by Martha Carr
Harriet was in the hospital. She had been found in a cemetery and the doctors said she had suffered a stroke. Wallis should hurry to Medical College of Virginia downtown, near where she had been found. Norman was already there and a neighbor had come over to stay with Ned who was sleeping in his room, unaware that anything was wrong.
Wallis stood up, shaking and dropped her phone onto the table, trying to decide what to do next.
“Wallis, what is it?” asked Julia. “You look awful.”
“It’s my mother, she’s had a stroke.”
“Oh dear, come on, game called on account of family emergency,” said Bridget. “Let’s get you to the hospital. Where’d they take her? Julia, can you drive her?”
“She’s at MCV,” said Wallis, turning slowly in a circle, trying to decide what to do next.
“All the way down there? How did that happen,” said Sandra.
“I’ll drive her. I haven’t had anything to drink. I can call y’all when I know anything.” It was Maureen, sounding steady and calm as she put her arm around Wallis waist and led her toward the door.
“You sure, honey? You don’t want us to come with?” asked Julia, looking around at the others. Wallis looked at them as well and saw how concerned they were for her.
“It’s okay. It’s a work night,” she said, suddenly feeling closed in by all of the faces turned toward her. “There’s probably not that much to do just yet and we can call you when we get there.”
“Maureen, you make sure and call us the second y’all know anything, you hear?” said Sandra.
Maureen was helping Wallis into the car when they both noticed the streetlights on Pump Road just a block away blink off. Wallis barely took note. The electricity was constantly going out all over the city for one reason or another. The system was all above ground and if it wasn’t the weather, it was a drunk driver running into one of the transformers that dotted the landscape.
“What are you doing?” she yelled through the door. She tried to open the door but Maureen kept pushing the door closed again, while scanning the horizon.
She turned and gave Wallis a look she had never seen on Maureen before that reminded her a little of Harriet.
“Stay here,” she said, in a stern, clipped tone. “Get down and do not get out of this car. Do not even lift your head. Do you understand?”
Wallis looked at Maureen and just nodded her head as she slid off of the front seat and curled up against the dashboard. Seconds passed and she couldn’t hear anything and somewhere out there her mother might be dying. She thought about her resolution to quit taking orders from everyone.
Besides, she wasn’t going to stay on the floor of her car forever. Not so close to home where Ned was still sleeping. If something was going that wrong, she had to get home and protect her son.
She pulled the handle slowly and crawled out of the car without lifting her head. It wasn’t going to help Ned if something happened to her before she even got away from the car and she wasn’t even sure what the danger out there was. There had been no signs of Watchers in the neighborhood since Harriet had tried to shoot one but that was only days ago and didn’t mean they weren’t watching.
Wallis knew a few of her neighbors might have been in Management and she would have no way of knowing who was being friendly and who had orders.
She looked around the front fender of the car and could see Maureen a yard away moving along the edge of the street, staying low with a gun in her hand.
“Is everyone I know armed?” she whispered.
Wallis didn’t have long to think about it because small flashes of light shone in the street and with each one she could see what looked like a small group of people dressed in dark uniforms, pointing weapons in their general direction, firing.
Maureen was returning fire but there was only one of her against what looked like five or six well-armed people. Wallis stripped off her light tan coat that made her more visible in the darkness and felt a little gratitude that she had decided to wear the dark turtleneck tonight.
She ran along the short tree line that separated the two yards to give herself more cover. She was just inside the trees when there was another spatter of what sounded like harmless pops but Wallis knew was automatic fire and she heard Maureen make a small moan. She could see the edge of her house but Wallis couldn’t leave her friend lying in the street.
“Oh, Norman,” she whispered, wondering if she would see him again as she ran in a crouch by the trees toward where she had last seen Maureen.
She got to Maureen who was lying by the curb and saw that she had been shot almost in the very center of her body and was bleeding badly. She pulled her into her lap as best she could and cradled her face, cooing to her.
“Maureen, it’s me. It’s Wallis, I’m here,” she said, not sure what more there was to say.
“Wallis,” Maureen mumbled, opening her eyes slowly. “No, you shouldn’t be out here. No.”
Wallis heard the click before she saw the gun and looked up in time to see a little red light appear on her chest. She peered into the darkness and saw a small group not too far in the distance all looking their way.
“One Mississippi, two Mississippi,” she whispered, waiting for the shot.
It came, but when it did the soldier in the front of the group fell and the rest of them raised their guns over Wallis’ head toward a house down the street. The front door of the house was wide open with a light on in the hallway but whoever was shooting was in the front yard and it was difficult to see them with the light coming from the house behind them.
The sharp high-pitched sound of a succession of whistles passed over Wallis’ head and she realized that more someone was shooting at the group from behind her. Wallis tried to turn around to see who it was, after all that was in the direction of the house she had just left and all of her friends.
Maureen let out a soft groan and Wallis realized her friend was dying. Suddenly, nothing else mattered in that moment to her except Maureen. Maureen was trying to say something but when she tried she made a gurgling noise and spit up more blood.
“You’re not alone, my friend. I’m here.”
“Fred,” said Maureen, in between gurgles. “Fred. Tell Fred I love him.”
“Sure, yes, I will, Maureen, I’ll be sure and tell him.” Wallis wasn’t even going to try and act like Maureen would survive to tell him, herself. She knew it wouldn’t happen.
“They’re not after Ned,” Maureen gurgled. “Not Ned.”
“What? What about Ned?”
“It’s you they want dead. It’s you. You’re in the way.”
“The way of what?” Wallis felt the tears running down her cheeks and tried to press her hands over the wound to slow down the blood loss. The soldiers were backing up, away from Wallis as gunfire continued around her, all firing over her head in the direction of the squad.
The whistling sound continued but was pulling off to her side. The squad returned fire and a bullet whizzed by Wallis, leaving her ears ringing but she didn’t move from where she was holding Maureen. She wasn’t going to let her die in the street by herself.
“In the way of what?” she asked, leaning down to hear Maureen over the noise that was now all around her with people running forward and shouting to each other. There seemed to be a flow of people who all poured out of nearby homes knowing what to do and they were all armed.
“They think you’re the real Keeper. The other one. That you’re the Keeper no one has talked about for generations. The one who guards the secrets. They think it’s you and you’re in the way. They want to take over and as long as you’re alive, it will always be more difficult. You’re the balance.”
“I know the real Keeper and he’s nowhere near here,” said Wallis, thinking of Tom and everything he had told her about being named to the top cell of the Circle that really only had one member known only to a very small group of people.
“No, I know who you mean and it’s not Tom,” she
said, coughing. “He’s the one that’s out front, giving orders and making sure things move forward. But there’s another one that guards the secrets and has been around far longer.”
“Maureen, it’s okay. You can rest. This isn’t important anymore.”
“No, you have to know. That Keeper was given only one mission for their entire life.”
“Why do they think it’s me? What secrets?”
“The secret of how this all really started. You are at the very center of it all. You were born to keep the balance.”
“I’m not, I’m from Management’s bloodlines. I know all about this. Maureen, this isn’t important. Not now. They think Ned is the new savior.”
“It is important, Wallis. Listen to me. Not a savior. The balance. Not Ned. You.” The words came out haltingly. “Your father was from the original line of the merchants who founded Management and his line are the historians, you know that part.”
Wallis heard shouting from the direction of Sandra’s house. Her friends were trying to get across the yard to where she was laying with Maureen but they were being held back and were shouting angrily at whoever it was.
“But your mother, haven’t you ever wondered about her childhood, her history? She probably says very little and turns the conversation away from herself, all the time. Have you ever noticed?”
Wallis felt her face crumple as she held onto Maureen and her chest shook from the sobs rising up her throat. “Your mother is one of the original twenty. Your mother,” coughed Maureen, spitting out a thick stream of blood and mucus, “is one of the best agents I have ever seen. She was determined to create peace. She picked out your father before he knew who she really was and got him into marriage and then along came you, her ultimate prize. Only problem was, she never expected to love you so much. It nearly spoiled everything for her.”
“No, no, no,” said Wallis, rocking Maureen in her lap.
“It’s true,” said Maureen, smiling, her teeth coated in blood. “All those years she let you think that her only desire in life was to dress well and try to get you to do the same thing. I suppose that was part of it but really, she wanted you to live long enough to maybe change the world. I think she may have been right.”
“Maureen, I’m sorry,” said Wallis, brushing the hair off of Maureen’s face.
“Don’t be. This was my mission, to protect you and I did it willingly. Protect your mother, Wallis. Protect the Keeper.” Maureen let out a large gasp and died. It happened in a moment and surprised Wallis. She looked at Maureen’s still body, wondering if there was more.
Wallis finally gently shut her eyes with a shaking hand and was still holding her when the people she had thought were ordinary neighbors hurried over to help.
They tried to get her to go home and change and she listened to them talk among themselves about moving her and Ned to a safe house but she insisted on being taken to the hospital. She would not be stopping at home and scaring Ned.
“Can someone guard my house till morning?” she asked. She wasn’t even going to question them about what they were all doing out here armed with semi-automatic weapons.
Someone brought out a towel and a jacket for her and said they’d sit with Maureen’s body till the ambulance could get there. “It’s better if you’re not here to answer questions, anyway,” said a young woman, Wallis knew she was one half of a young couple that both worked in finance in a nearby office park on Broad Street. Wallis had gone to one of their talks on retirement. All of the new information to take in was making her nauseous.
“Get me to my mother,” she said, pulling her hair back and straightening her blood-soaked shirt, still holding Maureen’s lifeless hand.
“I’ll take her.” It was Sandra Wilkins, calmly giving orders to the others to look for shells, make sure the area was put back to order and then quickly go back to their houses. She told the young couple to go stay at Wallis’ house and asked who was already there watching Ned.
“Good, she’s a crack shot. Probably been ready since the lights all dimmed. Come on, Wallis, we need to get going. We’re attracting too much attention and there’s already way too much to explain to the others. I know, I know,” she said, pulling Wallis away from Maureen’s body and making her stand on her feet.
“I promise you, we will not leave her alone. We need to go,” she said, pulling her toward a car.
“Her shoe isn’t on right,” said Wallis, pointing at the brown leather shoe that was halfway off of Maureen’s foot.
“Okay, we’ll make sure she’s taken care of, I promise,” said Sandra. “I promise.”
On the way to the hospital Wallis stared out of the passenger side window. She had no idea what to say to Sandra and she was either going to start screaming at her about a million things or save it all for later. She chose to stay quiet.
Sandra pulled them up to the emergency room door that was closer to the ICU where Harriet had been moved. MCV was really a hive of different hospitals and stretched out over a long block. It could take a lot of running to go from the public parking lot to the ICU and all of it with Wallis in blood-soaked clothes.
The doctors and nurses who saw her coming tried to slow her down and speak to her gently as they quickly scanned her for injuries even though she kept saying, “It’s not me, it’s my mother.”
Sandra had left the car parked in the turn-around in front of the emergency room doors and was right behind Wallis, gently pushing her along, telling everyone that she wasn’t injured, just needed to get to ICU. She didn’t give any further explanation, knowing that the dramatic entrance would actually help them part the crowd.
Norman was waiting outside of the little room that was part of a circle of rooms surrounding a large nurse’s station. Detective Biggs and Buster were standing next to him. Wallis recognized them from when she had seen them at the courthouse. She stopped for a moment, trying to remember if she had seen them outside of Alice Watkins’ house the day she was murdered. It didn’t matter now. Alice was beyond help. She needed to get to her mother who was still alive.
Each of the small rooms had a partial, glass wall making them visible to everyone in the center.
Father Donald was inside of the room and Wallis started running toward them, thinking he was giving Harriet last rites. She wanted to blurt out that her mother was really Jewish and it was just one more lie she had been saying all of her life but she wasn’t sure of anything.
Instead she pushed past Norman who was trying to stop her from going in the room. He kept saying, “Are you alright? What happened?”
Wallis didn’t answer him. She just wanted to get to her mother.
“Get out,” she said to Father Donald, tears in her eyes.
“I was reading a prayer.”
“Get out,” she said, pulling on his arm and pushing him toward the door. “All of you stay out till I tell you otherwise,” she said, looking at Norman and Father Donald.
Norman nodded his head. “We’ll be here,” he said, trying to sound like he was steady but his voice shook too much to really pull it off.
Wallis held up both hands to stop them from saying anything else. She saw for a moment how the blood had pooled around her fingernails and was drying in streaks all over her hands and arms. It was her friend’s blood.
She pulled a chair close to her mother’s bed and gently took Harriet’s hand into hers. Harriet was unconscious and there was the constant sound of a heart monitor steadily beeping in the background. Wallis noticed she was breathing on her own without a ventilator but there were other tubes going into her arms and all of Harriet’s right side seemed to be sagging under the pull of gravity.
Her purse was sitting open on the small table next to the bed and Wallis glanced in to see that her mother’s wallet, reading glasses, spare tissues and gum were all in there. Her usual supply. She snapped the purse closed.
She took a deep breath and wondered where to start but the words came out in a rush.
“I’m
sorry,” she whispered close to her mother’s ear. She wanted to make sure Harriet heard her and that no one else in the hall was a part of their conversation.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I was so selfish that I never noticed anything about you. I took it for granted that you liked things the way they were. I was so angry at you for what you tried to do to me.” Wallis stopped for a moment and held her mother’s soft cool hand to her forehead and sobbed quietly.
She sat up straighter and breathed in, wiping the snot off of her face with her sleeve, leaving a small streak of blood across the bridge of her nose.
She leaned in and started again. “I’m sorry that you never thought you could tell me the truth. I know that’s not all on me but some of it is. I made it harder for you and I’m sorry. A good friend of mine died tonight, Mom. She died trying to protect me. She said it was her duty and she was glad to do it.”
Wallis couldn’t stop a loud sob from escaping her throat. Everyone in the hallway stirred but she didn’t look directly at them. Instead, she kept whispering to her mother.
“Now, I find out that you have always been doing the same thing. You were doing the one thing I have always wanted to do but you were doing it a lot better than I think I even know how. You were protecting your family against all of the monsters out there. And you did it without anyone telling you, good job. Well, that all changes tonight,” she whispered. “Good job, Mom. I love you and now it’s my turn. I’m going to keep watch over you. I’m going to watch over the Keeper.” Tears filled her eyes, making it difficult for her to see.
Harriet slowly opened her left eye. Her right eye was taped shut to help her close it all the way. She slowly looked over at Wallis and held her gaze for a moment before shutting it again.
Out in the hall, Father Donald watched the reunion and marveled at the turn in events. He had been nagging Harriet Jones for years to tell her daughter the truth but without success. He patted his pocket gently one more time to reassure himself the key was still there.