Amelia started drinking in high school, too. Despite all her problems, she was a near-A student, and extremely sweet. She had a good heart. If someone sneezed in the next aisle at the supermarket, Amelia would call out, “God bless you.” George guessed that her eagerness to please, along with peer pressure, must have started her drinking. She’d been to several therapists, but none of them really worked out until she recently started seeing this one, Karen Somebody. Amelia liked her a lot, but George wasn’t sure if this Karen person was doing any good.
The one who seemed to get through to Amelia best was Ina. Since Amelia had started school at UW, they’d seen a lot more of her. Ina relished the admiration of this college girl. They had their Girls’ Nights Out together at trendy restaurants and college bars. They also teamed up for shopping expeditions and the occasional pedicure/manicure at Ina’s favorite day spa. She got to be Amelia’s fun aunt and confidante.
George wondered if Ina was better at being a fun aunt than a serious wife and mother. It was a terrible thought to have. And just an hour ago, he’d made a deal with God that he would try once again to make it work with Ina.
George continued to listen to the dead air on the phone, and he stared out the window. One of the neighbor kids-Jody’s friend, Brad Reece-joined the children on the front lawn. And now the boys were tossing around a Frisbee and ignoring Stephanie.
“Uncle George, are you still there?”
“Yes,” he said into the phone. “I thought I might have lost you.”
“The old lady’s name is Helene,” she said. “Helene Sumner in Lake Wenatchee. I’ll call directory assistance and get the number-”
“No, let me.” He grabbed a pen and scribbled down the name. “I don’t want you making all these calls while you’re driving. By the way, where are you? Where’s this tunnel?”
She hesitated.
“Amelia?”
“I just got off the I-90 bridge. I was-I was visiting a friend in Bellevue.”
“Well, listen, if you have nothing else going on, you’re welcome to come over-”
“Um, I can’t right now, Uncle George. I’m going to see my therapist. Maybe later tonight, huh?”
“Okay. I’ll call this Helene Sumner and see if she’ll check on the house for us. I’ll phone you the minute I hear anything.”
“My cell’s running out of juice. Let me give you Karen’s number in case you can’t reach me. Karen Carlisle, she’s my therapist. Got a pencil?”
“I’m ready.” George scribbled down the Seattle phone number as she read it off to him. “I’ll call you. And stop worrying. I’m sure everything’s fine.”
Speeding along I-90 in her boyfriend’s car, Amelia clicked off the cell phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat. She clutched the steering wheel with both hands, and started to cry.
Uncle George had said everything would be fine. But he didn’t know what she knew. Amelia hadn’t told him the whole story. She’d failed to mention that, in all likelihood, she’d killed her parents and Ina.
Amelia had also lied about where she had been. After waking up at the deserted Wiener World parking lot, she’d driven around for ten minutes until she’d found the freeway entrance. Then she finally saw a sign telling her where she was: Easton, Washington-a little city ninety miles east of Seattle. It was also about halfway to Wenatchee-and from Wenatchee. Had she been there last night? Had Easton been a stopover so she could sleep a few hours on her way back from murdering her parents and aunt?
Shane had left three messages on her cell, wanting to know where she’d taken his car. Amelia was driving past Snoqualmie when she called him back. She lied and said she’d had a sudden urge to see the Snoqualmie Falls last night. Yes, she’d gotten a little drunk, and decided to sleep it off in the car in the Snoqualmie Lodge parking lot. Yes, she was all right. She just felt awful for taking his car and for the way she’d acted at the party last night.
She couldn’t tell Shane the truth. The only person she could really talk to was her therapist, Karen.
Funny, the two people in whom she confided the most were both women in their thirties. They weren’t alike at all. Karen, with her wavy, shoulder-length chestnut hair and brown eyes, had the kind of natural beauty other women admired, but only the most discerning men noticed. She was very down to earth, but still had a certain class to her. She could look elegant in just a pair of jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. Meanwhile, Amelia’s Aunt Ina was very flashy and fun, sometimes even over the top. All eyes went to her whenever she walked into a room. She was Prada to Karen’s Banana Republic.
Amelia remembered how lucky she’d felt when her cool Aunt Ina had decided to spend more time with her. They went to art galleries, the theater, and all these terrific, hip restaurants. But then Amelia had started seeing Karen, who was so compassionate and kind. After a while, she stopped confiding in Ina, who wasn’t a very good listener, anyway. Amelia realized her favorite aunt could be pretty selfish. Sometimes she felt like Ina’s pet-just this silly, admiring college girl who tagged along in her frivolous aunt’s shadow.
Selfish, manipulative bitch, Amelia remembered thinking last night as she’d aimed the hunting rifle at her Aunt Ina. Amelia’s not your fucking pet.
It was as if someone else were speaking for her-and killing for her. Yet Amelia remembered pulling the trigger. She remembered the jolt from the gun-and the loud blast.
God, please, please, don’t let me have done that. Make it not be true. Let them be all right.
She pressed harder on the accelerator.
Watching the road ahead, Amelia wiped her eyes, and then reached for the cell phone on the passenger seat.
She had Karen on speed dial.
“Frank, you need to put down the knife,” Karen said in a firm, unruffled tone.
Everyone else around her was going berserk, but she tried to remain calm and keep eye contact with the 73-year-old Alzheimer’s patient. The unshaven man had greasy, long gray hair and a ruddy complexion. His T-shirt was inside out, with food stains down the front. The pale green pajama bottoms were filthy, too. In his shaky hand he held a butcher’s knife. He looked more terrified than anyone else in the nursing home cafeteria. Just moments ago, he’d accidentally knocked over a stack of dirty trays from the bus table. He’d bumped into the table, backing away from an overly aggressive kitchen worker.
“Drop the goddamn knife,” growled the short, thirty-something man. He wore a T-shirt and chinos under his apron. Tattoos covered his skinny arms. He kept inching toward the desperately confused patient. “C’mon, drop it! I don’t have all day here!” He kicked a chair and it toppled across the floor, just missing the old man. “You hear me, Pops? Drop it!”
“Get away from him!” Karen barked. “For God’s sake, can’t you see he’s scared?”
Two orderlies hovered behind her, along with a few elderly residents wanting to see what all the fuss was about. The rest home’s manager, a handsome, white-haired woman in her sixties named Roseann, had managed to herd everyone else out of the cafeteria. She stood at Karen’s side. “Did you hear her, Earl?” Roseann yelled at the kitchen worker. “Let Karen handle this. She knows what she’s doing!”
But Earl wasn’t listening. He closed in on the man, looking ready to pounce. “You shouldn’t steal knives out of my kitchen, Pops….”
“No-no…get!” the Alzheimer’s patient cried, waving the knife at him.
Wincing, Karen watched the frightened old man shrink back toward the pile of trays. He was barefoot, and there were shards of broken glass on the floor.
Roseann gasped. “Earl, don’t-”
He lunged at the man, who reeled back. But the knife grazed Earl’s tattooed arm. A few of the residents behind Karen gasped.
The little man let out a howl, and recoiled. “Son of a bitch!”
One of the orderlies rushed to his aid. Grumbling obscenities, Earl held on to his arm, as the blood oozed between his fingers.
“No…get!” the o
ld man repeated.
“It’s okay!” the orderly called, checking Earl’s wound, and pulling him toward the cafeteria exit. “Doesn’t look too deep….”
“Fuck you ‘it’s okay’,” he shot back. “I’m bleeding here.”
Shushing him, the orderly quickly led Earl out the door.
Karen was still looking into the old man’s eyes. “That was an accident, Frank,” she said steadily. “We all saw it. No one’s mad at you. But you should put down the knife, okay?”
Wide-eyed, he kept shaking his head at her. He took another step back toward the glass on the floor.
“Frank, how do you think the Cubs are going to do this season?” Karen suddenly asked.
She remembered how during her last visit with him, he’d chatted nonstop about the Chicago Cubs. But he’d talked as if it were 1968, back when he’d been a hotshot, 33-year-old attorney in Arlington Heights, Illinois with a beautiful wife, Elaine, and two children, Frank Junior and Sheila. The old man in the stained T-shirt and pajama bottoms used to dress in Brooks Brothers suits. The family moved to Seattle in 1971, where they added a third child to the brood, a baby girl. Frank started his own law firm, and did quite well in Mariner town. But he’d always remained a Cubs fan.
Though she knew it was typical of Alzheimer’s patients, Karen still thought it was kind of funny that Frank often couldn’t remember the name of his dead wife or the names of his three children and seven grandchildren. But he still recalled the Cubs’ star lineup from 1968.
“How do you think Ernie Banks is going to do, Frank?” she asked.
He stopped, and his milky blue eyes narrowed at her for a moment. “Um…you need-you need to keep your eye on Ron Santo. This is-this is going to be his year.” He lowered the knife. He suddenly seemed to forget he was holding it.
“I thought you were an Ernie Banks fan, Frank,” she said. “You know, there’s some glass on the floor behind you. Be careful.”
He turned and glanced down at the floor. “Yeah, you got to love Ernie. Who doesn’t?”
Karen felt her cell phone vibrate in the back pocket of her jeans, but she ignored it. She took a few steps toward him. “You know, you ought to put down that knife. Should we get some ice cream?”
He frowned at the knife in his hand, and then set it on one of the cafeteria tables.
“Does ice cream sound good to you, Frank?” Roseann piped in. “I think Karen has a good idea there. You recognize Karen, don’t you?”
The second orderly carefully reached for the knife and took it away. A few of the residents behind Karen sighed, and one elderly man clapped.
Karen put her arm around Frank. Between his breath and his body odor, he smelled awful. But she smiled at him. “You recognize me, don’t you, Poppy?”
A smile flickered across his face, and for a second he was her dad again. “Of course,” he whispered. “You’re my little girl.”
She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “That’s right, Poppy. Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?” She led her father toward the cafeteria doors.
Later, while the orderly got Mr. Carlisle changed and back in bed, Karen ducked into the employee lounge to check her phone messages. She’d been volunteering once a week at the Sandpoint View Convalescent Home for half a year now, and knew all the staff. It was one way to ensure her dad got special treatment, one way to keep from feeling so horrible for giving up on him and putting him in there.
In addition to her volunteer day, Karen saw her father at Sandpoint View about twice a week. She’d been driving over to visit him this afternoon when the call had come from Roseann, saying her dad was having an “episode.” Frank had slipped out of his room and under their radar a few times in the past; he’d even wandered off the grounds once. But this was the first incident in which he’d posed a threat to anyone.
Karen knew Roseann would have to take some measures after what had just happened in the cafeteria. They’d probably start him on a new medication, which would make him even more dopey and unreachable. Or maybe they’d move him into Ward E with the severe cases.
Karen didn’t want to think about that right now.
She nodded hello to a nurse, sitting at the table with her iPod and a sandwich. The small lounge had one window with the blinds lowered, and yellow-painted cinderblock walls that someone had decorated with these sappy, inspirational posters entitled Achievement, Friendship, and Tranquility. The photos of people watching the sunset, goldfish in a bowl, and kites flying against a blue sky were fuzzy and the poetic sentiments were written in script. Someone had scribbled BLOW ME in the top corner of the sunset Tranquility poster. There was also a slightly tattered brown sofa, a mini-refrigerator, and a vending machine, along with a coffeemaker on the counter, not far from the sink.
Karen poured herself a cup of their rotgut coffee. She leaned against the counter and checked her cell phone. Amelia Faraday had called.
She had thirty-one clients, and Amelia was the one she cared about the most. At first, Amelia had reminded Karen of someone else, someone she’d lost. Karen figured that maybe by helping Amelia solve her problems, she could help herself. It wouldn’t raise the dead, but maybe she could make some of her own pain go away.
She pushed a couple of buttons on the cell and played the voice mail. Amelia’s slightly shrill, panic-filled voice was like an assault: “Karen? Karen, I left you a couple of messages at home…” She let out a little gasp, then started to cry. “God, Karen, I’m in trouble. Something terrible has happened. I really need to talk with you. Please…please, call me back…”
She was about to hit the last call return button when Earl swaggered into the lounge. A gauze bandage was wrapped around his wounded arm.
“You!” the creepy little man growled. He stabbed a finger in the air at her. “You’re just lucky I don’t need stitches….”
Karen put down the phone. “Earl, I’m sorry about your arm-”
“‘Sorry’ doesn’t begin to cover it,” he said, cutting her off.
The nurse took off her iPod headset, sat forward in her chair, and watched them.
“I’m gonna make sure your old man gets some bed restraints. They ought to keep him tied up twenty-four seven.” Earl inched closer to Karen until he was almost screaming in her face. “Better yet, they should stick that crazy old fuck in Ward E with the rest of the lunatics before he kills someone. I don’t need this shit. That crazy old fuck, I’m gonna see to it they lock him up-”
“No,” Karen said resolutely. “No, Earl. You’re going to see to it the kitchen knives are locked up. Over a third of the residents here have Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia, and you’re leaving knives out where anyone can get at them. My father isn’t responsible for his actions, but you are. What’s more, you wouldn’t have that cut on your arm if you’d let me handle him.”
His mouth open, he glared at her and shook his head.
“And one last thing, Earl, if you call my father a ‘crazy old fuck’ again, I swear, I’ll punch your lights out-or I’ll pay one of the attendants here to do it for me.”
The nurse watching them let out an abrupt laugh.
Earl kept shaking his head. “Listen, don’t you threaten me-”
“Earl?”
He swiveled around.
Her arms folded, Roseann stood in the doorway of the employee lounge. “Karen’s right about locking up the kitchen utensils. I’ve talked to you about that before. It better not happen again. Now, don’t you have some potatoes to peel or something?”
With a defiant grunt, he turned to glare one more time at Karen, then stomped out of the room.
Roseann raised an eyebrow at the nurse. “Show’s over, Michelle. So was your break, as of ten minutes ago.”
Nodding, the nurse took one last bite of her sandwich, gathered up her things, and ducked out of the lounge.
“Thanks for running interference,” Karen said, giving Roseann a weary smile. “How’s my dad?”
“Sedated.” Roseann plo
pped down at the table. “We’ll give him a rain check on the ice cream. Listen, you and I need to talk about making some adjustments to Frank’s routine.”
Karen nodded. “I’ve seen that coming for a while now.” She looked down into her coffee cup. Yes, she’d seen it coming, but hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the inevitable. It meant giving up on him a little more.
“Do yourself a favor,” she heard Roseann say. “Talk to a counselor or join a family of Alzheimer’s support group. In all this time, you haven’t gotten any help at all. And it’s not just about what’s going on with your dad. This last year has been pretty awful for you from what you told me about your breakup and what happened with that poor girl. What was her name again?”
“Haley Lombard,” Karen said quietly.
“Such a shame,” Roseann sighed. “Anyway, you’d be the first one to recommend counseling to somebody in your shoes.”
“I know, I know, ‘Physician, heal thyself,’” Karen replied.
Roseann was right, of course. But Karen made her living listening to people’s problems all day long. And it seemed like the rest of her time lately was dedicated to her father. She didn’t want to spend what little time remained in therapy or talking about Alzheimer’s. A DVD of a familiar classic was her therapy; it was like having an old friend over. An evening at home with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, or Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, wasn’t a cure for her troubles, but it was a Band-Aid that fit just fine.
“Who knows?” Roseann said. “If you joined one of those Alzheimer’s groups, you might meet a nice, single man.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” Karen took one last gulp of the bad coffee, then poured the rest down the sink and rinsed out the cup. “Like I’d want to hook up with some guy whose life is just as screwed up as mine is, thanks to Alzheimer’s. Talk about serious relationship baggage. No, thanks. Besides, I’d probably end up running the stupid meetings. You know I would.”
“Probably,” Roseann muttered, nodding. “But you’d do a damn good job of it. You’re not so terrific at helping yourself, Karen. But you really know how to help other people.”
One Last Scream Page 5