by S. L. LUCK
Anabelle knew that it was no secret her parents had retained Troy Baker to represent the family in a potential lawsuit against the hospital. The trio of doctors that tended to Anabelle ordered the nurses not to permit him access without their presence since his impromptu visit early that morning, much to the disappointment of the none-too-quiet nursing staff. With the interest in her case and the scrutiny of governments, law enforcement, and news media around the world, the unit had adopted the requirement of a sign-in sheet to track visitors, along with strict instructions to bar a number of people on the doctors’ list, where Troy was second only to Jessica Chung.
Since Troy’s hands were bandaged, Anabelle’s father had taken it upon himself to sign the lawyer in when he’d visited, but intentionally omitted Troy’s last name to avoid an uncomfortable confrontation. As per protocol, Tammy should have cross-referenced Troy’s name with those on the prohibited list, but she was too smitten to remember. The commotion from the nursing station when the doctors discovered he’d breached their defenses would have woken Anabelle if she were asleep, but she was alert and just as rattled as they were, only for different reasons.
Sure, the lawyer was hot. Perhaps twenty, twenty-five years older than Anabelle herself, Troy presented an irresistible, fuckable front. She had been with only two men: the first on her seventeenth birthday with her boyfriend Andrew—whose too-eager, misdirected javelin spears to the areas beside her vagina almost made her swear off sex—and her current boyfriend, Robbie, who never gave her an orgasm. Robbie wasn’t bad looking, but neither was he Troy, who Anabelle believed could wet the panties off any woman he chose without even touching her. Were she not aware of what Troy was, Anabelle might have even considered imagining his face on Robbie’s body next time she was with him, but she knew—and what she knew was terrible.
He entered her room as death enters the departing, sponging up light, and it took some effort for Anabelle to pretend she didn’t notice. Her parents coddled the man like a son, bandaged up the way he was, but she wasn’t fooled. Her new senses warned her against him, spooling through her brain garlands of grotesque imagery that made her already delicate stomach turn sour. Until then, the darkness in her room was unembodied, smokes of another existence, but the personification of evil at her bedside with her parents was another story.
“You all right, honey?” Stephanie asked her now, patting her leg.
Anabelle gestured to her ankles. “Would you be?”
Stephanie’s sharp shoulders dropped slightly. She glanced behind her to see if anyone was listening, then said, “I can’t say that I’ve ever had electricity coming out my ass, so I can’t relate, but given the circumstances, you’re doing well. You know what I would do if I were you?”
“Zap all your ex-boyfriends?”
“That, of course, but you do realize this is a money-maker, right? All those networks wanting interviews, I’m sure once you’re out of here you could make a small fortune just telling your story. Maybe even pay for college.”
“Hadn’t thought of that,” Anabelle said sullenly.
“Aw, now,” Stephanie said, “You’re going to get out, just wait and see. They won’t keep you up here forever, though if I’m being selfish, I have to say I enjoy having you. It’s never this easy up here.”
Anabelle frowned. “Were any of the others up here?” she asked a bit hesitantly. “I mean I know that … that I’m the only one, but did any of them make it here?”
The nurse shook her head. “A few made it to the emergency room, but that was it.”
“Were any of them like me?”
“You mean the electricity?” Stephanie asked. When Anabelle nodded, the nurse said, “No, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have happened to them. You didn’t get like this until after Dr. Huxley sewed you up. Scared the living hell out of everyone, but you’re here now and that’s all that matters.” She fingered a coil of Anabelle’s hair. “Never thought I’d be working with electricians on a patient, but the Lord does surprise sometimes, doesn’t He?”
So does the devil, Anabelle thought, determined to get out of the hospital as soon as she could.
26
By the time Ed escorted Dorothy and Evie to the seats Chester saved for them, the Blundy and Ashurst Funeral Home was packed. Though death was no stranger to Southbridge, Dorothy had been inconsolable that morning, and it had taken Ed and Evie a great deal of time to coax Dorothy out of her robe and into the dress Evie loaned her for the occasion. Like other assisted-living homes, Southbridge retained a small, low-floor transport bus with a wheelchair lift that the non-driving residents used for daily activities, somber and otherwise. Their patient driver, Joe, was used to delays, so when they finally managed to get Dorothy onto the bus, he still greeted the latecomers with a smile. The others behind him, however, were not so kind.
“You planning on standing the whole time, dearie?” Ada Tilbury asked testily while Dorothy boarded.
“Move your goddamn purse, Ada, and let the woman sit,” Maria Lewis shot at the cranky woman.
Ada’s old lips clamped into a tight pucker. “I’m just saying that there are others to think of. We’ve been sitting here for almost an hour, Doris has been holding it, waiting for you to come. She,”—Ada wriggled a finger at Dorothy— “should be more considerate.”
Doris, who’d been sitting behind Ada, blushed a deep red. “I’m fine, Ada. It’s not a big deal.” Her embarrassment suggesting that her urgency had passed, Doris looked out the window at the falling flakes of snow.
“Let the woman alone.” Behind Dorothy, Evie scowled. A relatively new resident, Evie was still learning to navigate the variety of personalities at Southbridge, but already she disliked this woman. “Here, hun, sit here,” she said, guiding Dorothy to the empty space beside Albert Humphrey, who was patting the seat to welcome her. And perhaps it was the solemnity of the day or the sourness of the interaction that made her do it, but Evie proceeded to bump Ada’s purse onto the floor with her rear, then took the seat it vacated, settling down with a triumphant grin.
“Excuse me!” came the indignant squawk from Ada’s parched windpipe. She began to rise, then saw the grimacing faces around her urging composure. Grunting, Ada sat back down with splayed elbows, nestling like an angry bird. The women seated, Ed took the space offered at the back between Willie and Anton Forbes, the only pair of sibling residents.
“Looks like we’re ready to go, folks,” Joe called to them over the intercom, and when the bus pulled away from the parking lot, Dorothy once again began to cry.
At the church, Ed and Evie ushered Dorothy down the aisle of mourners while the throaty bellows of the organist’s pipes were setting the mood for the coming gloom. From the open mahogany trusses to the gold-flecked carpet, sniffs and sobs and exchanges of grief hovered over the congregants and weighed on their hearts.
Seated at the front were Hattie’s five children, gray themselves, to whom Hattie’s long life was of little consolation as they wept on the shoulders of their spouses. Behind them were a platoon of grandchildren and great-grandchildren bearing Hattie’s dimples, uncomfortable in their clothes and pulling at their collars and sleeves. Smaller children, oblivious to the obligations of grief, tickled one another and had to be settled by their parents, only to start again once their elders weren’t looking. A small boy’s insistence that he needed a snack was hushed. A small girl’s insistence she needed the bathroom was abandoned once a candy bar was placed in her hand. To Ed’s great relief, he found Chester in a middle row near the aisle, guarding their spaces with a splayed leg on the bench.
“I pretended I couldn’t hear it when they tried to take your seats,” he whispered with a laugh and set his leg down.
Ed, already tired from the day’s activity, gratefully sat beside him and accepted a tissue offered by Chester. “Just in case,” Ed said, and tucked it into his hand.
“Me too, please.” Evie sniffed.
The crowd quieted as Father Bonner made
his way to the podium. He tapped the microphone and the muffled sound of the speakers being turned on rang throughout the building. “We will begin in a few minutes, once our ushers have brought chairs for those of you standing at the back. In the meantime, we ask that everyone take their seats and turn off their cellphones.” He stepped back from the podium and clasped his hands respectfully, waiting while extra chairs were distributed. Ada Tilbury had just managed to sit when the high timbre of the organ’s pipes signaled to the crowd that the funeral was about to begin. At the sound, Hattie’s two daughters and three sons stood and made their way to the back of the room, one after the other, in a single, somber line. Children were hushed, phones were silenced, and the congregants rose to their feet, turning inward toward the aisle. Two white-gloved ushers opened the interior doors and clicked the doorstops in place, the insignificant taps of metal pins being positioned sounding large and foreboding to all who could hear. Then Hattie’s flower-adorned coffin was rolled down the aisle while her adult children walked reverently behind to fresh concussions of sorrow. In front of the altar, the ushers turned Hattie’s encased body, then removed five roses from a wreath on top and presented one to each of her children.
Hattie’s youngest daughter, Marianne, was the first to bend and kiss the coffin. She pressed her cheek to the cold metal casing above her mother’s face, then drew her lips in to keep herself from wailing. The crowd stood while Hattie’s remaining four children wept, kissed, and rubbed the thing that would take their mother into the ground. Shuddering with sorrow, they united for a brief embrace, then returned to their seats beside their waiting, worried spouses. While a melancholy hymnal was played, four ushers distributed tissues to those without. Reflections on Hattie, on private mortalities, spread through three hundred despairing minds, and the funeral was ready to proceed. Restored at the podium, Father Bonner said, “Please be seated.” The sound of three hundred people sitting was a solid drumbeat of obeyance.
What followed was ninety minutes of prayer, of recollection, of gratitude, and of heartbreak. That Hattie Freemont was loved was undeniable. The testimony to her greatness was registered on all of them. Skimming the room, scanning familiar faces old and young as he and Evie soothed Dorothy, Ed appreciated the full house on Hattie’s behalf. To his right were the Cardinals, whom everyone in Garrett knew through their philanthropy. To his left was Police Chief Dan Fogel, alone, seated two rows in front of his ex-wife Brandy and her current boyfriend, whose unfortunate public sexcapade still drew public attention, as presently seen by the whisperers and pointers around them. There was the Fischer family and the Boyd family, the Beechers, the Penners, the Widlows, Roy and Gretchen Botcher, and many, many others. Doubly troubled and standing at the back as though he were at any minute about to sprint away was Perry Searles. The man who’d just lost two grandchildren to Ray Botcher’s swing set looked ghastly with despair.
Leaning against the wall beside the doors Hattie had been rolled through, Perry’s entire body seemed to sag. The pouches previously under his eyes now sank over his cheeks. His slack mouth emitted unrestrained whimpers, then sobs, then great gusts of grief, and the congregants felt the tearing of Perry’s heart in their own chests. More than a few people had to be held together by the others around them. When finally the opening chords of the departing song came, Perry stepped back to allow the coffin and the familial procession to exit, then Ed blinked and Perry was gone.
It wasn’t until they left the chapel and collected themselves to Blundy and Ashurst’s banquet room for the after-service luncheon that Ed saw Sylvia sitting beside one of the hall’s many windows at an empty table, sipping coffee.
“Mind if we join you?” Ed asked politely, though Evie and Dorothy were already pulling out chairs for themselves.
“Please do. I ran like the devil to get it, so I think I’ve earned some company.” She laughed, the glint in her eyes coming, going, coming, as Pandora peeked outward from inside.
The women settled while Ed fetched a tray with coffee and cookies. “Something to tide us over until lunch is ready,” he said, distributing cups.
Opening a packet of sugar, Evie said, “It was a lovely service, wasn’t it?”
“Hattie would have been proud.” Dorothy sniffed.
A film of humanity hung like a wet towel over the sclera of Sylvia’s eyes and—temporarily compassioned—she turned to Dorothy. “Living on the other side of the city, I didn’t know her as well as you, but I know she would have loved it, dear.”
“Did you see Perry?” Dorothy asked Ed.
He nodded. “I can’t imagine what that family’s going through. I’m surprised he came.”
“He came for Dora’s sake. She and Hattie used to knit together. She wanted to be here but she’s with their daughter, planning the funerals. Oh, God, that poor family. Losing their children.” Dorothy’s breath caught, and her steady hands began shaking.
Evie dabbed the drips under Dorothy’s cup and lowered her hands onto the other woman’s wrist. At Evie’s touch, the anguish Dorothy had been keeping inside suddenly burst and she buried her face in her hands and cried. Sylvia looked on, her face blank.
“The Lord only takes the good ones, but how hard it is when he does,” Evie said. At this, the corner of Sylvia’s mouth twitched.
They worked to console Dorothy as the banquet hall filled. With smeared makeup and raw noses, the congregants entered: first acquaintances, then friends, then family, attending in increasing rank of intimacy with the deceased. Unleashed children raced around tables, fought each other for food, and picked at their bodies without parents near to shame them. Soon, the room was bustling with activity, and when Mavis Cardinal finally excused herself from the gathering room where she sat with Hattie’s children, most of the seats had already been taken. The brightness of the banquet hall was a refreshing relief to Mavis, and she took comfort in its liveliness as she poured herself a tea. Her sons and grandsons helping in the kitchen, Mavis wandered around the room until she spotted a seat beside her old friend Ed. Seeing her come, Ed raised a hand to Mavis and pulled out a seat to welcome her.
“Thanks, Eddie,” Mavis smiled at him as he shuffled his chair aside to make room. She put her tea on the table, then purposefully stepped over to Dorothy and hugged her from behind. Dorothy squeaked with a fresh wave of sadness until Mavis put her head to Dorothy’s. “Remember what Hattie said about this?”
Dorothy nodded. “No pity.” Then tears of laughter sprang from her eyes and she said to the group, “She told us she wanted a party when she died. She made us promise we would drink and dance until our feet fell off.” Against her will, she smiled. It was an easy promise to make when they were decades younger and Hattie was still alive, but the certainty that Hattie’s wishes hadn’t changed made her suddenly sit up straight.
Mavis squeezed Dorothy’s shoulders and kissed her temple. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re going to close this place down, then we’re going to go somewhere else and dance a groove into the floor. I have Advil and runners in my bag for both of us. The boys will drive us anywhere we want to go.” Considering the size of the bag Mavis had stuffed under the table, there was no doubt as to its contents and Dorothy chuckled, the brittle coating around her heart softening a little, resigning to the factions of loyalty.
“How are you doing?” Ed asked when Mavis finally sat beside him.
“Terrible, but I have to remind myself that we were lucky to have had Hattie as long as we did, when others aren’t as fortunate,” she confided. Her next words came out so quietly that the others leaned in to hear. “Let me tell you something, Eddie, those kids … that was no accident. Children don’t go hanging themselves on swing sets, and a woman doesn’t just swallow a hose. You hear what they got Jesse doing?” Ed shook his head, so Mavis explained. “They have him checking out people’s roofs now. Birds, insects, things are crawling into people’s roofs like the flood’s coming again. Tabitha’s grandson had spiders crawling all ove
r him when he woke up. She said they were even in his diaper.” Mavis shuddered. Three of the four others at the table recoiled as they imagined the baby boy, helpless against an arachnid mob.
“They like to come inside this time of year,” Ed reasoned.
“One or two, maybe, but not thousands of them, Eddie. Jesse showed me a picture, and it made my hair whiter. They had to hire extra help for Jesse and the city had to get exterminators on contract. The boys have been at fifty homes already this week, and not a single one of them was normal.” She fingered the dream catcher hung low on her chest and the look she gave Ed made him lose his taste for the coffee he was drinking.
He set down his cup as though it had gone bitter. Given his decades as a congregant and volunteer at Holy Redeemer, these were the times Ed was expected to rationalize God’s will or offer some speck of wisdom to comfort the bereaved and the downtrodden. And if Bessie were alive, perhaps he could reconcile the heavenly plan with the instances of late, but as time without her withered on, Ed increasingly struggled to believe her old adage that God was all things good and all things right. He said to Mavis, “There have been quite a few hurricanes this season. Maybe the animals are affected. Farmers get pest invasions all the time.” Dorothy and Evie nodded.