Lakeside Hospital Box Set

by Cara Malone

  A waiter came around a few minutes later, after everyone had the chance to talk over each other about a half-dozen different topics, and the three couples each selected a bottle of wine to split. Sarah ordered a Coke because she’d offered to drive Alex and Megan home, and Lily ordered a lemonade.

  When the waiter left, Darcy said, “I’m sorry, Lily. I wish we hadn’t planned this so far in advance – I don’t want you to feel left out, but you know how hard it is to find a time that works for all of our schedules.”

  “I’m perfectly happy with my lemonade,” Lily assured her. “It’s a fancy vineyard so I’m sure it’s going to be freshly-squeezed and incredible. Besides, someone needs to be sober to help Sarah if the rest of you get out of control.”

  “Yeah, that’ll happen,” Chloe said, nudging Ivy with a smirk.

  They all talked and enjoyed the night for a while, decimating the cheese trays long before the wine ran out. Then when Lily was at the bottom of her third lemonade – which turned out to be as delicious as she’d predicted – the string quartet suddenly grew louder. The girls all turned toward the sound and watched as the musicians made their way onto the patio.

  They came to a stop beside Krys and Darcy, playing a beautiful serenade as Lily looked between them and her friends. Darcy’s hand was clenched nervously around the arm of her chair and Krys’s eyes were growing wider by the moment.

  She looked like she was about to have a heart attack, or pass out, but Alex was sitting on her other side, looking ready to catch her if she fell. Beside Lily, Chloe quietly took out her phone and started recording the moment.

  When the song ended, the cellist pulled a rose out of his breast pocket and handed it to Darcy, and then the musicians stood back, providing a quiet accompaniment. Darcy stood and took Krys’s hands, pulling her to her feet. Krys looked like she wasn’t breathing at all anymore as Darcy handed her the flower and said, “I told you I’d give you flowers every single day that I was with you. I bet you thought I forgot today.”

  Krys shook her head, no words coming to her.

  Then Darcy produced a ring box from the pocket of her blazer. Krys’s hands went to her mouth, the rose going along for the ride, and Darcy said, “Krys Stevens, I knew I wanted to build a life around you since the moment we met. And when you were willing to give it a shot even though we met right after I trached a guy with a ballpoint pen, I knew it was meant to be.”

  Krys laughed, a watery sound as tears welled in her throat. Truth be told, they were building in Lily’s throat, too, and when she looked around the fire pit at her friends, she saw Ivy with her arms wrapped tightly around Chloe’s waist and Megan with her head resting against Alex’s.

  That’s when she felt the first twinge of real loneliness since she’d sat down with all these couples. She glanced over at Sarah, who was on the edge of her seat and chewing on her lower lip like she couldn’t take the suspense.

  “Get to it already,” Krys demanded, which elicited another round of laughter from the group. Darcy nodded and opened the ring box. Lily couldn’t see it from where she was sitting, but Darcy had sent her a picture of it on the day she picked it out – it was a round solitaire in a setting with tiny diamonds arranged around it in the shape of flower petals, the perfect ring to symbolize her love for Krys.

  Tears were flowing freely down Krys’s cheeks now and a few escaped Lily’s eyes as well as Darcy asked, “Krys Stevens, will you marry me?”

  “Yes,” Krys said, throwing her arms around Darcy so hard she nearly knocked her to the ground. The string quartet struck up a new, joyful song behind them and everyone clapped while Darcy regained her balance and placed the ring on Krys’s finger before giving her a long, passionate kiss.

  Eventually, the quartet moved away, visiting other areas of the patio, and Krys showed the ring around to their group at Chloe’s impatient demands. As everyone admired it, Darcy explained to Krys, “I’ll get you something simple for your wedding band so you can wear it to work. This one’s just for show because I wanted you to have something beautiful.”

  “It’s perfect,” Krys said. Then she turned to the rest of the girls, hands on her hips, and asked, “Did you all know about this?”

  They all shook their heads innocently and Krys narrowed her eyes at Chloe, who was still filming the whole thing. As she finally turned off the camera, she said, “Darcy wanted the moment to be perfect - you’ll be happy to have the video later.”

  “Thank you,” Krys said, practically wrapping her whole body around Darcy in a fierce hug. “I’m so happy right now.”

  I want that.

  The voice reared up inside Lily before she had a chance to tamp it back down. It took her by surprise and she reached for her lemonade, eager to swallow the thought. Then she placed her hand on her belly again, soothing herself with the knowledge that she already had all that she needed.

  7

  Mercedes

  It took far longer than Mercedes expected to finally build up the courage to visit her mother’s house – and to get her mother to agree to it.

  They’d gone out to dinner a few times since Mercedes got back to town, catching up and focusing on superfluous things like work and how big Jewel’s kids were getting – Mercedes had given in and seen them a few times, as well, and it was getting easier to be back in Evanston.

  Going home, though – even as she pulled into the driveway of her childhood home on Sunday morning, Mercedes wasn’t sure she was ready.

  She was wearing the plainest clothes she’d brought to Illinois – a bulky hoodie and an old pair of jeans that were so worn that she didn’t consider them appropriate for public use anymore, plus a pair of sneakers that had outlived their purpose a few months ago but were still good for wading through her mother’s hoarder house.

  Jewel tried to prepare her for what she would find, and so had the therapist that she’d seen with her mother last week. Mercedes had walked out of that session feeling frustrated and hopeless before the clean-out had even begun – weren’t therapists supposed to empower you instead of spending fifty minutes talking about how entrenched the hoarder mindset became and how difficult it was to dig out, literally and emotionally?

  But she was here, and the job had to be done.

  It was eleven a.m. and Mercedes was full of caffeine and resentment, ready to try her best. She walked up the porch steps for the first time in about twenty years and rang the bell, then while she waited for her mother to come to the door, she tried not to imagine what was taking her so long. Was she literally climbing her way through the house?

  Twenty years had taken their toll on her mother. The woman Mercedes remembered had been imposing, with a big personality and a temper that could turn on you – especially if you broke the cardinal rule and told someone the family secret. Mercedes caught hell that time she’d brought Samantha and Crystal into the house – Jewel couldn’t wait to tell their mother as soon as she came home from work the next morning.

  But the woman who pulled Mercedes into a hug the first time they met last month was thin and the flesh around her neck hung more loosely than it used to. She was getting older – nearing seventy – and it was hard to see all those years piled on at once.

  She still had that personality though, and that temper. When Mercedes told her the reason she was back in Evanston, and that she intended to help her clean up her house, her mother’s mouth closed into a thin line and she said, “You’re not getting rid of my stuff.”

  “Mom, your house is a disaster area,” Mercedes had said, automatically lowering her voice to a whisper – the secrecy was still ingrained in her, even after all those years. “It’s not safe.”

  “Yes, it is,” she’d insisted. “I get along just fine.”

  “This is non-negotiable,” Mercedes said. “I came all the way out here from Seattle and I had to leave my research to take care of you.”

  “I don’t need to be taken care of!” her mother had snapped. “I’ve been living in that hous
e for almost fifty years.”

  Mercedes wanted to stand up right then and there and throw her hands in the air. How could anyone spend fifty years building a cocoon of junk around themselves? A thousand questions ran through her mind, and most of them were safety-related. What would happen if she tripped and broke a bone? What if the house had structural damage? Mercedes didn’t really want to think about those things, but she was here now. She was in it.

  “Jewel told me it’s been getting worse,” she said, forcing calmness into her voice. She’d gone to the hospital library and picked up some literature on hoarding after her conversation with Jewel and spent the last month pouring over everything she could get her hands on. The more she read, the more grim she felt about the whole mission of cleaning up, but getting hysterical wasn’t going to help anyone.

  She just had to make the house safe, and get her mother into a routine with the therapist. After that, she could go back to her real life – eyes on the prize.

  In the end, Mercedes had managed to broker a deal with her mother – with the therapist’s help – to get into the house. “I just want to make sure your living environment is safe. I don’t care how much stuff you have as long as it’s not a hazard - I won’t throw out more than I need to if you’ll let me do what I have to do.”

  “That sounds like she’s meeting you half-way,” the therapist – Dr. Silva – said reassuringly.

  It was a lot more generous than Mercedes was actually feeling – she wanted to evict her mother for a week, back a dumpster up to the house and start flinging stuff out the windows. This was the best compromise she had in her.

  “Okay,” her mother had said after thinking it over for a long minute. Then she smiled, her expression changing from hostility to curiosity like a switch had been flipped in her head, and asked Mercedes about her research as if all their problems had been solved.

  Dr. Silva had advised them to go slowly. He seemed to think the project would take longer than the four months that Mercedes had left and that wasn’t an idea she was willing to entertain, but she did promise to take the rest of his advice. That was why today was all about assessing the damage. She’d already promised not to touch anything inside the house.

  When her mother finally got to the door, opening it turned out to be more of a process than Mercedes expected. First, she heard her mother moving around inside the house, then the door opened an inch or so and stuck.

  “Hold your horses,” her mother said through the crack, giving another yank on the door.

  Mercedes felt panic rising in her throat. Was it really that bad? “Do you have stuff piled in front of the door, Mom? That’s a fire hazard.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s just that the gutters got full and there was some water damage. The door swelled and when it’s hot out, it’s hard to open.”

  Relief washed over Mercedes. That was another problem that she’d need to address before she went back to Seattle, but at least it was a normal home repair. “Do you want me to push?”

  “No,” her mother said. “You’ll knock me over. I’m almost there.”

  She gave another good yank and the door popped open, squeaking against the doorframe. Mercedes’ mother pushed the screen door open for her and when Mercedes looked inside the house for the first time in two decades, all the air rushed out of her lungs. For a moment, even though she was standing in the fresh air and she could feel a cool breeze on her cheeks, there wasn’t enough oxygen in the world. She looked past her mother and saw that the living room had disappeared, swallowed under twenty years of stuff.

  The pathways that Mercedes remembered, plenty wide enough to get from room to room, had shrunk to thin spaces no wider than five inches in some areas, and there were heaps and heaps of stuff stacked everywhere. The couch had disappeared a long time ago, from the looks of it, and the TV was buried as well.

  “Don’t judge,” her mother said as she stepped back and made room for Mercedes.

  Mercedes gave her a withering look as she came inside. She knew she’d get farther with her mother if she put on a fake smile and pretended that what she saw didn’t absolutely horrify her, but that intrusive thought had come back, vivid as ever. My mother is mentally ill.

  Jewel tried to warn her about how the house had changed. Even if Mercedes had listened, no words could have prepared her for this. She wasn’t sure whether to cry or laugh or be sick.

  “Where do you sit?” she asked, gesturing to where the couch used to be. It was probably best to stick to mundane topics right now – anything else would be too much.

  “Oh, I don’t use this room much anymore,” her mother said. Her tone was so casual, as if what she was looking at didn’t match what Mercedes saw at all. She just shrugged and said, “I mostly hang out in my bedroom.”

  Mercedes tried to take another deep breath, but the air wasn’t good inside the house. There were so many years’ worth of dust, and stuff was stacked against every wall, blocking the air vents. It’s okay. You can breathe – not well, but you can breathe, she told herself to keep from panicking. In the back of her mind, she noted the vents as another problem.

  “I’m not one of those filthy people that can’t clean up after themselves – you know that,” her mother said. “I just have a lot of stuff.”

  Mercedes nodded. It was the understatement of the century, but in some small way she was right – the house could have been a lot worse. She could have been one of those hoarders who kept rotting food around. “Let’s take a look at the kitchen.”

  “Okay,” her mother agreed. “Come on.”

  She led Mercedes through the living room, both of them having to turn sideways and squeeze past a mountain of storage tubs at one point. It was like exploring a landscape that Mercedes was once familiar with, only to find that everything was not quite the same as she left it. The house she’d known as a kid was still here, buried under twenty more years of junk.

  They went to the kitchen, having to take a circuitous route around the dining table that Mercedes and Jewel used to eat their Pop Tarts at every morning before the school bus came. Now, the table was no longer visible and its perimeter had grown by several feet where her mother had stacked boxes upon boxes filled with every type of kitchen gadget and small appliance imaginable.

  Mercedes noted that the refrigerator was inaccessible and didn’t sound like it was plugged in, and she saw a single foot of clear counter space with paper plates and bags of plastic flatware stacked near it.

  “Is that where you eat?” she asked.

  “It’s where I prepare my meals,” her mother answered. “I eat in my room.”

  I don’t want to see it, she thought, spontaneously adopting it as her mantra to get them both through this ordeal with a minimal amount of trauma. I don’t need to know yet. Then she noticed the stove – if she hadn’t remembered where it was, she would have missed it because there looked to be a year’s worth of newspapers stacked on top of it.

  “Mom! That is so dangerous,” she said, reaching for the newspapers to move them… somewhere.

  “It’s fine,” her mother said, waving her hand dismissively. “I move the newspapers when I need to use it, but mostly I’ve been following a raw diet.”

  She puffed out her chest as she said it like she was proud of her adaptability.

  Mercedes picked up a couple of newspapers and her mother’s tone changed. She practically screeched, “You said you wouldn’t move anything today!”

  “I wasn’t going to,” Mercedes said, putting out one hand to hold her mother back while she looked around for a place to relocate the newspapers. “But this is a ridiculous fire hazard. Your whole damn house is a fire hazard and if you’ve got yourself barricaded in your bedroom like I’m imagining, you’d never get out in time. I’m moving these newspapers.”

  Mercedes stacked the papers on top of another, smaller pile of junk on top of the island and took another handful off the stove while her mother tried to stop her.

  “Sto
p,” her mother demanded. “I didn’t give you permission to come in here and ransack my house. I know where all my stuff is – if you move it, I won’t be able to find it!”

  Mercedes could hear the panic in her mother’s voice and she knew from all the literature she’d read and their appointments with Dr. Silva that this wasn’t the way to handle someone like her mother. She was making it worse, but it was either cry, vomit, or focus all of her energy on getting those damn newspapers off the fucking stove.

  “I can’t possibly make it any messier than it already is,” she snapped and continued moving papers.

  When her mother tried to bar Mercedes from picking up the next stack, she shoved her away. Her mother stumbled back a few steps, her heel caught on some piece of junk or another – probably a kitchen gadget that had never even made it out of its packaging – and she sat down hard on a nearby pile.

  Mercedes and her mother just looked at each other for a long minute, sizing each other up, and then Mercedes turned back to her task. Her mother crossed her arms in front of her chest like a pouting toddler, watching her work and making sure she didn’t move a single thing that wasn’t necessary.

  It took Mercedes almost half an hour to move the newspapers and then clear a two-foot space around the stove. Half of that time was just trying to find places to stack everything, but she got there eventually, and then she turned back to her mother.

  “There,” she said with finality. “Nothing got thrown away – just moved. The stove is safe now, and I’m not even going to look at anything else right now - I don’t have the energy. Do you need anything else from me today?”

  “No,” her mother said. Her arms were still crossed in front of her chest and she still sounded like a petulant child.

  Mercedes gritted her teeth and brushed past her. “I’ll call you in a couple days and we’ll come up with a game plan to deal with the rest.”