I HID EVAN’S NOTE between my mattress and the box spring. I didn’t want Iris or Charlie or an aide to accidentally see it. But clearly I needed to hang on to it. Not that it made me trust him any more, but still. You never know what will prove to be useful. This confession might help discredit him if—well, if I ever needed to.
I headed to the chapel, hoping to still my swirling thoughts. I kept trying to pray, even though it didn’t seem to be working. Some small spark of belief—or perhaps hope for comfort—instilled from all the years, still flickered. But the words escaped me, and any sense of intelligence or spirit at the other end of the prayer had evaporated. My pleas echoed, unabsorbed by any outside force, reverberating through a disinterested universe. Still, the chapel was the one place where I was able to tap into a feeling I can only describe as emptiness. Not in a despairing sense. Rather, calmness. A loosening of the tight knot inside me.
I sat in a pew and closed my eyes, concentrating on my breathing the way I’d heard one was supposed to do in meditation. Moments slipped by. Then the sound of a deep sigh caught my attention. It was infused with what seemed like despair. Or exhaustion. I opened my eyes.
In the gentle light I saw a woman kneeling on the other side of the chapel, her shoulders slumped. She sighed again, in what seemed like pain. Without thinking, I got up and approached her. I cleared my throat so she wouldn’t be startled and gently touched her shoulder. “Forgive me for interrupting. But are you all right?”
She turned to me with a pallid face, drained of color and moist with perspiration. I realized with a shock that it was Geri, Lottie’s friend. But she was much changed. I remembered when we’d first met at that initial book group—the same time I’d met Evan. I had noticed that Geri had held her side stiffly and moved with caution. But not like this.
She said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone else was here.” She held a hanky to her mouth, and the thought sprang to my mind: this person is at the end of her rope.
I sat down. “Please, don’t apologize. But—are you okay? It seems like maybe you could use some help.”
She swallowed again and with effort shifted from her knees, pushing herself up to sit next to me in the pew. “That is very kind of you.” She blotted the perspiration from her face. “I’ll be all right. It is just—I’m having a lot of pain today. Sometimes it gets to me, and I need to drop the brave face. If my kids or grandkids saw me like this …” She looked down and spun her handkerchief around her fingers. “Maybe this is just what getting old means for me.”
She chewed her lip, and the handkerchief became a knot. “To tell you the truth, sometimes I’m not sure life is worth it, if it’s going to be like this. That’s when I come here. It seems ridiculous, but a few minutes of not having to be brave, but giving in to feeling sorry for myself, helps.”
“I know,” was all I could say. I reached out my hand and she took it. We stayed silent for a moment, succumbing to emotion. I said, “It is so hard …” My husky voice revealed my own fears.
She nodded as she took her hand from mine and pulled herself up. I saw her wince as she stood.
“Thank you. For your understanding.”
“May God give you strength,” I replied. It seemed appropriate, since we were in a chapel.
She nodded, collected her walker at the end of the pew, and slowly pushed out of the door. I sat in the quiet, thinking of all sad things. I knelt and tried to pray, for her, for all of us, and my eyes kept filling. I thought of Bethany, but now my memories of her bled into memories of Katherine, my comforting images of Cal were overlaid with the images of Nathaniel’s crumpled despair. I had stained my own memories, making even sources of comfort smudgy with guilt. I layered my hands on the back of the pew in front of me and put my head down on top of them.
That’s how I was when Iris found me. She touched my shoulder.
I pulled up, startled and disoriented. “Huh, what?”
There was alarm in her eyes. “Mom? Are you okay?”
“Iris!” I blinked and rubbed my face. “What are you doing here?” I struggled to get up.
She lifted me into a hug. “We got back early.”
I reveled in her warmth. Then my mind raced. What would this look like to her? In the years since her father had died, I had made no secret of my doubts about organized religion, and yet there I was, asleep on my knees in the chapel. I’d convinced her to go on vacation and begin building her new life, not to worry about me, and this is how she finds me?
I squeezed her tightly, feeling the sting of tears. “It’s so good to see you.”
We sank onto the pew. “Oh, Mom. It’s good to see you too.” We simply smiled at each other for a moment. She’d been in the sun, and the freckles that marched across her nose were subdued under a tan. She looked healthy. Then she scraped her upper lip with her teeth. “I hope you haven’t been too lonely? I mean …” She gestured around the chapel, acknowledging the irony. “We worry about you, you know.”
I reached out and took her hand. “Don’t you worry about anything.” I leaned forward and used the pew in front of me to pull myself up, suddenly cheered. “Let’s go to the patio. We can sit outside. I want to hear all about your trip!”
She stood, kissing my cheek. I leaned on her elbow, and we slowly made our way out and through the lobby. Hallways radiated off the main lobby, some went to the music room and library, others to the dining room. But in between there was a short hall to a sunroom and adjoining patio.
We found a wicker bench.
“So, how was Yellowstone? Do you have pictures?”
She pulled out her phone and began swiping through images of gorgeous scenery; Jimmy mugging for the camera in front of a mountain lake; Iris in a wide-brimmed hat, eating an ice cream cone. They seemed so lovely, so entirely normal, somehow. So—dare I think it?—like images of the old Iris.
“Oh, honey!” I heard the emotion in my voice. “It looks like you had a great time.
“We did. It was great to get away. Gain some perspective.” Iris set down her phone. “Mom?” she swallowed. “I know Jimmy talked to you about our—well, our possible plan. About moving.”
She took my hand, and I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb.
I said, “I think there is a lot to be said for it.”
She shrugged. “I think so too. Sometimes. But then I’m not sure. Am I just running away? I don’t know anybody in the city. Maybe it will be worse.” She frowned. “I don’t want to always be the woman whose kid died. But in the city, I’ll be just another person, and nobody will know. I don’t think I’d like that either.”
“It will take some time, but you’ll meet new friends. Just like other things, as you get to know people, you learn about one another. And then your friends will know.”
She lifted her head, eyes moist. “But none of them will have known her.”
I bit my lip and nodded. There was nothing I could say to that. We sat in silence.
Finally she said slowly, “And I’ll be farther away from you.” Her voice cracked. “I don’t like that, Mom. I feel like we’d be leaving our family behind.” She pressed her lips together.
“Iris, it isn’t the end of the earth. I lived hundreds of miles from my mother.”
“Right. And you always used to say how much you hated that.”
“Yes, but my mom lived nine hours away. This will just be a … small inconvenience.” I pushed hair off her forehead. “Look. It’s been a blessing that all of us have lived so close to each other. But seriously, it might even do me good. Force me to get out. I always meant to get into the city more.”
“We don’t know for sure we’re doing it yet.”
“I know. But I want you to do what’s best for you.”
She evaluated me, her gaze suddenly sharper. She pulled back to run her eyes down my frame. “Well, here I’ve been yammering on about our trip, and moving, and you look so thin.”
“I’m fine.”
She exhaled, like the old Iris. “Really? Even though you’re hanging out in the chapel?”
I smiled. “I know.” I nodded in recognition of the absurdity. “But everything is okay. Honest. I just go there to think sometimes because it’s so peaceful and no one ever bothers you. I guess it was so quiet I fell asleep.”
She looked me up and down. “I feel like I should worry.”
I waved her comment away. “Sweetie, I’m fine.”
“You always say that. You said that after you fell—right before we had to take you to the hospital.”
I lifted my shoulders in acknowledgment. “I know. But I truly am fine. Not that I don’t get blue sometimes. I do. And then I go to the chapel. I just needed a place to think. To remember.”
The apprehension in her eyes softened, and she nodded. “I understand.” If anyone could understand, it was Iris. “But I mean it. I refuse to even consider a move if it will hurt our relationship. I couldn’t handle the guilt. Please. You have to promise you’d tell me if something was going on, if you were worried about something.”
This was one promise I could never make, not to Iris. I squeezed her hand. “Oh, sweetie. What would I worry about?”
That evening I went down to the dining room early, seeking distraction from my own thoughts, and also because tonight there was a “cocktail hour,” when the staff put out little bowls of peanuts and offered alcohol before dinner; I’d decided to allow myself a glass of wine. Also because Evan tended to eat later, and I didn’t want to encounter him. Those stories—his wife, her cancer, his brother-in-law, the other woman who Stinson had killed … It felt like opera buffa, complicated and messy, a story that kept widening and pulling people in, a time line that was more like a spiral. Who knew what was true and what was conjecture or even paranoia?
Although he had been right about the names. I’d double-checked my clipping file about the investigation. The lawyer who’d defended Stinson was named Mazinski. The prosecutor was Theil.
But still. I had not seen Evan since receiving his note, and I had no desire to. I was pretty sure he’d want to talk again, and I did not want to discuss anything to do with Katherine, the trial, or the judge. At all—ever. I had no reason to trust him—that letter he’d shoved under my door, which was supposed to put me at ease, was meaningless. The statute of limitations had long since run out on any of his illegal acts. And what did he care if his reputation was ruined now, so long after his retirement? That note offered me no real security.
Though, in a weird way, some aspects of Evan’s visit had reassured me, a little. Whatever could be said about him, Evan was an unusually observant guy. A professional noticer. If it took a person like him to be suspicious, and even then, he couldn’t prove anything—well, it made me feel that I could avoid any repercussions. The smartest thing to do was to keep my head down. It had been weeks, and the more time that passed, the less likely it was that anyone would think anything was amiss, or even remember the circumstances of Katherine’s death.
That was only in terms of legal consequences, of course. Emotionally, I felt more vulnerable than ever. Like a layer of skin had been removed. I was raw. Prone to crushing sadness, feelings of despair. Fear of death, even more than usual. My thoughts had grown more kindly toward my fellow residents, as if my own particular guilt had merged with the more generalized sorrow.
But one of the best things about my table in the dining room, half hidden behind the door, was that it was near the coffee station and the nook where the staff hung out and chatted as they prepared to serve the meal. I could listen to them, especially when I came down early, as they prepped dishes and talked while waiting for the rest of the residents to arrive. It reminded me of my old working life during the occasional slow times when we would gather in the break room or hang out at the desk and gossip about who was sleeping with whom, and who was getting engaged or divorced, or which patients were the most difficult. Some might say I was eavesdropping, but that implies an intention. I simply let their conversation wash over me and savored memories of when I belonged somewhere and contributed to something.
Behind me, Jannah was talking about her son, Shaun. I had seen a picture of Shaun: a bright-eyed seven-year-old with brown skin and curly hair, wearing a Spiderman T-shirt and eager grin. Jannah glowed when she talked about him. Last month she told me how he’d gotten all A’s on his most recent report card. Now Jannah was saying, “He’ll be starting Little League next week.”
The person she was speaking to sighed. There was longing in it, and sadness. Then Jannah spoke again. “Don’t worry. You’ll be able to visit him soon.” There was no response that I could hear, and then Jannah’s voice again, soft and sympathetic. “I can’t imagine how you must miss him.”
“It’s two years. He’s getting so big … He won’t remember me.” The mournful voice was familiar. It was Graciela. “He was so little when I left.”
“But you talk with him every night, right? And I’m sure your auntie tells him about you. Keeps you alive to him.”
Another sigh. “But she has so much to do. She’s still working when she can find something that pays. I can’t send enough back.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. Like I said: I’m raw.
“Aren’t you up for a raise?”
“Yes …” There was a pause, and the change in her voice was palpable. “Thomas has to approve it.” Then she dropped into a whisper. I couldn’t make out the words, but her tone was so upset it chilled me. Thomas was a manager that I knew all the staff disliked. He was oily and obsequious to residents, but I had seen him be short-tempered with the staff.
Jannah replied, “I know. He accused me of forgetting to take Mr. Dion his dinner last week.”
Graciela stammered her answer. “He knows that I was on duty …”
What was this? I bent my head to listen more closely. Her weeping was barely contained behind her whispers, but I could make out a few words. Including “ICE” and “sent back.”
Jannah’s whisper was outraged. “But he’s Ramon’s cousin!”
I risked a sideways glance. Jannah had her arm around Graciela, whose normally carefully plaited hair was coming loose and untied. Jannah was patting her shoulder, the way you comfort someone at a funeral. There was a crash in the other end of the dining room, and I spun around. Mrs. Hanson had driven her motorized wheelchair into the corner of a table and sent a place setting clattering to the floor. “Oh dear,” she cried. When she pulled on the controller to back the beast up, she banged into the chair occupied by Mr. Ron Gilliard.
“Watch what you’re doing, for God’s sake.” Gilliard began pushing on the arms of his chair, trying to get up while ranting, “Damn women drivers! Even in here, I can’t get away. Who gave you a license for that thing anyhow?”
Gilliard’s daughter, seated next to him, took command. “Dad, please sit down before you fall. She didn’t mean anything.”
Mrs. Hanson looked mortified. “Oh dear. Oh, I’m so sorry. I just got this chair and I …”
By now Jannah and Graciela had arrived. Jannah said, “It’s okay, Mrs. Hanson, no harm done. Everything is fine.” I saw Graciela wipe her eyes before tucking the Kleenex into her pocket.
I don’t remember what I had for dinner. My mind kept circling back to what I’d overheard. Was I being a nosy old lady? Very well, maybe I was a nosy old lady. But what had she been talking about? The small voice I kept ignoring murmured, she might know something or have seen something.
I had to keep my ears and eyes open. I had to get to know Graciela and Jannah better.
The opportunity to act on that intention presented itself only a few hours later. Graciela was on medication duty on Monday nights, so I waited with my door cracked open. As I heard her round the corner, I stepped out into the hall. I played with my phone, proceeding very slowly, till she was close enough to help me, and then I accidentally on purpose dropped the rosary I was carrying.
Graciela, always kind, noticed. She seemed very quiet and heavy-spirited, but she lifted her lips in a small smile and said, “It’s okay Ms. Greene. I’ll get it for you.” She picked up the rosary. “This is so pretty.” Then she weighed it in her hands. “And heavy. No wonder you dropped it.”
“It’s hand carved, from Rome. That rosary was blessed by the pope himself.”
Graciela lifted an eyebrow in curiosity and stroked a bead with her forefinger. “Really? Did you see him?”
“Not me. My mother-in-law. Her cousin was a priest who worked in the Vatican, and when she visited him, she managed to go to one of those masses with the pope where he walked by and blessed people. She held it out as he passed. It was one of her treasured possessions.” I watched as Graciela examined the lovingly carved crucifix affixed to the end of the rosary. I asked, “Are you Catholic by any chance?”
She nodded. “I am. Everyone is where I come from.” She paused. “Here is not the same. I didn’t even know which church to go to when we first get to this place.” She’d been rolling the beads between her fingers this whole time.
“Where are you from?”
“From Guatemala. Very different from here.” An expression at once nostalgic and hopeful slanted across her features like a passing shadow. “But it’s better here. I work and I send money home. My husband and me, we go to school, and our life will be better and better.”
Her face lit up as she spoke. In her voice I heard the echoes of generations of people from all over the world who arrived here with hope and fear, saying almost exactly the same thing with a thousand unfamiliar accents. For some of them, maybe it had come true.
I asked, “Do you have children?”
The light dimmed. She dropped her gaze. “Yes. But my son is in Guatemala. He stays with mi tia until I can bring him.”
I changed the subject. “What are you studying?”
She lifted her chin and gave me a quick smile. “I want to be a nurse. It is why I work here: I can learn more.” She hesitated. “I began my studies in Guatemala before we came. I almost finished to be RN. But my husband got a job here, and we had to come then. So now, in two months I take my test to go to the university. But first I need more English, to pass the exam.”
I perked up. “Graciela, did you know I was a nurse?”
She nodded. “Jannah told me.” And she added, again with a hint of shyness. “Was it good work?”
“I loved it. In fact”—I hesitated—“I mean, I would be happy to help you study for your exams. If you’d like.”
Her eyes widened, but then just as quickly, she moved back the tiniest bit. “It is not allowed. We are not supposed to be too much friends with the residents.”
“Well, that’s ridicu—” I stopped myself. She was obviously feeling vulnerable. I didn’t want to diminish her fears. “Well, maybe there’s a way. Think about it. We don’t need to do it here.”
She nodded.
I gestured toward my door. “Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?”
She blanched. “Oh no.” I saw anxiety veil her eyes before she shifted to a tone more distant and official. “I need to go. The people need their medicine before they go to bed.”
“Of course,” I said, “but I really would love to sit and chat with you a little bit more.” I was reluctant to let our connection go. I said, “I’ve always been interested in Guatemala. And I’ve never been able to visit.” I was fully aware of how false that sounded, like stilted dialogue from a bad travel commercial played late at night. So I decided to add the sympathy card. “It gets boring here. A lot of the people, their memory is gone …” I just let the implication hang, not wanting to explicitly brag about how much sharper I was than some of the other residents, even though maybe it was true.
I could tell she was struggling with what attitude to take. Sympathetic? Humoring? In the end she settled on distant and professional. “That would be nice. But the work makes me very busy.” She patted my arm with a touch of apology and a smidgeon of the condescension the young commonly display toward the old.
From the apartment across from us, I heard my confused neighbor calling, “Hullo? Is that you? Amanda?” Graciela heard it, too, and sighed down at her cart. “I better get Mrs. Collier her medication.”
And then, from down the hall, a sharp voice sounded. “Graciela! You’re behind schedule. Is there a problem?”
Both of us turned and beheld Thomas, bearing down on Graciela like an ocean tanker on a rowboat. I stood up a little straighter and stepped forward to intercept him.
“I needed Graciela to help me.” I explained. “I dropped something.”
He immediately slipped into the gooey officiousness that he adopted around the residents. Especially around residents like me, who still have our wits, our memories, and our hearing. He reminded me of a mean fifth-grader, the one who picked on kids smaller than him, sucked up to kids bigger than him, and always appeared to be perfectly angelic when the gaze of the teacher turned his way.
“I see. Well, I’m glad she was here to help.” Then he turned to Graciela. “But you better get back to work.”
Graciela kept her face down, but I saw a flush on her neck. “Yes, sir.” She wheeled the cart a few paces away and began to check the contents of the little cups against a clipboard. He spoke sharply, “Without further delay.”
Graciela hurried the few paces to Mrs. Collier’s door, looking like she couldn’t get away fast enough.
I cleared my throat to get Thomas’s attention. “I didn’t mean to delay Graciela.”
He turned his oily condescension toward me. “She needs to make sure that people get their medications on time. Even though we appreciate that our residents might like to chat, that is not really the role of our help.”
My chest felt hollow. What had led to this rigid adherence to the schedule? It seemed new. I thought of Evan. I suddenly regretted throwing him out of my apartment before I could suss out exactly what he thought about Katherine’s death.
I said, “I understand. In fact, I have been meaning to commend you on what a good job Ridgewood does in hiring its staff.” I emphasized the last word and edged closer to him as I spoke.
He backed away slightly. I could tell he was trying to work out what exactly I was driving at. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes. Um, thank you.”
“Timely medications are something I appreciate. You know I was the chief surgical nurse at St. Mary’s until a few years ago. So I’m especially impressed by the excellent staff you have.”
He nodded, still uncertain what my intention was, unsure if he was being praised or put in his place. For Graciela’s sake, and Jannah’s and the others’, I hoped maybe he took it as a warning. Whatever he was doing to make them feel afraid, I wanted to somehow extend a bit of protection their way.
Thomas said goodnight and walked off, but I was left unsettled. I resolved to keep my eyes open. For one thing, it worried me that Thomas seemed to be paying special attention to the evening medication rounds. For another, focusing on helping Graciela and the others would make a nice change from worrying about the state of my soul.