by JB Lynn
“Authorizing me to make decisions regarding Katherine’s care. With Theresa . . . with both parents out of the picture, the hospital needs a guardian to sign releases, that kind of thing.”
“I can sign them.” Theresa had made me sign off on a million legal papers to make sure that I’d have the right to do just that. At the time, I’d thought it was a giant headache over nothing, but now I saw the wisdom of her choice.
I heard Susan’s sharp intake of breath even over the noise of Katie’s monitors. She was displeased. I didn’t give a damn.
“We should talk about this in the hallway, Margaret.”
Grudgingly, I attempted to wheel away from Katie’s bed. But no matter how hard I pushed, the damn wheelchair wouldn’t budge, a none-too-pleasant reminder that I hadn’t been using my gym membership.
“There’s a brake,” Susan muttered.
Fumbling around, I finally disengaged it, and the wheels started to turn. I tried to make a graceful exit, but instead I ended up slamming into the pole holding Katie’s IV and then some other beeping machine. I made enough noise to wake the dead, but Katie didn’t stir.
“Oh for goodness’ sake,” Susan muttered, grabbing the wheelchair from behind and steering me out of the room.
“I’ve never driven one of these things before. There’s a learning curve.”
We barreled down the hallway, causing nurses and orderlies to leap out of our path for fear of losing their toes. “Your whole life has been a learning curve, Margaret, and you’re failing at it.”
I winced. I couldn’t come up with a clever rebuttal, because I knew she was right. I also knew I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing her barb had hit home. “I’m Katie’s legal guardian. Theresa wanted me to make the decisions regarding her care.”
“You can’t make a decision about what socks to wear!” Aunt Susan slammed the chair to a stop, almost dumping me onto the floor.
“Hey! There are no seatbelts with these things!”
Rounding my chariot, Aunt Susan took a deep breath, preparing to hex me, or curse at me, or, worst of all, tell me how “lucky” I was to have her around to pick up the pieces.
Lucky my ass.
I wasn’t going to take it sitting down. I struggled unsteadily to my feet. My blood pressure surged, and I swayed woozily, but like a boxer facing a knock-out punch, I stayed on my feet.
And the damndest thing happened. Something, some expression I had never before witnessed on my eldest aunt’s face, something that looked a lot like respect, gleamed in her eyes. Pursing her lips, she considered me carefully.
I braced myself for the harangue, the lecture, the litany of my shortcomings, but she stayed silent. We stood there, locked in silent battle for the longest time. I refused to back down. I didn’t look away. I knew enough to not open my mouth and stay something stupid.
Finally she cleared her throat. I lifted my chin defiantly.
“The doctor wants to keep you overnight, but one of us, probably Loretta, since she’s enamored with all the wealthy, handsome doctors, will be back in the morning to drive you home.”
I shook my head. “No need. My apartment is only a couple of blocks from here.”
I thought for a moment I’d pushed my rebellion a bit too far, as her hands planted themselves on her hips.
“When I said we’d bring you home, I meant to the house.” The three aunts still lived in the house they’d grown up in, although now it had been turned into a prosperous bed-and-breakfast catering mostly to pharmaceutical executives tired of staying in stark hotel rooms.
The B&B is located two blocks from the middle of town and is only a fifteen or twenty minute drive to three pharmaceutical complexes, but it’s tucked into a quiet residential neighborhood. My aunts’ neighbors are normal Jersey folks, not the kind who show up on ridiculous reality shows, but the type who, during the summer, have sprinklers that are synchronized better than any Olympic swimming team, and during the winter indulge in a penchant for oversized inflatable holiday directions that stay up from October through March.
My apartment complex, on the other hand, is on the “seedy” side of town. It’s not the best of neighborhoods, but it’s not as bad as my family makes it out to be. Although there is the occasional drug bust or domestic disturbance to keep things interesting, it’s mostly harmless blue-collar folks who think going “down the shore” is a dream vacation. It’s the best I can afford and worth every nickel to be out from beneath my aunts’ stifling roof. “No, I want to go back to my apartment,” I told my aunt firmly.
Aunt Susan wrinkled her nose as though she’d smelled a skunk, but all she said was, “As you wish.”
Like wishes ever come true.
Chapter Two
IT TOOK ME two days to remember the lizard.
Two days of conferring with doctors about Katie’s condition and care.
Two days of making the arrangements for the funeral. It shouldn’t take two days to make those kinds of plans. All you have to do is talk to a black-suited funeral home employee, someone to officiate, and a girl making minimum wage in the obit department of the newspaper. You let the people who do this every day do the heavy lifting.
But the decisions regarding this funeral were more complicated than the Middle East peace process because everything had to be agreed upon by both our family and Dirk’s, since he and Theresa were to be buried together.
Everything was a “discussion” down to what color the lining of their coffins should be (dusky rose, if you’re interested). Personally I couldn’t understand what the hell the big deal was. It wasn’t like anyone was going to even see the inside of the boxes, since we’d been gently told that their bodies were too mangled to have open caskets.
By the end of the negotiations, I was ready to murder someone. My first choice was the drunk driver who’d run a red light and killed Theresa and left Katie unconscious and parentless, but that selfish, irresponsible bitch had died on impact. Which meant that the person I wanted to kill was Dirk’s idiot sister Raelene, who kept prattling on about how “lucky” it was that neither Theresa nor Dirk had lost the other. That it was a blessing they’d gone together. She kept saying how “lucky” they were to get to spend eternity side-by-side.
It got so bad that every time she opened her mouth, I imagined my hands around her throat, squeezing the life out of her.
On the afternoon of the second day, once we’d agreed on what the dearly departed would wear for eternity, I drove to the state prison to tell my father that a second of his daughters had died.
I hadn’t been to East Jersey State Prison for years, but I drove as though on automatic pilot, trying to figure out what I’d say when I saw him. I’d considered just calling and asking a prison chaplain to pass along the sad news, but I knew Theresa wouldn’t want him to find out that way. Even after everything, she’d been devoted to Dad, driving out to visit him every two weeks, giving him regular updates on everyone, like a cuckoo clock chiming the hour.
She was a more forgiving person than I’ll ever be. She was a better person.
Which was why, after handing over my driver’s license and enduring a pat down that made me feel like I was as much a criminal as the person I was visiting, I sat in the prison visiting room, at window three, my stomach in knots, waiting to talk to a murderer. Some kids have teachers, steel workers, or doctors for dads. I had a killer.
“Must be my lucky day!” my father boomed the moment he walked into the room and saw me.
I was grateful that this was midweek, and therefore a “window visit.” “Contact” visits are only allowed on weekends. The plexiglass partition prevented him from hugging me. “What makes you think that?” I asked.
“It’s not every day I get to see my Maggie May.”
He settled into the seat opposite me. He didn’t look like a criminal who belonged behind bars. Twinkling blue eyes, white beard, and a belly like a bowlful of jelly—if you gave him a red suit and hat, he could be
the freakin’ Santa Claus in the Thanksgiving Day parade.
“Theresa’s dead.” I didn’t prepare him. I didn’t make an effort to sugar-coat the news or ease him into it. I just spit out the cold hard fact like a bullet.
It found its target.
The smile dropped from his face, and his jaw went slack. His shock and pain were plain to see.
And I was glad. Glad that for once I was able to hurt him.
But that moment of petty satisfaction only lasted a moment. I wasn’t in the habit of intentionally hurting people. I immediately felt guilty. Small. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“How?”
“A drunk driver. Dirk was killed too.”
“And Katie?” His question was just a whisper, as though he was afraid fate might overhear him.
“Katie . . .” My eyes ached. I ground my palms against them, trying to rub away the pain. “Katie’s in a coma.”
“A coma?”
“Uh huh.” I waited for him to spout some useless platitude about how at least she isn’t suffering, but he surprised me.
“Does she have that stuffed dinosaur she loves so much?”
I shrugged.
“She should have it. She loves that thing.” Two fat droplets slowly slid down his plump cheeks.
It bothered me that he was able to cry, while I hadn’t shed a single tear. I’d built up such an impenetrable emotional dam over the years that I was no longer capable of a simple thing like crying. Dry-eyed, I envied his release. I looked away, unable to face my shame.
“What do the doctors say?”
I shrugged. “That only time will tell. That she needs round-the-clock care. That all we can do is wait.”
“And what about the witches? What are they up to?”
“Don’t call them that!” It was okay for me to call them that—I’d put up with them for all these years—but he wasn’t allowed.
“Theresa didn’t mind.”
“Well Theresa isn’t here! You forfeited the right to badmouth them when they got stuck with raising us because you got yourself locked up in here.”
Any trace of benevolent Santa disappeared. Leaning forward, he snarled through the glass, “I wouldn’t be in here if it wasn’t for those bitches!”
“Witches,” I corrected. It startled me how much I sounded like my mother in that moment. How many times had I heard her make that very correction?
“You sound just like your mother.”
I frowned at him, at myself, unhappy he’d confirmed my observation. I sure as hell didn’t want to be compared to her. Not ever.
Sitting back in his chair he smiled kindly. “The hospital bills must be astronomical.”
“It’s only been a couple of days.”
He roared. “You waited a couple of days to tell me?”
I flinched at his shout. “I’ve been busy.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. This has all been a shock is all.”
“To me too.”
“About the bills . . . what are you going to do about them?”
“There’s life insurance . . . car insurance . . .”
“It’s not going to be enough.”
I knew he was right, but that was a problem I couldn’t deal with at the moment. I had more important things to focus on. Namely getting Katie to open her eyes.
“Whatever you do, Maggie, don’t do anything stupid. No matter how desperate you get, no matter how much you want to cure her, don’t do what I did.”
“I wasn’t planning on robbing a bank.”
“You’re a lot like me, Maggie May.” There was no pride in his voice, only sad resignation. “You’re prone to tilting at windmills. The inability to do anything, the frustration will eat away at you, making you capable of doing things . . . the kinds of things you can’t even imagine.”
“I’m not like you.”
“No? Then why are you here? Certainly not because you’ve forgiven me or because you didn’t want me to hear from a stranger that Theresa’s . . . gone.”
I inclined my head slightly to signal my agreement with his assessment.
“You’re here because you’re fiercely—bordering on perversely—loyal to those you love. You knew damn well that Theresa would have wanted you to tell me in person, so you subjugated your own desires and drove here.”
“You must be doing a lot of reading.”
He blinked. I’d caught him off guard. “Huh?”
“You’re using terms like ‘tilting at windmills’ and ‘subjugated’ during this father-daughter bonding session.”
“Changing the subject doesn’t change the outcome, Maggie May.”
“Meaning you think I’m going to become a bank robber or a murderer?”
He winced. I knew what he was thinking. He’d said it often enough during his trial. How many times had he tried to explain that the bank teller’s death hadn’t been his fault? Someone had believed him because his state-appointed idiot defense lawyer had managed to plead the charges down from first-degree murder to second-.
“What I think, daughter of mine, is that you’re capable of doing whatever it takes for someone you love. Whatever it takes.”
Chapter Three
LIKE I SAID, it took me two days to remember the lizard, and that was just because Katie’s grandfather reminded me of her favorite toy.
I let myself into Theresa’s house with the key she kept by the solar-powered garden gnome in one of those fake rock/key-hider things.
Their house was in one of those cookie-cutter neighborhoods that dot the landscape of New Jersey, tucked between industrial parks, protected Green Spaces, and spots where George Washington had stopped to take a leak during the Revolutionary War. The streets in the development all had bird names.
Theresa and Dirk had bought on Cardinal Court, not because it was the best house in the area, but because cardinals were our mom’s favorite bird. Theresa had said it was a sign. Personally, I don’t believe in signs, premonitions, vibes, or luck, but I hadn’t said a word, because I’d figured a dead-end street was probably a safer place to raise a kid.
It was dark as I fumbled for the light switch.
“It’s about time.” The man’s voice, English and dripping with disdain, scared the shit out of me. Who the hell was in the house? Pressing my back to the wall, holding my breath, I tried to figure out where he was. All I could hear was the chirping of crickets.
“What are you waiting for?” His voice, coming from Katie’s room, was familiar. Haughty. Full of contempt. “I said, ‘What are you waiting for?’ ”
I exhaled in relief. Alan Rickman. It was Alan Rickman’s voice. Theresa must have left a Harry Potter DVD running. I’d once suggested that I thought Professor Snape was too scary for a three-year-old. Big mistake. I got the whole, “parents know what’s best for their kids” speech, as though having a child somehow improved the judgment of an adult.
Switching on the light, I made my way to Katie’s room to turn off the movie and find the dinosaur.
Flipping the switch just inside her door, I illuminated her pink and frilly bedroom. The TV was dark. That was weird. A quick glance at the bed told me Dino wasn’t there, so I dropped to my knees to look underneath.
“Hello? I’m over here.”
Goosebumps sprang to life all over my body. Why did it sound as though Professor Snape was talking to me? I shook my head. I was being ridiculous. I lifted the bed skirt and peered beneath.
“I’m not under the bed you imbecile. I’m over here.”
Rocking back on my heels I dropped the bed skirt. It really did sound as though he was talking to me, but that couldn’t be. I closed my eyes and forced myself to take a slow, deep breath. No need to panic. I was just tired. And stressed, definitely stressed.
“Here, you moronic biped. By the mirror.”
I opened one eye and slowly swiveled my head in the direction of the dresser. No one stood in front of it.
“Up here! Up
here! ON the dresser!”
Slowly, I raised my gaze. Not believing what I was seeing, I blinked. I still saw it. Squeezing my eyes shut, I counted to ten. I looked again.
Yup, the lizard was still standing up and waving at me.
I gulped. Holy crap, I’d lost my mind.
I crawled over to get a better look at Katie’s pet lizard in its glass terrarium. About six inches long (most of it tail) it was muddy brown with a dark stripe down its back. It wasn’t what I’d call a cute and cuddly pet. And it didn’t look anything like Alan Rickman.
“I’m starving. You’d better be here to feed me. And I need to be misted. All this dry air has just wreaked havoc with my complexion.”
“Would it kill you to say ‘please’?” I asked.
The little guy fell over backward, his tail twitching. He scrambled back up and stared at me with those shiny eyes of his. “You can hear me?”
I nodded. Heaven help me, I thought a lizard was talking to me. Apparently my father had been right to compare me to my mother. Like her, I seemed to be delusional too.
“I don’t believe it.” His tail twitched.
“Me neither.”
He rubbed his chin with one of his front feet as though he was trying to make sense of this odd development. I waited for him to speak again, hoping he could make sense of all this. Pathetic, I know.
“You are here to feed me, aren’t you? I haven’t eaten for days.”
“What do you eat?”
“Crickets.”
“What else?”
“Just that. Crickets. I could eat other things, but I prefer crickets.”
I swallowed hard. The idea of eating a cricket disgusted me. “What other kinds of things?”
“Fruit flies, meal worms, maggots.”
I gagged. They were even grosser than crickets! “Okay, okay, where do they keep your food?”
“In a bag in the closet.”
Opening the closet door, I found a plastic bag containing a couple of live crickets. It vibrated in my hand as the bugs jumped around. It took all my self-control not to drop it on the floor and stomp it. I hate bugs the way Indiana Jones hates snakes. “They’re alive.”