Izzy made a face. “You were in cahoots. A little party of two. Bill died anyway, didn’t he? And now Chick is dead, and you’re … ill.”
“How long will I be here?”
Izzy got off the bed. “You’re a danger to yourself and others, Audra.” She went to stand by the window. “You’ll be here as long as it takes to fix the mess we’re in.” The second-floor room faced the mostly deserted parking lot. There was Izzy’s car, and Tula’s car, and a couple of others close to the park at the far end, where there was a ball diamond. There was no sign of the car she was expecting. Not yet. She tugged the curtains shut.
“Do you remember that time we took the kids to Cranberry Lake for the day? They were … what, about six and seven?” She glanced over at Audra, who was staring elsewhere. “Do you remember we went to the playground and that big fat woman with the four fat little children had commandeered all the swings? We waited awhile, waited for those horrible little children to get off at least one of them so our babies could have a turn.”
It had been so easy when the kids were little, Izzy thought, and had a painful flash of her and Audra at the picnic tables that day, laughing and drinking coffee from a Thermos. True friends.
“And finally I went over to the woman and spoke to her. And then those kids got off the swings and went and ate the sand out of the sandbox or whatever and we put our little ones on the swings. Do you remember what you said? You said, Oh, Izzy, you’re so bossy.”
The room was considerably darker with the curtains closed. It was oddly cosy, or at least that was how Izzy felt, remembering old times.
“You said I was bossy and I said, ‘People just listen to me.’ ”
She turned on the bedside lamp.
“Chick didn’t listen. And like I said, Bill is still dead. Now she’s dead and you’re here. And everyone is in very big trouble.”
That hung between them for awhile like the patch of light from the lamp.
“But I have good news too,” Izzy finally said.
“Izzy, water?” Audra rasped.
There was a pitcher of cold water and a glass beside Audra’s bed. Condensation had formed on the outside of the pitcher. She took the plastic off the glass and poured water into it. Ice clinked as it hit the sides. Izzy put the pitcher down.
“I don’t know if you’re allowed,” she said. “You’re not well, you know.” She picked up the glass and took a couple of dainty sips. “That’s very cold. I think it’s too cold.”
She put the glass back on the table. Audra’s eyes followed it.
“We’ll let it warm up a little bit.”
Audra rolled her eyes and shut them. “I know you’re angry. But you need me,” she whispered.
“I need numbers, and you’re still alive, even if you’re … indisposed.” Izzy flipped on the lamp on the other side of the bed. “You haven’t asked me what the good news is.”
She leaned in close to Audra and sniffed with interest. “You’re not smelling very fresh, sweetie.”
“I don’t care,” Audra said.
“Oh, you will,” Izzy insisted. She looked around the room for anything she could use to spruce up the woman in the bed. She opened the cupboard. Audra’s street things were hanging neatly there, her white boucle suit, a silk full slip, her handbag. On the floor was a pair of pumps, also white. The outfit she’d worn to Bill’s funeral, the day she collapsed. Izzy had ridden in the ambulance with her friend and hung the clothes up herself.
She took the handbag down from the upper shelf and pawed through it until she found a comb, a compact, a mirror and lipstick. “Here we go,” she said. She sat again on the bed beside Audra.
“You have to sit up—” and she tugged her friend into position as Audra tried to suppress a gasp. Izzy ran the comb through her hair, tugging lightly at snarls until they came loose.
She leaned over to whisper close to Audra’s ear. “Someone very special is coming to Haven Woods today.”
“I don’t want to see anyone like this.”
“You will. This one is coming home.”
Audra wasn’t listening. Every one of Izzy’s ministrations elicited another groan. “How long is this going to go on? What have you done to me?”
Izzy turned the comb under as she got to the ends of Audra’s hair. “Me? Only you are to blame for this.” She grunted, disgusted. “I have no idea how long. This, I think, is just the beginning. Glory wasn’t at the funeral. Would you like to hear why?”
Audra didn’t answer. She closed her eyes.
“Lovely, plump Glory. Not plump anymore, of course. Now she’s slim, but she’s still sticking everything she can into her mouth. What a useless girl … but never mind that. Glory called this morning, weeping, as if something had happened to one of her horrible children, but in fact her finger had fallen off.”
Izzy stopped yanking the comb through Audra’s hair and tossed it on the bed. She got up and crossed the floor to the window again and peeked out. Nothing moved outside.
When she turned back, Audra was watching her, even more anxiously.
“Her finger fell off. On her left hand, I think she said,” Izzy continued. “Now that was not my doing. Maybe I tinkered a bit with you out of anger, but this—” she waved her hand over Audra’s bed “—was not me either.
She got close to Audra. “He’s angry with us. And that is your fault. Chick’s too, of course, but lucky for her—and I mean that—she’s not here.”
Audra shook her head. “No. It could be anything. Some trick or error.” To Izzy’s ears her voice was unpleasantly strained. It sounded … guttural.
Izzy picked up the compact and popped it open. She rubbed the pad over the powder and began to pat it on Audra’s face. Audra flinched. “Stay still,” Izzy commanded, and the woman stilled, her eyes wide, looking into her tormentor’s. It was disconcerting, and Izzy couldn’t help but pause before she stroked more makeup onto Audra’s face.
“Anyway, I have a surprise for you, and since you’re not asking, I’ll just tell you.” She found the lipstick on the bed and rolled it up. The pink tip of it was vaguely obscene. “Smile,” she said to Audra. Audra didn’t. Izzy applied the lipstick to her pale lips anyway.
“Do you blot?” Izzy tugged a tissue from the box on the table and folded it, holding it to Audra’s mouth. Audra turned her head away. Izzy grinned meanly.
“Don’t you look pretty,” she said. She narrowed her eyes. Audra did not look pretty at all. Izzy pawed around on the bed for the mirror, finding it under a fold of sheet. She fondled it. Should she show Audra herself in the mirror?
“Who’s coming?” Audra finally asked.
Izzy smiled. “With your being ill, I thought it prudent to notify your next of kin. Paula’s coming home! Isn’t that wonderful?”
Audra groaned. “No, Izzy,” she said. She tried to wriggle to the edge of the bed, to get up, and it was painful to watch. Her movements were jerky and clearly hurt her.
Izzy put her hand on Audra’s shoulder. “Enough. It’s too late—she’s coming, and her daughter too.”
Audra froze, breathing hard from the effort. “No, you can’t. Send them home. She’s a mother, for crissakes—”
Izzy laughed softly. “A mother. Isn’t that how this all started? We’re all mothers.” She found her purse and fished inside for her own lipstick, found it and put some on. She pressed her lips together. “Autumn Born,” it was called. She didn’t think she liked it much.
“She’s not staying. I won’t let her.” Audra’s voice was a rasp, her face distorted by a mix of anger and fear.
Izzy shrugged. “Numbers, numbers, Audra. We need numbers. Think of Glory and her fat finger falling off and multiply it by what we have left. You included.”
“Leave her be.”
“Pull yourself together. They’ll be here any minute.” Izzy went back to her vigil at the window. “Besides, dear, I think Paula’s had some trouble in the city. I think she’s running home to mother. I think
that’s just lovely.”
She knew Audra couldn’t see her smile, but Izzy hoped she could hear it.
Audra had never been a stupid woman
(until recently)
and even as she thought that, a car pulled into the parking lot. It was an old red thing, rusted around the wheel wells.
“Oh my, look at that—a car,” Izzy said excitedly. She turned to Audra. “It’s them.” She turned back to watch a young woman and a girl of about twelve get out of the car. Its doors slammed shut, the sound muffled and distant from the second-floor window. “Oh my,” Izzy said. “From the state of their car it looks like they’ve fallen on hard times. This may be easier than I thought.” She clucked her tongue.
“I’ll tell them to leave.”
Izzy spun around and pointed at Audra. “You’ll do no such thing.” She flipped open her compact, which was still in her hand. “Do you want to see yourself? What you’ve done?” She raised the mirror in front of Audra. “Look,” she hissed. “See how beautiful you’ve become.”
Audra glanced reluctantly at the mirror, then gasped. Staring back at her was a pair of yellow eyes, the pupils elongated, black and soulless, like a serpent’s. She shrieked and covered her face with her hands.
Izzy snapped the compact shut with a scowl. “That’s what you get for betraying the sisterhood,” she hissed. “Judas. Judas.” Then she leaned in very close and said into Audra’s ear, “Judas goat.”
Audra squealed and clawed at her face with her hands, ran them down her arms, her sides, eyes frantically searching the room for another reflective surface. There was none.
“Izzy, my god—”
“You don’t want that to happen to your pretty daughter, do you? Or her pretty bastard? So shush now.” She opened the compact again and fixed her own hair, pinched her cheeks. “Those nasty weird eyes of yours only show in a mirror. Paula won’t notice a thing.”
Audra whimpered, “She doesn’t belong with us.”
“Honey, think of it as a fourth for bridge.”
Rowan had been dozing the past few miles or so and Paula wasn’t sure if she wanted to wake her. The turn signal click-clicked as she took the off-ramp from the highway and followed the curve through a deceptively thin treeline to the road into Haven Woods.
A silly kind of excitement had started to build in her. She’d been gone more or less since she was sixteen and didn’t think she’d ever been truly homesick, yet she had butterflies.
Rowan stirred, woken by the car’s slowing down. She raised her head and looked groggily out the window.
“Look,” Paula said and pointed to a billboard thirty feet high. It showed a happy family in front of a lovely house. WELCOME TO HAVEN WOODS!
Paula turned right, checking off old haunts in her head.
smoking behind the Casey’s Lumber sign
watching the boys play football in the big field behind the school she and Marla walking the perimeter of Haven Woods over and
over again the winter they were bored
hanging out the second-floor window of Mrs. Hagen’s class at lunch
She was smiling. Thinking of old faces—Patty, Lonnie Sanderson, Pete Kelly—people she hadn’t thought of in years. It didn’t stop there, of course …
David under the bleachers at the
David on the riverbank when
David sweating after ball practice, grinning
still want to kiss me?
His scent stirred in the air of Haven Woods, the river, the bakery, the lime on the ball field—Paula could almost smell him.
“Where’s Grandma’s house?” Rowan said, sitting up.
Paula pointed a few blocks ahead of them. “That’s our street there. Proctor.” She grinned. “Everybody lived on Proctor. It’s a bay that loops around the whole suburb. But we won’t go there yet. We’ll go to the hospital first.”
Once they had passed the big brick school, Paula found herself slowing to a near crawl, watching for the tall tower of the hospital where the big glowing H was mounted, like a crucifix. When she was a little girl, she’d thought the H was for Haven Woods, not Hospital.
She could just see it through some trees. The trees were taller.
The parking lot snuck up on the right and Paula had to turn suddenly to catch it. It was fine—there was no traffic. She parked and looked up at the building.
Lights were coming on inside hospital rooms, most of them dim, and she imagined the long fluorescent at the head of each bed, doors ajar, panic buttons pinned to pillows. She tried to imagine her mother in one of those beds.
What she remembered instead was the day she was leaving for good, her bags in the hallway by the front door. Her mother pacing.
Why do I have to go away?
The cryptic answer: I hope you never have to understand.
And the other memory, at St. Mary’s. The two of them setting up her room, putting out photos of the three of them, Dad, Mom and Paula. Happier days. Her mother chattering away. A very good school … best education … make something wonderful of your life.
Going to supper that last night. Order anything you want, darling.
Worse things too. Knowing the sisters knew she was pregnant, and maybe the other students too. Paula wouldn’t forget those first few lonely days at St. Mary’s, avoiding the stares, the tentative welcome. The nuns were kind. You’ll be taken care of here. You’ll be safe. It’s a very good school.
Worst of all? Her mother’s palpable relief when she left Paula in the dormitory to go home.
I love you very much, Paula. That’s why you’re here.
(but Mom)
“Is she going to be gross?” Rowan asked when they got to the doors.
Paula smiled. “I hope not.” She slid an arm around her daughter and they went inside.
A large woman at the front desk looked up when the doors opened. She stared, blinking behind a pair of glasses that magnified her eyes, then brightened and clapped her hands.
“Paula Wittmore,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you. You remember me, don’t you? I’m your mother’s friend Tula. Remember?” She lurched out from the behind the desk. “I’m going to take you right up. Your mother is on the second floor, poor thing.” She smiled when she said poor thing, and didn’t stop talking long enough for Paula to respond. “This is your little girl. I forget her name. She looks a little bit like you, but not much.” She waved them to the elevator and pressed the button. “You remember me?”
Paula answered, “Yes. Nice to see you again. How are you?”
“Well, you know, if it’s not one thing it’s another thing.” The elevator door opened. “Same old shit.” Rowan snorted as they followed Tula into the elevator. Once the doors had closed behind them, Tula went silent as the grave.
Paula held Rowan’s hand. At first she thought the girl was going to protest, but she didn’t.
The elevator doors opened and Tula ushered them out. “You go ahead. Room 210.” She pointed and waited until they were off. The elevator doors closed on her and they were alone.
There was no one in the waiting area and no one in the hall. There were no patients roaming the halls dragging IV poles, and no other visitors. Paula supposed that such a small hospital could be mostly empty sometimes.
A woman came out of a room ahead of them and quietly pulled the door closed behind her. She turned and made eye contact. Paula’s mouth opened in surprise, but she didn’t speak. Izzy. Tall and still as attractive as Paula remembered. She smiled happily and came towards them, hands outstretched.
“Paula. Paula, darling, it’s so wonderful to see you.” Izzy took Paula’s hands in hers. Paula felt a tiny zap, like static, a reaction from so many years of trying not to think about Izzy Riley, or Haven Woods, or especially Izzy’s long-dead son, David.
“Mrs. Riley, it’s nice to see you again …” Everything else had gone out of her head—what she was supposed to do, why she was there.
“Oh, you’re a grown woman, Paula. Cal
l me Izzy.” Izzy looked down at Rowan, standing close to Paula. She was a pretty girl, with her mother’s hair and face shape. Her eyes were her loveliest feature, large and round, with thick, long lashes, like a boy’s. She liked the look of her. “And who have we here?”
“This is my daughter, Rowan.”
does she look familiar?
“Aren’t you pretty, just like your mom was.”
“Thank you,” Rowan answered primly. There was a moment of silence as Paula internally winced at the was. Izzy had always been sharp-edged.
To Paula, Izzy said, “Your mother will be so glad to see you.”
“What happened? What’s wrong with her? I was so flustered I didn’t even ask when you called.” Paula felt foolish for not knowing. Izzy’s face turned sombre.
“Well, she collapsed the night Mrs. Henderson died. Very sad.”
“What does the doctor say?”
“Why don’t I find him and you can ask him yourself.” Like a maître d’ she gestured broadly in the direction from which she had just come. “Would you like to see her?”
She led them to the door, where she paused. “Maybe Rowan would like to sit out here with me for a minute or two, just to give you some time alone with your mom.” She smiled and again made a large gesture, towards the visitor’s lounge at the end of the hall. It seemed a long way away.
Paula looked to Rowan. “Is that okay?”
“I guess,” Rowan said, but didn’t move. Izzy put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and turned her gently.
“There we go, then,” she said, her voice unnaturally vital in the quiet corridor. She and Rowan walked down the hall.
Paula smiled reassuringly at her daughter’s back, then went in to see her mother, the door snicking softly open and then gently shut.
Hospitals were scary. Rowan had been in a hospital only once in her life (not counting when she was born, since she didn’t remember that). When she was seven, she had fallen down the last five steps at the apartment they were living in. She had been jumping and missed the stair, fell on her butt and hurt her foot. Her mother acted as if she’d cut her head off. She took her to the hospital and they X-rayed her and she got a lollipop for being brave. It was stupid to think of that now. A lollipop? Seriously lame.
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