It wasn’t until we were eating supper that I thought to ask. “The Psychic Vampire struck again, huh?”
Ma’s head wiggled. “It’s unbelievable.” She lowered her voice like she was afraid Mrs. White might hear. “You know what she said to me?”
“What?”
“ ‘No one’s taking my window seat!’ ”
“She said that?” My voice was whisperin’ now, too. It all seemed so creepy.
“Mm-hmm.” She leaned in a little. “She claims folks come in at night and beat her up so they can get her spot.”
“Beat her up?”
“But she fights them off.”
“She can’t even sit up!”
Ma sat back. “Well, she’s holding on to her window, I can tell you that.”
I gave that a minute, then asked, “So who’s next?”
“There’s talk of leaving the bed empty.”
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm.” She scooped up some stew. “Despite the waiting list.”
“Seems to me there’s a big waitin’ list to get out of that place,” I said. “You should have seen the crazies trying to climb the fence today!”
She frowned. “I heard. Gloria spotted them on the monitor.”
“The monitor?”
“The whole outside’s covered by cameras. You never noticed?”
I shook my head. “So there’s no hope of them escapin’?”
“Hope? What do you mean, hope?”
“They’re never gonna bust free?”
She was quiet, picking around her stew for a minute. “They’re not prisoners, Lincoln.”
I about sprayed my food. “Tell that to Suzie York. Or to that Sergeant Baker guy.”
“Who?”
“The guy giving crazies boosts over the fence!”
She frowned. And when she spoke again, it was quiet, but in a way that was tellin’ me to hear her loud and clear. “You need to stop calling them crazies. They have dementia.”
“That’s just a nice way of saying they’re crazy.”
She went on like I hadn’t said a word. “And if they did get out, they’d be lost or dead in no time. They’re like children, Lincoln. Someone needs to care for them.”
Questions went flyin’ through my head. Like, Well, who put ’em in there? Why don’t they take care of them?
But those questions also sent pictures flying through my head. Pictures of crazies, living with us. Paula at our supper table, tapping. Debbie off in a corner, hollerin’, “WHAT IS YOUR NAME?” Any one of them leaving puddles on the furniture or screamin’ bloody murder in the shower or flingin’ food around the place—all stuff I’d seen at Brookside.
Instead of asking my questions, I said nothing. But Ma was quiet, too, which usually means a talk is brewing.
Sure enough, right before bed Ma came and sat on my mattress. She had some folded papers in her hands and said, “The folks living at Brookside weren’t always crazy.”
I just nodded, wondering which way this was going.
“I know it’s hard to picture, but they were once eleven, just like you. And I promise you, they never thought they’d be living at Brookside.”
A vision of kids from school all shriveled up and hunched over walkers popped into my head. Colby’s walker was decorated with feathers, and she looked like an old bird, hobbling along. Troy Pilkers was yellin’ stuff and hurling food, Hilly Howard was in a corner, staring at her bracelets, and Kandi was bossing everyone around, teeth clacking and diaper showing.
“I’ve been reading these,” Ma said, pulling me out of my nightmare. “They’ve helped give me understanding and patience when I’m about out.”
“What are they?” I asked.
She handed them over. “Every one of these has a ‘Resident Spotlight.’ That’s the part to read.”
“What’s a Resident Spotlight?”
“You’ll see. Just read.” Then she stood up and went to bed.
When I unfolded the stack, I found myself face to face with the Brookside Bulletin. On top was the November issue, behind it was October, behind that, September and clear back to June—back to before Ma was even working there.
The front page of the November issue had a boxed-in part about Veterans Day, inviting folks to come to a celebration honoring the veterans who were living at Brookside. The date was already past, and I sure hadn’t heard anything about it, but according to the newsletter, the celebration included refreshments and a movie called Flags of Our Fathers.
It sounded like a party.
Outside the box there were three announcements about November activities, with headlines reading FOLLIES TO PERFORM AT BROOKSIDE and EXPERIENCE THE JUNIOR JAZZ TRIO and LORI’S CASUALS FASHION SHOW.
I stared at the page, wondering if this was the same Brookside I’d been going to every day.
Then I turned the page and saw big bold letters announcing RESIDENT SPOTLIGHT—the part Ma had told me to read—and saw that the article was about Paula.
Crazy, tapping Paula.
There was a picture of her looking just like I knew her. But none of that matched a whole page of small print about her. It was written by her two daughters and started with where Paula was born and about her family, where she grew up and went to school—regular stuff. But then it told how she’d worked for thirty years as a civil rights attorney and loved to go rock-climbing.
By the end of the article, my jaw was dangling. I could not picture Crazy Paula rock-climbing. Or working as a lawyer! All I could see was a shriveled-up woman with drooping eyes, tapping.
So…maybe all that tapping came from hearing the judge slam a gavel for thirty years. Maybe that sound was stuck so deep in her brain that it was the last thing to go.
But…an attorney?
What had happened to her? Had she fallen off a rock and hit her head?
I went back to the article and found out that, no, she hadn’t hit her head. She’d just slowly lost her mind.
When I was done with that Resident Spotlight I read the others, and they were all just as flabbergasting. I learned that Peggy Riggs used to teach calculus, Mrs. White had done missions in Africa, Droolin’ Stu used to be a mechanical engineer, and Suzie York had six kids and seventeen grandkids.
“Ma?” I called, and when she didn’t answer, I went to her room. “Ma?”
“What is it?” She was in bed, sounding mighty drowsy.
“Why do some old folks lose their minds and others don’t?”
She propped up a little. “They don’t really know. But they’re trying to figure it out.”
“Who is?”
“Scientists. Doctors. Folks like that.”
“So it’s not from drinking too much booze or hitting your head or eating aluminum?”
“Eating aluminum?”
“Well, drinking soda out of a can. Someone told me once it can give you Alzheimer’s.”
She laughed a little. “Well, I don’t know about that. And liquor and hitting your head won’t help, that’s for sure, but Debbie Rucker’s the only one at Brookside I know of who had something like that happen. A blood vessel broke in her brain.”
“But…why’d that make her want to know folks’ names?”
Ma yawned. “The brain is complicated, Lincoln. I’m not sure anyone can really answer that question.” Her eyes were drooping, but she patted the bed, and when I sat on it, she held my hand and said, “I only want two things from you regardin’ this, okay?”
I nodded, waiting.
“Appreciate being young. I know that can be hard, but you’ll be old soon enough, and there’s no goin’ back.”
I nodded. “And?”
“And quit callin’ them crazies. They can’t help the state they’re in.”
I looked down.
“Is that a ‘Yes, ma’am’?” she asked, and one eyebrow was cocked way up.
I nodded.
“So let’s hear it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She gave me a pat. “Now go to bed.”
Something I was more’n happy to do.