It was my fourteenth visit to Edna Zito, two days before I graduated from high school. She leaned over and whispered, “I’m not supposed to talk about those little girls in the forest.”
We were sitting alone together in the nursing home’s little garden. A brightly hued shawl was tossed around my shoulders, a graduation gift crocheted back and forth between Edna and the Roly Polies. They had presented it to me an hour earlier, wrapped in creased, reused wrapping paper decorated with Christmas bells.
I couldn’t believe it. Edna had been disappearing a little more every week. I’d decided weeks ago that she knew nothing. I’d stopped showing her pictures. I was only still visiting because I’d grown fond of her. “It’s OK to tell,” I cajole. “What do you know, Edna?”
Edna had placed her veined, papery hand on my knee. “Do you think it is Opal or Gertie who is spraying Windex on my blue Jell-O? The blue Windex wouldn’t show up. It’d be a clever way to get me.”
“Windex sprays on clear,” I’d reminded her impatiently. “It wouldn’t show up on red Jell-O, either. Tell me what you know about the twins.”
“What twins? I don’t know any twins. I thought we were talking about blue poisons.”
Then I had impatiently yanked two pictures of Carl from my backpack—a copy of the portrait in his book and a newer one, of him maneuvering his way through the media at the courthouse during his trial.
“Is that a movie star?” Edna frowned.
“Please, Edna. You’ve seen these pictures before. Focus.”
“I think it’s time for Chips Ahoy and fruit cup.” Her face was a little pale, her breathing more rapid.
I was eighteen. Untrained.
I shut up and wheeled her in for the afternoon snack.
A week later, Nixon Zito stood in front of his mother’s door, arms crossed, waiting for me. “I think it’s better for everyone if you don’t come anymore.”