Across the Spectrum

by Nagle, Pati

  Why did you lose us, Gary? Your Mom—me? For this?

  He taught me what it was to be a man.

  Outside, the rain falls. It’s tapping on the roof like a hundred little cats running up and down.

  I listen.

  Then I turn and go on my quiet feet back down the stairs.

  ∞

  Outside, the rain is a cold curtain of ice knifing my face. I look up, into the clear, black sky. No stars, nothing. Pines shadowed against the midnight fog.

  I know if I just look hard enough, I’ll find the other half of the football.

  Let the sky darken like soot. Let the wind gather.

  Let it rain.

  For Anthony Sterling Rodgers

  The Alzheimer’s Book Club

  Jill Zeller

  This story received an Honorable Mention from Ellen Datlow in Year’s Best Horror, 2009. I love this story for a number of reasons; it was so easy to write, for one. For another, the tale references one of my very favorite authors, Shirley Jackson. Her book, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, plays a pivotal role.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  When Irene died I found more than thirty paperback books in her bed. I wouldn’t have noticed except I was removing what I thought was a foam triangle tucked under the head of her mattress, in preparation for stripping the bed. It was not a foam triangle at all but two pillowcases stuffed with books.

  The funeral home had already removed the body. The family had gone home and the police had come and gone. For the police to be there was rather odd because we were a licensed adult family home and people died here all the time, but because Irene had fallen two weeks ago and the county had proclaimed a crackdown on elder abuse, the police were notified. I doubted their interest had anything to do with the increased number of deaths that occurred here the last several months. Aimee blamed the book club for that. And here was evidence that the book club was alive and well, despite our efforts to shut it down.

  Holding the two pillowcases I stood still and listened for Aimee’s footsteps. The hallway outside Irene’s door was quiet. Putting one of the pillowcases on the floor, I stuck my hand in the other one.

  Pulling out a large paperback I looked at the title. I disliked reading, found words confusing and irritating, especially long words. This title was easy to understand: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I pondered whether this might be a children’s book, although I had seen children’s books before and they were larger with colorful pictures I particularly enjoyed. It was much easier looking at pictures than trying to figure out what the words were trying to say.

  This book was small and thin. I flipped through the pages and saw that there weren’t very many lines on each page; that would make it easier to read. I had to lift up my glasses to read small letters, so I put the pillowcase on the floor and squinted at the first line on the page.

  Just then I heard the clack of Aimee’s boots coming down the hall. Quick as lightning I shoved the book into the pillow case and kicked it under the bed, leaning over to make it look as if I was tucking in a clean sheet.

  Later I wondered why I hid the books from her. Before, I would have proudly exhibited my finds, enjoyed the embarrassment of the unlucky resident who had tried to hide their books from me.

  Aimee scowled at me as she always did. “You need to finish in this room. Another resident will be moving in tomorrow.” Aimee was a head shorter than me, wiry thin; she wore her hair piled on her head in complicated twists to make her look taller. She was a lot older than me but weighed a third as much. I was a big woman whose scrubs pulled tight against my hips; I was strong. No matter how much Aimee worked out I could lift her by the hair and swing her around the room, if I wanted.

  But Aimee scared me. So I nodded and pulled the sheets toward me. Aimee picked up a tissue box and chucked it toward the garbage can, but it missed. Slowly I picked it up and put it in.

  “When you’re done in here Sashi needs help with Mavis,” she said before she left.

  Aimee never called me by name. I wondered if she even remembered my name, even though I had been here five years. I had been here longer than anyone else. Staff didn’t stay long at this place.

  Stuffing the books in a garbage sack, along with other trash from the room, I left to help Sashi. Mavis needed to go back to bed; she had advanced dementia and never spoke and often tried to hit us, but we got her up every day to sit in the day room. Sashi had the wheelchair ready. Sashi was lazy and waited while I put Mavis in the chair.

  “This one had three books in her potted plant.” Sashi walked behind me while I pushed Mavis down the hall. Her shoes made sliding sounds on the wood because she never lifted her feet when she walked. I hated the sounds her shoes made. “Why does this one need books? She can’t even open her eyes.”

  I straightened Mavis’s sheets and laid out clean pads. She wore diapers but sometimes they leaked. She smelled like this morning’s oatmeal so I changed her sweater where she had spilled some.

  Sashi fingered the old woman’s turtle, a brilliant green stone with swirls in it. Sashi was fascinated with that turtle Mavis’s daughter had brought. I didn’t like to touch the patient’s things any more than I had to because Aimee would accuse me of stealing. A lot of small things had gone missing lately.

  “Did you turn those books in?” I brushed Mavis’s hair and put some balm on her lips.

  Sashi put a bottle of Mavis’s cologne to her nose. “I will. What is it such a big deal, to have books?”

  Shrugging, I pulled the blanket up to Mavis’s shoulders. “Aimee thinks that if the patients read them, they get ideas. You weren’t here when Helen tied John up using his bathrobe ties.” Sashi had heard the story many times. She moved close to me; I could smell spices on her.

  Her voice was raspy soft. “You found him. And the book that made her do it. Why would a book make an old lady tie up an old man? Someone said you tied him up.”

  I had to remember that Sashi liked to say bad things about people. I didn’t like Sashi. She was hired after Jackson died, crashing his car on his way home after his shift. I kept my eyes on Mavis’s blanket, soft with bright colors, reminding me of presents under the Christmas Tree. At least, it always made me happy to look at it. Mavis’s eyes moved under her lids like cats under a sheet as I tucked the blanket around her neck. I caught the sudden glitter of her eyes. Her irises were so brown they seemed like the night sky filled with planets and stars. Her breathing quickened.

  “I’ll throw those books away,” I said, straightening and rubbing the small of my back which ached worse lately, always tight and jabbing, especially the right side. Through the window I saw Aimee striding to the trash cans, carrying the two garbage bags of Irene’s books. I doubted Aimee looked in the bags. The books were gone now. Sorrow pulsed through me with the gentle throb of my heart; with each beat, something lost, like bleeding. I wanted to read more about the cat.

  It was time to cut hair, bathe, shower the other residents. Change beds, get up, put back. It was late before I had a chance to get back to Mavis, get her up and bring her out for supper. All afternoon I couldn’t stop thinking about the books in the potted plant.

  I went alone to Mavis’s room. The books, three thin paperbacks—the residents preferred these tiny books, light as feathers and easy to conceal—were in a brown plastic bag deep in the leaves of the plant. Listening for anyone coming, I pulled out the first one and looked at the cover.

  It startled me. Dark blue background, a girl staring through a knothole in a fence, black hair spidery around her; twin spires of a building behind her made it look as if she had cat ears.

  I put my finger to the title and sounded out the letters, something about a castle. Then I opened it to a random page and read it slowly, painfully sounding out the first words.

  “My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood.”

  My face warmed, a knot twisted in my chest. I remembered how the other children squirmed and sighed whenever the teacher chose me to read aloud. Next
to me Mavis stirred; I could hear her mouth chewing, as it sometimes did when she was hungry. I threw the book into the garbage can.

  “OK, old girl, up you get.” I got her out of bed into her wheelchair. Her eyes were open; she turned her head to look at me. I felt uneasy with her looking. Mavis rarely opened her eyes. I wheeled her to the door and stopped, thinking Aimee would find the book in the waste can and yell at me. Turning back, I picked the book up and slid it into the back of my scrub pants, under my shirt.

  I rolled Mavis into the kitchen and the meal went well. Helen didn’t throw her teeth across the table and Mavis ate all her rice. Judith sang a song for us after prompting from Aimee. Later we watched a funny movie on TV where people on a long driving trip yelled at each other. I enjoyed it, even though I had to get up three times to help people to the bathroom or turn Susie, who was bedridden and dying. Her son was with her, but he didn’t like to do much but sit and hold her hand. I couldn’t blame him.

  When I went home that night I was bone tired and my back hurt so much I almost cried, but I took pills and the pain eased. I tried to read more of the book.

  “I am eighteen years old and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf.”

  That last word was hard. I didn’t understand what it meant. I did understand how the girl felt, wanting to be someone else, feeling bad luck put her where she was. In spite of that I felt good about my day, better than I had in a long time. I wondered if my new feeling had to do with the book, or if it had something to do with Mavis looking at me as I tucked her in. I decided I would be nicer to the patients, even though my back hurt. No more insults or dirty looks. They got enough of that from the other staff. I fell asleep quickly because of the pain medicine. I didn’t remember much of the book except a dream I had about a cat in a meadow and a girl burying stones.

  ∞

  My good mood followed me like a faithful dog, even though I disliked dogs. The girl in the book didn’t like dogs, either. She had a cat named Jonas. I parked my car at five minutes to three like I always did but the radio was playing a perky song, so I listened, tapping my feet to the music. My back didn’t hurt today, either.

  I came through the door at precisely three o’clock and the first person I met was Helen, ambulating with her walker, and she gave me a sour glance as I passed, and I said, “Hello, Helen. How are you? Your hair looks very nice,” and I enjoyed her look of surprise. Helen paid a hairdresser to come in and style her hair into a high orderly mass of white, like an angel food cake.

  All the residents were in the day room and the TV was on. Sashi lounged on the sofa painting Mavis’s nails. Usually, this practice of Sashi’s to paint all the ladies’ nails irritated me, but today I thought the color she had chosen was very pretty, bright and red like garlands. Sashi ignored me.

  Then Aimee stomped in. She nodded sharply at me and slashed her hand, meaning she wanted me to follow her.

  I wondered what I had done now and I followed her down the stairs to her office. Cherishing my happiness, the bright colors of the walls and the sweet smell of baking apples for the dessert, I decided that nothing Aimee could do would harm me. I was as invincible as the summer sun and as unstoppable as a wind blowing through a canyon.

  Aimee circled her desk and sat down. I stood, not having been offered a seat. There was no place to sit anyway, as all the chairs were occupied by file boxes and cartons of syringes.

  I wondered if she were going to tell me about another death. Everyone seemed to be accounted for so far. I wondered if Susie had gone in the night, perhaps. It was long past time for her to die. She had suffered far too long, in my opinion.

  “A private possession of a client has gone missing. Mavis’s turtle. I wonder if you have seen it anywhere?” Aimee’s voice was blatantly accusative as always. I was tried and judged and sentenced before I even walked in the door. Heat warmed my cheeks.

  “The last time I saw it was on her bedside table.”

  “What time was that?” Aimee’s voice was sharp.

  I thought about it. The glass turtle was there when Sashi and I put Mavis to bed. I didn’t look at the table when I got her up for dinner. I thought of the book and my cheeks grew hotter.

  “Did you ask Sashi? She’s been in Mavis’s room.”

  “She denies it,” Aimee snapped. “I want you to search the rooms of the most mobile patients. Helen, or Judith. Do it discreetly.” She stretched her arms across her desk, shoving papers. “You better hope you find it.”

  But I knew it wouldn’t be there. And I knew what Aimee’s last words meant. Clouds rolled up outside and let down shaking sheets of rain. Inside the home, inside me, a dark hole opened up. If the turtle didn’t show up, I would be gone. Aimee was looking for a reason to fire me. And now she had one.

  I knew Sashi had taken it. I confronted her in the bathroom. Her eyes grew wide as she stared up at me, and her fear fed me just as if I were a wild animal and could eat her, tear out her tender insides and Mavis and I could dine on them together.

  “I know you took it. You want to see me get fired.”

  Sashi leaned against the counter. She shook her head. “You get away from me, you weirdo.”

  But she would not admit to stealing it.

  We searched the rooms but it didn’t turn up. Mavis’s daughter came that evening and she eyed me stonily as she sat beside her mother.

  Aimee had already gone home when I put Mavis to bed. I washed her and dressed her in a clean nightgown and daubed perfume behind her ears. The bedside table was empty, and I sat in Mavis’s chair, ignoring Sashi calling me to help her with Helen. The other books were still in the potted plant. I pulled one out.

  Mavis watched me from her bed, her eyes more wide than I had ever seen them. Smiling, I smoothed her hair and opened the book. I found a story about a black cat. The writing was strange, but I kept trying to understand.

  “Yet, mad I am not—and very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I would unburthen my soul.”

  Mavis watched me a long time as I read. She did not squirm or sigh. The man in the story did bad things to the cat and to his wife. When I finished, Mavis was asleep with a smile on her face.

  As I got up to go, I saw Helen in the doorway. Her glasses reflected the bedside lamp like two shiny planets; her hair glowed like a cloud in front of the moon. My breath stopped in my throat.

  “There are more books like that, if you want. They can teach you all kinds of ways people can die.” She had a strong voice. I knew she had once been a teacher.

  Standing up, I moved toward her, and she inched back, staring up at me; I knew I could make the patients afraid of me. I didn’t want to do that any more, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Is that how you did it, Jackson—and Arlene? From books?” Arlene had died the same week as Jackson. She’d had a heart attack in the laundry room. She was only 45.

  Helen lifted her hand, waved it around. “You saw the bruises on John. You know I didn’t tie him up. He didn’t get those bruises from trying to get out of bed.”

  Behind me I heard a muffled squeak from Mavis. Helen’s chin stuck out sharply as she looked up at me. I saw a white hair glisten in the lamplight. “You are lucky. We were planning to do you, but when you didn’t turn in Mavis’s books, we decided you might be a friend.

  “And that Sashi.” Helen lowered her voice. “She took money from me. And Mavis’s turtle. She steals from your purse too. And you know Aimee tells her to give extra sleeping pills to make them all quiet.”

  ∞

  By the time I left that night I had everything ready. It was easy to work in the med room; Sashi had gone home after pretending to help me put the patients to bed. She always left early and when Sam the night nurse came I told him how the patients were and what to expect. I thought Susie would die tonight and I told Sam so. I thought Mavis would sleep through the night, so he didn’t need to look in on her as often. I t
old him they had changed Judith’s medicine.

  I slept like a log that night. My back didn’t even hurt.

  Aimee was meeting a new client when I came in the next morning, so I had time before she fired me. Susie had died in the night and they had taken her away. Mavis was sitting in her chair with her eyes closed like always.

  When I walked in, still wearing my coat, Sashi glanced at me and then away, saying nothing, as if she knew what was going to happen. I got down the tea like I always did and laid out the mugs and boiled the water, made the tea and added the sugar, spooned out the blueberries that I had put in the fridge the night before, deep black like the night sky, with sprinkles of sugar like melting snow.

  Aimee came for her tea after the new client left and fired me, there in the kitchen in front of Sashi. They all stood eating blueberries and looking at everything but me. Sighing, I turned away and walked into the day room and sat next to Mavis.

  “I want you to leave now,” Aimee said. She stood quivering in the doorway.

  I took the book out of my purse and laid it in Mavis’s lap. “I am visiting Mavis. I am no longer an employee. I am a visitor, and I am visiting Mavis.”

  Aimee inhaled sharply. “I thought all the books were gone. I told you no more books in this house. Books are bad. Books give people ideas. The old folks don’t need to be reading books that will only depress them.” She snatched the book and stomped into the kitchen in her high-heeled boots, her hair flying out from the bands and pins and things she had stuck in it.

  I sat for a half-hour beside Mavis and we watched a funny TV show about old women living together. Mavis looked at me, placed her hand on my arm and it shocked me. She opened her mouth and said something, and I leaned over and listened and hot waves of anxiety went through me and my heart thundered, each beat a heavy pulse of excitement.

  She spoke, only for me to hear, her voice rasping and half-hoarse, and it was the line from the book I had read.

  I wondered astonished how she knew. The only thing different was what had been damaged, stolen, from me and from her.