Vultures at Twilight

by Charles Atkins

  I thought about my own mother and how Bradley and I had taken care of her in those last hard years, when everything seemed to give out: her eyes, her ears, and finally her memory. We never once thought about a nursing home and up until those last few months, I looked after her in her own home. When things had deteriorated to where she could no longer remember to turn off the stove, we had it disconnected and she joined us for all our meals, or else I’d go over and fix her breakfast. When she couldn’t make the stairs, we moved her bedroom into the back parlor and put a safety gate across the stairwell. We put support bars in the bathroom and installed a separate shower where I’d bathe her. I remembered the intimacy of that, of helping my mother dress in the morning, of carefully powdering her after her bath so that she wouldn’t develop rashes or pressure sores.

  The day she no longer recognized Bradley was the day we moved her into our house. In retrospect, I’m not certain it was the right thing to do. A month after she had moved into our spare bedroom, which we had arranged to mimic her own, she developed pneumonia, and within a week had died.

  The end had been awful. Every day I had to hover over her, lest she bolt out the door and head back to her house. At least in Grenville people knew who she was and on those couple occasions where I didn’t catch her fast enough, Hank Morgan or one of the neighbors would spot her and bring her home.

  I then thought of Ada and what she was facing with Rose. Of course, someone has to look after Mom, and for her that meant either returning to New York or figuring some way to get Rose into Nillewaug or something similar. If I were truly her friend, I would have seen this.

  Barbara returned without the doctor. ‘Here –’ she reached for my blue plastic Patient’s Belongings bag – ‘let me help you.’

  In the doorway an orderly appeared with a wheelchair. It was an archaic ritual, which Bradley never explained to my satisfaction, but I allowed myself to be helped into the chair for my ride to the front door. The whole thing begged the question: if you still need a wheelchair maybe you shouldn’t be leaving? Then again I was thrilled to be on my way and wasn’t going to make waves.

  As I was rolled out, I spotted Doctor Green, surrounded by a bevy of young doctors and medical students. He looked briefly in my direction, shook his head, and then returned to his disciples. My cheeks burned as I imagined his comments.

  Perhaps he was right and I should have stayed longer. Still, I felt relief that I would be out in the light of day heading toward my own home and my own bed.

  Unfortunately, as we neared the lobby I saw an increasing number of dripping umbrellas.

  ‘Well, at least here you don’t get mudslides,’ said Barbara as she fished a portable umbrella from her briefcase-sized pocketbook.

  ‘We do need the rain,’ the orderly commented as he wheeled me toward the glass-domed portico. ‘If you want, I can have the valet get your car.’

  ‘Will that take long?’ I asked, just wanting to be away from there. I had this uneasy sense, that one wrong look and they’d whisk me back to my monitored bed.

  ‘Couple minutes.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Barbara said, ‘a little rain never hurt anyone.’ And with that, she bolted into the driving torrent.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked the orderly.

  ‘Getting on eleven,’ he replied. ‘If you make it out the door before eleven, they don’t charge you for the day.’

  ‘Check-out time?’ I offered.

  He chuckled. ‘Yeah, but no mint on your pillow.’

  We lapsed into silence.

  My thoughts drifted, lulled by the rhythm of the rain. Water, water everywhere. Throughout my dream there had been water that turned to blood. Like Wendy, who drowned. Perhaps that’s what the dream was about. My surfacing in the golf pond, the juxtaposition of the familiar and the hidden. That was it. Grenville . . . How many times had I said that I knew my town like the back of my hand? It wasn’t true, at least not now, and if Wendy’s horrible accusation wasn’t a lie or a delusion, perhaps I didn’t even know my husband . . . or myself.

  The beeping of a horn interrupted my thoughts. A shiny white rental sedan pulled into the carport. Inside, Barbara motioned for me to get in.

  ‘Looks like you’re going to make it,’ the orderly said.

  I didn’t know if he was referring to the eleven o’clock checkout time or my fear that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave.

  He wheeled me out under the sheltered parkway and opened the door.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, adjusting the brakes on the wheelchair. ‘OK, you’re all set.’

  With shaky hands I gripped the sides of the chair and felt the pavement beneath my slipper-clad feet. My knees wobbled and I knew that three days lying in bed had destroyed my muscle tone. As soon as I can – I told myself – it’s back to yoga class.

  ‘You OK?’ Barbara asked as I gripped the doorframe.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, wishing I felt steadier. I settled into the car and caught the warm musty smell of wet clothes as they mixed with the car’s heating system. It was a comfortable cocoon-like feel, the hum of the motor and the patter of the rain. I looked across at Barbara, her profile more relaxed now that we were away from the harsh light of the hospital. ‘It’s good to see you,’ I offered.

  She smiled. ‘You too, but I still think you should have followed doctor’s orders.’

  ‘Just ornery, and judging by what went on in there, I seem to have passed that on.’

  On impulse she reached across and gave me an awkward hug and kiss. I could see that she had been crying; a tear clung to her cheek like a raindrop on the windshield.

  ‘I was really scared,’ she admitted, settling back into the driver’s seat and adjusting the safety belt. ‘When Mrs Strauss called and said you’d had a heart attack, I kept thinking about Daddy. It’s like he was fine one day and then he was gone.’

  ‘I’m going to be OK,’ I reassured her. ‘Trust me, I know lots of people who’ve had more serious heart attacks and they go on for years and years.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m just not ready to lose you.’ She was crying, and trying not to show it. She looked straight ahead, and pulled out into the driving rain.

  ‘I’m not going to die Barbara, not yet. I really do feel fine. I’ve just had a lot on my mind and I think things caught up with me.’

  ‘Like what?’ she asked. ‘What’s going on, Mom?’

  ‘Different things, nothing to be worried about.’ As I said that, I thought back to the phone call. A pit in my stomach. It had to have been a wrong number.

  ‘Could you be more vague?’ she responded.

  ‘Let me think . . . How are the kids?’

  ‘Nice transition,’ she commented wryly. ‘They’re fine.’

  ‘Now who’s being vague?’

  ‘OK, let me see. Josh wants to marry his second grade teacher, a lovely woman with a nose piercing and, I suspect, a multitude of tattoos she keeps covered around the kids.’

  ‘How exciting.’

  ‘Exactly, and Heather lives for soccer, and absolutely refuses to play in the all-girls league.’

  ‘Good for her.’

  ‘I guess it’s raised some eyebrows, and as she gets older it could be a problem. At this point, it’s kind of wait and see. But she is good, and I think she takes a thrill in giving as good as she gets with the boys.’

  ‘Fights?’ I asked, thinking of my nine-year-old granddaughter, whose Christmas list invariably involves a trip to the sporting goods store.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Got a mean hook on her. And with all this Ralph is making noises about having a third. Frankly, with work and all, I can’t see it. Plus, I’m thirty-six, I’d be close to your age by the time that one got through college. I think two is enough. So, enough of me, and your transparent attempt to change the topic. Your friend Ada told me that things have been pretty exciting in the old town.’

  ‘Really?’ I dreaded what might come next. ‘What did she tell you?’

 
; ‘That there’d been a string of murders. I mean, really, Grenville?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘Why is it happening?’

  ‘Lots of hypotheses, but no one really knows. They’ve all been antique dealers.’

  ‘Like Who’s Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?’

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘An old film, where someone went around killing famous chefs.’

  ‘What was the motive?’

  ‘You know, I can’t remember. It was a black comedy. The sort of thing I’ll flip through late at night when I can’t sleep.’

  ‘It has that feel around here. Not the comedy part, but this sense of wondering why and who’s next?’ If she knew . . . but my caller can’t have anything to do with this. Lil, you have to tell someone, just not Barbara.

  ‘It’s scary,’ she commented, pulling into the gates of Pilgrim’s Progress. ‘I knew Mildred Potts. I remember her from growing up. I used to look at the jewelry in her window and drool. Of course, I never could afford anything.’

  As she spoke, I realized that she was around the same age as Philip and Wendy. ‘I wonder if you didn’t know one of the other victims.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Philip Conroy?’

  ‘Oh my God! Philip?’

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘Knew him? He was a few years ahead of me. I had a major crush on him in junior high; he was gorgeous. Why would someone kill him? Oh, God.’

  ‘Welcome to Grenville,’ I replied as we pulled up to my condo.

  With relief I noted that everything was unchanged. The rain-drenched hydrangeas bent under the weight of their purple-blue blossoms and the leaves of the maple – vivid orange and red – were falling fast. My pulse quickened as I caught sight of Ada in my doorway, cloaked by the curtains of water.

  ‘Ready to get soaked?’ Barbara asked.

  ‘Ready.’

  We ambled up the steep walk toward the front door. With each step I was painfully aware of how weak I had become.

  Once over the threshold, I breathed the smells of home. Like coming back to a piece of myself that had been forgotten.

  Ada followed. ‘Here let me do that,’ she said, helping me off with my coat and pushing me toward the living room and my wing chair. ‘Just relax, Lil.’ Her fingers brushed my cheek. Our eyes met. ‘Don’t do that again,’ she scolded, holding my gaze. And lowering her voice below what Barbara could hear: ‘It’s selfish . . . but I don’t think I could bear it if something happened to you. Now sit, I’ll make tea.’

  My cheek tingled from her touch as I scanned my home and saw that the boxes of journals were gone. Thank God.

  Ada returned with tea and a kitten-soft lavender mohair throw, which she draped across my lap. She stepped back, and there were tears in her eyes.

  ‘I know, I look terrible,’ I said. ‘But really, I’m going to be fine.’

  She shook her head, and glanced back toward Barbara, who was talking on her cell in the kitchen. ‘Lil, you’re not fine and we both know it, and it has nothing to do with your medical condition, although I think that’s what brought it on.’

  I was about to argue when the phone rang. Without thinking I reached over and picked up. Silence. My stomach clenched with each passing millisecond and I felt a dangerous twitch in the center of my chest. Then the gravelly male voice.

  ‘You’re next.’

  THIRTY

  ‘Lil, what is it?’ Ada asked.

  Still holding the phone, and staring out at the pouring rain through the back sliders, I didn’t know what to say; my hand felt disconnected from my body. I tried to make it obey, but it clenched tight to the receiver. My head felt fuzzy. It was no prank call; he’d followed me home.

  Still frozen, Ada pried away the phone as Barbara came to my side.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said.

  ‘Mom, you’re shaking,’ Barbara said, sounding scared and young. ‘Are you having any pain?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who was that?’ Ada asked.

  Before I could answer, the doorbell rang.

  No one moved.

  Ada gripped my hands in her own. I looked down at her slender fingers, so delicate and yet so strong from years of working in her stores.

  ‘Someone should get the phone,’ I said.

  ‘The door,’ she corrected. ‘Who was that on the phone?’ Worry on her face.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, not wanting to tell her in front of my daughter. I needed to get Barbara out of there. Whatever evil had landed in Grenville was heading toward me; I wanted my children away from here.

  ‘Who was it, Mother?’ Barbara asked, smoothing back my still-wet hair and feeling my forehead, such a motherly gesture, one that I had done with her as a child. I imagined her doing it with her kids.

  Ada squinted, and nodded slightly. She knows. Please God, let her keep quiet about it in front of Barbara.

  The doorbell rang a second time and then a third.

  ‘I’ll get it.’ Barbara rose from the sofa. The touch of her fingers lingered. I wanted to stop her.

  ‘Ask who’s there.’ I blurted out.

  She looked back at me, a queer expression on her face.

  Ada whispered, ‘No name, no number?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said, matching her tone, not wanting my daughter to get involved.

  ‘He called me at the hospital. But he said something, and then hung up. He’s followed me here.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What does he say?’

  I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

  ‘Tell me,’ she persisted.

  ‘Chris!’ Barbara’s voice came clear from the foyer; my younger daughter had arrived, drenched, but smiling.

  ‘Lil.’ Ada squeezed my hands, trying to get my attention.

  I looked at her, at the concerned intensity of her dark-blue eyes. ‘You’re next,’ I whispered. ‘That’s all he says.’

  Before she could reply, Barbara returned with Chris. I sat and watched as my children approached. I felt like an actress, trying to portray ‘normal’, not wanting them to know how frightened I felt. Just focus on them.

  ‘Mother,’ Chris said, giving me a soggy hug and kiss before settling on the sofa by my wing chair, ‘what have you done?’

  ‘Well, I thought,’ I said, struggling to keep my fear in check, ‘I’d try something new.’

  She chuckled and whispered, ‘Don’t do that again.’ She took my hand in hers.

  ‘I won’t. I promise.’

  ‘You’re awfully warm,’ she commented.

  I shot a glance at Ada, who was clearly frightened by what I’d told her.

  ‘Would you like me to open a window?’ Chris suggested.

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ I felt like a parrot, which could only repeat the same phrase. I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine; the words had lost their meaning. I wasn’t fine. I wanted them out of there and at the same time it felt so good to see them, to breathe their healthy scents, to witness their strength, their vitality.

  ‘OK,’ Barbara said, from behind the couch. ‘You have to tell us what’s going on. Because clearly you are not fine.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ I shot back.

  ‘Don’t start,’ Chris pleaded. ‘I’m not in the door thirty seconds and you two are going to start one of your pissing contests.’

  ‘Our what?’ I asked.

  ‘You heard me. You two have been doing it since I can remember. Yes I will. No I won’t. Yes I will. No you won’t. You can’t make me. Yes I can. No you can’t.’

  ‘So this is how professors talk?’ I asked.

  ‘On a good day,’ she quipped. ‘Can we start again? I feel like I just stepped into the middle of something.’

  ‘You know,’ Ada said, coming to my rescue, ‘the kettle’s still hot, anyone want tea?’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Barbara said. ‘You know, Mother, I don’t know why you feel like you ha
ve to keep things from Chris and me. We’re not children anymore.’

  ‘I realize,’ I said. ‘I just wish you wouldn’t try to boss me around. It’s the last thing I need.’

  ‘Barbara,’ Chris chided, ‘I can’t believe that you would try to boss Mom around.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she protested.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ my youngest commented. She turned to Ada. ‘When we were young and would play make-believe, Barbara would get all the neighborhood kids together and tell us what we had to say. It was the most heavily scripted make-believe there ever was. She was a total fascist on the playground.’

  ‘I was not.’

  I smiled at the memories, of looking out my kitchen window and seeing a gaggle of children hard at play. Chris was right. Barbara used to direct the others in a variety of convoluted games of make-believe, everything from pirates to Batman to elaborate marriage ceremonies. I could still hear her eight-year-old voice, ordering her playmates, ‘OK, you say, “with this ring I thee wed”, and then we walk down the aisle. But you stop us and say, “You can’t marry her, because I’m the one who loves her”, and then you push him out of the way . . .’ It didn’t seem to bother the other kids, her total domination. They’d play for hours only to be stopped by the dinner bells, which often sounded in unison at six o’clock. If I concentrated, I could still hear the voices of the neighborhood mothers calling their children to dinner.

  ‘Enough said,’ Christina commented. She turned back toward me. ‘So what is going on?’

  I shot Ada a warning glance. ‘It’s nothing,’ I said. But knowing I had to give them something, added, ‘I’ve been getting some hang-up calls. It’s just an annoyance, some kid playing a prank.’ Although I no longer believed that, but if I wanted to get my daughters safely out of town, I would not be sharing the truth.

  ‘Don’t you have caller ID?’ Barbara asked.

  ‘I do, but all it says is “no name, no number”.’

  ‘You can have that blocked,’ Barbara said. ‘I have all my phones fixed so only calls that can be identified come through. You wouldn’t believe how many people try to fake it past my secretary, wanting to know if something has been cast. “Is there maybe a part for them?” “Have I considered so-and-so?” I screen everything. And if they’re trying to block their information, I’m just not interested in hearing from them.’