Sarah had been preoccupied with Nick all morning. She couldn’t shake the memory of their almost-kiss at the dance. The way his eyes softened, the warmth of his hands on her back, the tenderness in his touch. But his bruised face and absence of an explanation had her concerned. If it were a simple accident, he would surely have said so. No, a black eye said nothing good about this man she barely knew, a man she had willingly let waltz into her son’s life. And wasn’t it her job—perhaps her most important job—to stay vigilant? And yet. There in the hospital, she saw Nick as a man rock solid, so present and patient with Billy, so gentle with Evie. She’d watched from the parking lot as he’d held onto Evie’s purse while helping her into the truck.
A ruckus down by Mazie’s room pulled her away from her thoughts, so she hurried to head it off. Mazie was yelling at Ruth, who’d wedged her wheelchair in front of Mazie’s door, blocking her entry. Mazie had had a rough morning, refusing to call Bingo when her row was filled, refusing to accept a cookie from the snack cart. Now she was winding up to slap the top of Ruth’s head.
Sarah managed to nudge Ruth and her chair out of harm’s way. Mazie slapped Sarah with the force of a slip of paper brushing against her uniform sleeve.
“You’re a stupid woman,” Mazie yelled. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
“You want to go into your room, Mazie? Let me help you.”
Mazie shuffled through her doorway, Sarah following, closing the door behind them to keep the others out.
“This is my room,” Mazie glowered.
“It certainly is. It’s a lovely room.”
Mazie looked blank. She’d already forgotten her spat with Ruth and had moved on to this new fight. “This is my room,” she barked. “Get out.”
“Of course, Mazie.” She helped her settle in her chair by the window. “You have a nice rest here in the sunlight. See if you can spot a robin. We’ll come get you for lunch soon.”
Mazie was asleep by the time Sarah got back into the hallway. Such a difficult morning, the latest uproar over Violet’s missing hummingbird. It had dangled from a frayed string in Violet’s window, big as a fist. It looked nothing like a real bird with its faded green velvet and broken wing, but Violet used to bat at it every time she looked at the sky. First her doll, now her bird. It was so unfair. And with all the other disappearances, the staff were increasingly on edge, turning trivial matters into all out wars. Just the other day, Angelica and Leslie yelled at each other over whose turn it was to fill the hand sanitizer dispensers. They laughed about it later, but they all agreed it was becoming harder to stay focused.
Sarah had time before lunch to check on Evie, who’d quickly become a favourite among the staff, everyone watching out for her since she’d broken her rib. Evie had a sunny disposition and seldom complained, and her skills as an artist were brandished all over their once-dreary walls.
Sarah parked her housekeeping cart at Evie’s door and found Billy and Evie squeezed together on the small couch in her room. “Two of my favourite people. How are you doing this morning?”
“Oh, hello,” Evie said. “Can I help you?”
“We’re playing X’s and O’s.” Billy pointed to the sketchpad on his lap. “Grandma’s won five out of seven.”
She sat on the edge of Evie’s bed across from them. The sun streaked the dappled linoleum, the room as warm as Venus. Like most residents, Evie preferred it greenhouse hot, her sweater buttoned to her neck.
Sarah smiled at the pair. “No painting today?”
Billy shook his head. “We’re taking a break. Grandma’s rib still needs healing.”
“Good idea. But I’m excited to see what you come up with next.” The bulrushes and train were lovely, and now the flower shop door.
“We’re gonna hold off for a while.” Billy added an X, passing the felt marker to Evie. “I got canoeing camp next week. With Ben and Leo.”
She was thrilled that he was finding his place, finding new friends.
“Canoeing,” Evie said, catching that fragment of their conversation. “That’s wonderful, Billy.”
He turned to Evie and said, “It’s not overnight or anything. I’ll still come visit after supper, but I’m gonna be on the water most of the day.”
“Got any lunch plans?” Sarah asked.
He dramatically slashed a line through his X’s and yelled, “Booya!” which made Evie laugh. “I’m eating with Grandma. They’re bringing lunch to the room and sneaking extra for me. A cracked rib goes a long way around here.”
She laughed. “Well, carry on. I’ll leave you to it then.”
“Sarah,” he called out before she got to the door. He loped over and whispered confidentially, his voice throaty and nervous. “There’s something wrong with Rachel.”
She leaned in, whispering too. “Rachel? Why do you say that?”
“She’s been crying. A lot. We hear through the wall.”
Sarah’s heart lurched. The poor woman, her mother’s fight for breath so excruciatingly drawn out.
“Oh, Billy. Rachel’s mom is near the end.”
He crossed his awkwardly long arms. “You mean she’s gonna die here, like next door?” His cheeks reddened. “They’re not going to take her to the hospital for that?”
“That’s right,” she said calmly. “Mrs. Moss will stay here with us until the very end. Her breathing will slow down and become irregular, and it might stop and then start again or there might be long pauses between breaths until her breaths stop altogether. It will be peaceful for her. And after Rachel has said her goodbyes, the funeral home will come and move Mrs. Moss onto a stretcher and take her away so she can be buried.”
Billy rocked slightly, arms crossed, a fixed look of concentration as he stared at the floor.
“It’s a sad time for Rachel, so it makes sense that she might cry. Are you okay, Billy?”
“Yeah,” he said, though she wasn’t sure. “What should I say to her?”
“Just be yourself.”
“I thought she was crying for the bunnies,” he added.
“Sorry? The bunnies?”
“She’s been feeding them at her house—well I guess technically it’s her mom’s house, except her mom doesn’t need it anymore, obviously, so it’s up for sale.”
“Oh,” Sarah said, confused.
“They’re chewing through the flowers. Not Rachel’s flowers; she doesn’t have any. The neighbours told her to cut it the hell out with the feeding, gardens torn up and turd piles everywhere, but Rachel said she’d never met an unkind bunny and she could do what she wanted with her own front lawn. They’re pissed. Really pissed. They won’t let her walk their dogs anymore. Some guy put a letter in her mailbox and called her a lunatic Peta-phile and told her to go back to where she came from. Like he has a clue. That house is exactly where she came from.”
Poor Rachel, this shitty town conspiring against her yet again.
“I’ll go see her right now.”
He nodded, his face uncreasing in stages, relieved perhaps, as if she had the power to fix this.
“Nice to see you, Evie,” she called out with a wave, then pressed her open palm against Billy’s chest. “Don’t you go eating your grandma’s lunch. You leave some for her, you hear?”
She was glad to step back into the air-conditioned hallway and let the cool air blast down on her. Rachel didn’t deserve to be shunned by her neighbours, not now, and not all those decades ago.
She pushed her cart into the Moss room. Rachel slumped in the chair beside her mother, a shrunken, faded version of her fireworks self.
“Thought I’d pop in to see how you and your mom are doing.” She went first to Victoria and busied herself with adjusting pillows and blankets, checking the sheets for signs of wet, the frail woman eerily translucent, her skin a silvery sheen, like broken down rock in a desert creek bed.
Rachel watched, despondent, her nose a brilliant red, raccoon rings of mascara under swollen eyes.
“Rough day today?”
Rachel shrugged. “More of the same.”
“I know this isn’t easy. Why don’t I bring you a cup of tea? A few cookies?”
Rachel shook her head.
Sarah ran her duster along the ledges and light fixtures, prattling while she worked. “I’ve got Carter into a new day home. He’s thrilled to bits to run around with a pack of boys in a huge backyard. Even a trampoline. He keeps asking about you. When can we see Rachel again? He’s asked a hundred times.”
Rachel slumped in her chair, her face pinched and shiny. The longer she sat without moving, the more Sarah could see the lost girl she had been. She moved on to the sink and countertop, using liberal squirts of disinfectant. She could hear the staff in the hallway, coaxing residents towards the dining room. “And Billy’s new door mural has been such a godsend,” she said, her voice light and breezy. “It feels a lot calmer down on this end. The alarm hardly goes off anymore. The whole lot are bamboozled into thinking it’s a real flower shop and not a way out. I caught Edith with her nose to a rose.”
Sarah was worried by Rachel’s silence, a fog settled over her. Her mother remained as still as a faded painting. “Is there anyone we can call? Anyone who can be with you?”
Rachel stood slowly and went to the window, arms crossed, swaying as she looked out. “I know what they say about me.”
“Who?”
“Everyone.”
Sarah felt her heart thud. Of course, Rachel knew. All the gossip and innuendo about the long-lost Moss girl come home. The nasty neighbours trying to run her out of town. “Well, you’re certainly admired here at Prairie View. The way you’ve tended to your mother all these long weeks. The way you strong-armed management into letting us have the murals.”
Rachel remained with her back turned, posture rigid. “People love to hate poor white trash,” she said to the clouds.
“They don’t know you like I do.”
Rachel turned, her gaze intense. “You don’t know me at all.” Her voice was like the snap of an elastic.
Sarah tensed. “I think you’re a saint,” she said quietly.
“A saint?” A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “You think I’ve been the stoic dutiful daughter? I’ve been leaking resentment. It’s been pouring out of me like boiling oil. I’ve been whispering in my mother’s ear. Telling her every little thing she couldn’t hear when I was a child.”
Sarah’s heart sank, her sympathy swelling. Of course resentment would be part of the mix.
Rachel crossed the room, stood over her dying woman, and lightly touched her cheek. “Mother wasn’t the mean one. But she didn’t get us away either. She let it go on and on and on and on.”
Sarah rushed to stand beside her. “Rachel, I’m so, so sorry. It’s not fair. None of this is fair.”
“You think I’m a saint,” she scoffed. “Some days I still want to strangle her.”
“But you haven’t. You’ve sat by your mom and watched over her and told her what you needed to say. That doesn’t make you bad. You can judge the heart of a person by the way they treat the weaker among them. Isn’t that how the saying goes? Bunnies. Little children. Struggling teenagers. The dying. That’s how I judge you. I’ve seen it and felt it. You have a good heart.”
Rachel turned her mascara-streaked eyes towards her. “Billy told you about the bunnies?”
Sarah nodded, hoping she hadn’t just broken a confidence.
“One of the neighbours has threatened to smash their skulls with a baseball bat. I think he wants to smash mine too.”
Sarah’s stomach clenched. “That’s horrible.”
Rachel sighed from deep within her chest, radiating a dreadful kind of angst. “I thought when I came back here this could be a fresh start. But everything’s the same.”
“Don’t let them do this to you. This town is insufferable. You’re dealing with so much right now. Too much. I’m amazed you’re still standing. You’re a good person, Rachel.”
“I want to be,” Rachel said, her voice trailing off like a piece of string.
Sarah could feel the grief shimmering in front of her. She wrapped her arms around Rachel and held her close, counting the seconds until she could feel the stiffness leave Rachel’s body and her arms reach back.