I looked down the street in time to see him disappear around the corner and thought momentarily of going after him. Luckily I was distracted by the sound of barking dogs, and I turned back toward my house. Bettye McCoy was standing beside a neighbor’s prized rosebush, pretending not to notice that one of her dogs was peeing all over it. I thought of asking her if she’d noticed any suspicious strangers in the area, but decided against it. Bettye McCoy had barely acknowledged my existence ever since I’d chased one of her precious Bichons out of my yard with a broomstick.
I slipped my shoes off at the front door, silently cursing the slight creaking noise the door made as I closed it, determining to oil it when I got home at the end of my shift. The house was eerily quiet except for the gentle hum of the air conditioner. A quick look around told me everything was in its correct place. Nothing had been disturbed.
I tiptoed up the stairs to my bedroom, coughed quietly so as not to scare Alison if she was awake, then opened the door.
The curtains were still pulled, so it took me a few seconds to determine that the room was empty and the bed neatly made. Goldilocks was no longer sleeping in my bed. “Alison?” I called out, checking the bathroom and the second bedroom before heading back downstairs. “Alison?” She was gone.
“Alison?” I called out again at the door to her cottage, knocking gently. No one answered. I tried peering in the windows, but I saw nothing. Nor could I hear anyone moving around inside. Was it possible Alison had felt well enough to go out? Or was she lying on her bathroom floor, her head pressed against the cold tiles for relief, too sick and weak to respond to my knock? Despite common sense telling me I was overreacting, I returned to the front door and knocked more forcefully. “Alison,” I called loudly. “Alison, it’s Terry. Are you all right?”
I waited only thirty more seconds before letting myself in. “Alison?” I called again once inside.
I knew the cottage was empty the minute I crossed the threshold, but still I persisted, repeatedly calling out Alison’s name as I inched toward the bedroom. The clothes she’d worn last night lay in a careless diagonal across the bedroom floor, discarded and abandoned where they fell. The bed was unmade and redolent with her scent, a potent mix of strawberries and baby powder still clinging to the rumpled sheets and crumpled pillows, but Alison herself was nowhere to be seen. I’m embarrassed to say I actually checked underneath the bed. Did I think the dreaded bogeyman had surfaced, snatched Alison while she lay sleeping? I don’t know what I thought. Nor do I know what possessed me to check the small, walk-in closet. Did I think she was hiding inside? Truth to tell, I don’t know what I was thinking. Probably I wasn’t thinking at all.
Alison had little in the way of clothes. A few dresses, including the blue sundress she’d worn at our first meeting. Several pairs of jeans. A white blouse. A black leather jacket. Perhaps half a dozen T-shirts were stacked in one corner of the long, built-in shelf, some lacy underwear crammed into the other. Well-worn, black-and-white sneakers sat beside a pair of obviously new, silver sling-back heels. I lifted one shoe into my hand, wondering how anyone managed to walk in those damn things. I hadn’t worn a heel that high in—well, I’d never worn a heel that high, I realized, glancing toward my stockinged feet, reaching down before I was even aware of what I was doing and slipping on first one shoe, then the other.
It was at that moment—standing there in Alison’s sexy shoes—that I heard movement in the next room and felt the vibration of footsteps as they drew near. I froze, not sure what to do. It was one thing to tell Alison that I’d been so concerned about her health I’d felt entitled to invade her privacy, but how was I going to explain being discovered in her closet, teetering precariously in her new, silver, sling-back, high-heeled shoes?
For one insane second, I actually thought of clicking those heels together and reciting, “There’s no place like home; there’s no place like home,” in hopes that, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I would be transported miraculously back to my own living room. Or Kansas, for that matter. Anywhere but here, I thought, feeling Alison’s presence in the doorway. “I’m so sorry,” I said, waiting for her to appear. “Please forgive me.”
Except no one was there. There was only me and my overactive imagination. Not to mention my guilt for being where I didn’t belong. I stood in the closet, wobbling in those outrageous three-inch heels, waiting for my heartbeat to return to normal. Some criminal I’d make, I thought, kicking off the shoes and returning them to their place beside the tire
d-looking sneakers.
At that point, I should have gotten the hell out of there. Alison was obviously feeling better. There was no need to be concerned. Certainly no reason for me to be standing in the middle of what was now, after all, her place. And I was on my way out—I really was—when I saw it.
Her journal.
It was lying open on the top of the white wicker dresser, as if waiting to be read, almost as if Alison had left it that way deliberately, as if she’d been expecting me to drop by. I tried not to notice it, tried to walk by it without stopping to look, without stooping to look, I should probably say, but the damn thing drew me like a magnet. Almost against my will, I found my eyes dipping through the dramatic swirls and loops of Alison’s elaborate scrawl, as if on some wild, visual roller-coaster ride.
Sunday, November 4: Well, I did it. I’m actually here.
I stopped, slammed the journal shut, then realized it had been open when I found it and quickly rifled through the pages looking for the last entry.
Thursday, October 11: Lance says I’m crazy. He says to remember what happened last time.
Friday, October 26: I’m getting nervous. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.
Sunday, October 28: Lance keeps warning me against getting too attached. Maybe he’s right. Maybe this whole plan is just too crazy.
Back to the last entry without allowing my eyes to settle, the words to sink in.
Sunday, November 4: Well, I did it. I’m actually here. I’m living in the cottage behind her house, and she’s even invited me over for dinner. She seems nice, if not exactly what I was expecting.
What did that mean?
What had she been expecting?
We’d spoken for less than a minute on the phone, scarcely enough time to form any impressions at all.
Lance says I’m crazy. He says to remember what happened last time.
Were these entries somehow related?
“I’m doing it again,” I said out loud. Letting my imagination get the better of me. The snatches I’d read in Alison’s journal could mean anything. Or nothing. The discomfort I was feeling had more to do with my own guilt for snooping through Alison’s personal belongings than it did with her innocent scribblings. I pulled away from the diary as if it were a hissing snake.
And I did nothing. Not then, not later, not even after I returned home at the end of my shift and stopped by to see how Alison was doing, and she told me that, aside from a brief walk around the block, she’d spent pretty much the whole day in bed.
I left her with the Imitrex, a list of doctors in the area, and some homemade chicken soup, deciding to be pleasant, but to keep my distance—not allow myself to get too attached, as the mysterious Lance would undoubtedly advise—and somehow I managed to convince myself that as long as Alison paid her rent on time and followed my rules, everything would be fine.
FIVE
By Friday, I had all but forgotten the diary. One of the other nurses was sick with a nasty flu, so I’d volunteered to take her shift as well as my own on both Wednesday and Thursday, and as a result, I didn’t see Alison at all. I did receive a lovely note from her, thanking me for dinner and apologizing profusely for being such a nuisance. She assured me she was feeling much better and suggested going to a movie on the weekend, if I had any free time. I didn’t respond, deciding to plead exhaustion if and when we actually connected. If I turned down enough such overtures, I reasoned, Alison would get the message, and our relationship would revert to what it should have been in the first place, landlord and tenant. I’d been too hasty in allowing Alison into my life.
“What are you thinking about, dear?” the voice beside me asked with marked concern.
“Hmm? What? Sorry,” I said, returning to the present, casting unwanted memories aside, returning my full attention to the withered old woman connected to life by a series of tubes that force-fed nutrients into her collapsing veins.
Myra Wylie’s eyes radiated quiet curiosity. “You were a million miles away.”
“Sorry. Did I hurt you?” My hands dropped from the IV I’d been adjusting.
“No, dear. You couldn’t hurt me if you tried. Stop apologizing. Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine.” I secured the blanket at her toes. “You’re doing remarkably well.”
“I meant with you. Is everything all right with you?”
“Everything’s fine,” I repeated, as if trying to reassure myself as well.
“You can talk to me, you know. If you have a problem.”
I smiled gratefully. “I appreciate that.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do.”
“You look like you have very deep thoughts,” Myra Wylie remarked, and I laughed out loud. “Don’t laugh. Josh thinks so too.”
I felt my pulse quicken. “Your son thinks I have deep thoughts?”
“That’s what he said last time he was here.”
I felt almost ridiculously flattered, like a teenage girl who’s just found out the silly boy she has a crush on feels the same way about her. I checked my watch, noted the trembling in my fingers. “Well, it’s almost noon. He should be here any minute.”
“He thinks you’re very nice.”
Was I mistaken, or was there a playful glint in Myra’s watery eyes? “Oh, he does, does he?”
“Josh deserves someone nice,” Myra was saying, almost to herself. “He’s divorced, you know. I’ve told you about that, haven’t I?”
I nodded, eager for more details, but careful to look only mildly curious.
“She left him for her aerobics instructor. Can you imagine? Stupid woman.” Myra Wylie’s frail shoulders stiffened with righteous indignation. “Destroys the family. Breaks my son’s heart. And for what? So she can march off into the sunset with some muscle-bound bodybuilder ten years her junior, who dumps her less than six months later—what did she expect?—and of course, now she sees the error of her ways, now she wants him back. But Josh is too smart for that, thank God. He’ll never let that woman back into his life.” Myra’s voice began breaking up, like a bad radio signal, then dissolved into a worrisome combination of coughs and wheezes.
“Take deep breaths,” I cautioned, watching Myra’s breathing gradually return to normal. “That’s better. You shouldn’t let yourself get so upset. It’s not worth it. It’s all over now. They’re divorced.”
“He will never let that woman back into his life.”
“Never,” I repeated.
“He deserves someone nice.”
“Absolutely.”
“Someone like you,” Myra said. Then: “You like children, don’t you?”
“I love children.” I followed her eyes to the two silver-framed pictures of her smiling grandchildren that sat on the movable nightstand beside her bed.
“Of course they’re older now than when these pictures were taken. Jillian is fifteen, and Trevor is almost twelve.”
“I know. We’ve met,” I reminded her. “They’re lovely children.”
“They went through hell after Jan left.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t easy.” It’s never easy to lose your mother, I remember thinking. No matter how old you are, no matter what the circumstances. A mother is a mother is a mother, I thought, and almost laughed. So much for the depth of my thoughts. “I should get going. Is there anything I can do for you before your son gets here?”
“Comb my hair a little, if you don’t mind?”
“It will be my pleasure.” I ran a gentle comb across Myra’s scalp, watching the delicate strands of gray hair immediately fall back into place, as if untouched. “You were right about the bob. It’s very becoming.”
“You think so?” A smile, eager as a child’s, spread across her face.
“Now all the nurses are asking me to cut their hair. They say I missed my calling.”
“I don’t think you miss a thing.” Myra reached out to squeeze my hand.
“I’ll be back to say
hello to your son,” I said with a wink.
“Terry?” she called as I was about to leave the room. I swiveled around as she brought her fingers to her lips. “Maybe a little lipstick?”
I started back toward the bed.
“No. Not me,” she said quickly. “You.”
I laughed, shaking my head as I returned to the door. I was still laughing as I stepped into the hall and saw Alison standing in front of the nurses’ station.
“Terry!” Alison rushed forward to greet me, arms extended, face flushed with pride. She was wearing her blue sundress and her hair fell in lush tendrils around her shoulders. Erica Hollander’s necklace hung around her neck, the tiny gold heart resting at her collarbone, as if it had been there all her life.
“Alison! What are you doing here?” I looked toward Margot and Caroline, both of whom were busy behind the long, curving desk of the nurses’ station, Margot on the phone, Caroline entering notes in a patient’s chart. They glanced in our direction, pretending not to be paying attention.
“I did it! I did it!” Alison was jumping up and down, like a small child.
I brought my finger to my lips in a silent signal for her to settle down and lower her voice. “Did what?”
“I got a job,” she squealed, unable to contain herself. “At the Lorelli Gallery. On Atlantic Avenue. Four days a week, some Saturdays, some evenings. Shift work,” she said, beaming. “Like you.”
“That’s great,” I heard myself say, her enthusiasm catchy despite my effort to remain detached. “What exactly will you be doing?”
“Selling mostly. Of course, I don’t know much about art, but Fern said she’d teach me everything I need to know. Fern’s my boss. Fern Lorelli. She seems very nice. Do you know her?”
I started to shake my head, but Alison had already moved on.
“I told her I didn’t know much about art, because I figured I should be honest, right? I didn’t want her to give me the job under false pretenses. I mean, she’d find out soon enough anyway, right? But she said not to worry, she’d handle the art, that I should stick mostly to the jewelry and gift items they sell, although if I do manage to sell one of the paintings, I’d get a commission. Five percent. Isn’t that great?”