The Decoding of Lana Morris (21 page)

Garth stops smoothing his hand along the length of Popeye’s back. His face twists into a look of terrible anguish. “ ’Ot ’umming,” he says. “ ’Ot ’umming for me.”

It takes Lana a second to supply the right consonants, and by the time she gets “not coming for me,” Garth has started to cry.

“She might, Garth, your mother might come back,” Lana says, but she hears how puny and untrue the words sound even as she speaks them.

“ ’Ot!” he says with awful vehemence. “ ’Ot ’umming ever!”

Lana starts to disagree, to offer hope where there isn’t hope, but she can’t. She just can’t.

She eases closer to Garth. She’s almost holding her breath as she extends her arm beyond him and carefully lowers her hand until it barely touches his shoulder and then, as she slowly lets the full weight of her arm settle across the breadth of his thin shoulders, he screams and pulls back from her. He trembles and holds himself and seems so incredibly slight, as if there is nothing to him except skin stretched over hollow bones.

“It’s okay,” she says, trying to soothe him with her voice. “It’s okay, Garth, you’ve got us.”

And it’s true, for the moment, it’s literally true. Tilly and Alfred and Carlito materialize from nowhere, and Carlito leans forward to bless Garth’s shoulder, which Garth allows, to Lana’s surprise, and then Tilly and Alfred and Carlito are standing around them in a circle of oddness and fondness and need, and Garth stops crying. If Lana has ever felt more certain of anything, she can’t remember when it might’ve been.

“You’ve got us,” she says again. “You’ve got me.”

M
id-afternoon, Veronica returns home. Her face has a radiant quality—it almost glows. Lana, unobserved, watches her from the kitchen, and Veronica starts slightly when Lana says, “How’d the physical therapy go?”

After Veronica realizes that it’s Lana, her surprise fades. “Oh, it’s you,” she says, hardly glancing Lana’s way, which is fine by Lana because she’s in her bathing suit, a thick, horrible two-piece that she only put on because nobody but the Snicks were around. Veronica picks through the small pile of mail that had been neatly stacked on the kitchen table. If she’s noticed how clean the house is, she doesn’t mention it.

Lana glances out the window to the backyard, where the Snicks are sitting in the plastic wading pool they’ve cleaned and filled, or at least all of the Snicks except Garth. He’s gone back into his lilac room.

When she turns back, Veronica has left the mail scattered on the table and is heading for the stairs.

Lana steps out of the kitchen. “So was it tough?” she says.

Veronica looks back. “Was what tough?”

“The physical therapy,” Lana says. “With Dr. Gooch.”

“Oh,” Veronica says. “Yes, it was. It was very demanding.” And then Veronica’s eyes go regal and cold and sly. “But I took a surprising amount of pleasure in it.” She sends her gaze beyond Lana. “Unfortunately, I’m a long way from finished. Dr. Gooch says we will definitely need to schedule some extra sessions.”

As Veronica lets this settle in, her gaze drifts down to Lana’s swimsuit. “Well, aren’t you the long, skinny thing,” she says. She smiles her cool smile. “But the bikini is all wrong for you. You should try a high-cut one-piece to distract from the fact that you are for all practical purposes boobless.”

Snick House is waiting for the wrecking ball and I’m getting fashion tips from the Sleaze Queen
. That’s what Lana thinks. “Faith,” she says. “Unity.”

“And the same to you,” Veronica says pleasantly, and begins again up the stairs.

“An inspector was here today from Protective Services.”

Veronica turns. “What did he want?”

“It was a woman. She seemed interested in your whereabouts. Somebody filed a complaint.”

“About what?”

Lana shrugs. “Who knows? She went through your room, though. She took a bottle that said T.L.C. Primera on it. Also a magazine with naked men in it.”

Veronica is surprisingly calm. She comes to some quick conclusion about what has happened, and the conclusion, whatever it is, doesn’t disturb her. “It’s just as well,” she says. “Dr. Gooch doesn’t like the fact that I have to deal with the added trials of running a foster home when I should be dedicating myself to my complete recovery.”

As if running Snick House has been much of a trial to her recently, Lana thinks, but she doesn’t want to argue. Besides, that isn’t what concerns her. “You don’t care that it might be the end of Snick House?”

Veronica gives this a frosty laugh. “I’ve spent years praying that I wouldn’t need to run this place, but we always needed the money. And now …”

“And now you don’t?”

Satisfaction slips into Veronica’s expression. “Dr. Gooch is very committed to my full and complete recovery.”

“Are you going to marry him?” Lana asks.

A laugh explodes from Veronica. “Marry him? God, no. He’s just become … an ally. An ally in the day-to-day battles of life. Besides, as I think you’re aware, I am already married.”

Lana stares at her and wonders if she’s looking at a new kind of cannibal, one who uses everybody up, who eats people from the inside. She wonders if it’s too late to erase all of Veronica. Make her disappear.

Veronica is smiling. “You’ve got attitude, Lana, but you’re so
young
. You have a child’s eyes. You haven’t begun to see how actual adults really get by. You think I’m evil, I can see it in your eyes, but what I do is no different than what your beloved Whit does. He has his allies, too, the people he gets to do what he needs done.”

Veronica lets this idea hang in the air. Lana wishes she could run from it and never hear what’s coming next, but she knows she will, and she stands where she is.

“You, for example, are one of his allies,” Veronica says. “You take care of the house for him and”—she smiles coolly—“you take care of me for him.”

Lana starts to disagree but isn’t sure of her footing. She doesn’t want to admit she does anything in particular for Whit.

“And that nurse at the hospital that replaced your pills with placebos,” Veronica says. “That was another of his allies.” She takes a deep breath. “And now of course he has the widow.”

Confusion floods Lana. “What widow? What’re you talking about?”

“The widow Mullins. The widow whose house Whit has been painting.”

“What about it?”

Veronica pretends to be bored, but Lana can tell how much she’s enjoying this. “Have you ever noticed how when he comes home, he never has paint on his clothes or on his arms or under his fingernails?”

Lana hasn’t noticed, as a matter of fact, but now that she thinks about it, she doesn’t remember paint on him.

Veronica says, “And have you ever noticed how he doesn’t smell of turpentine?”

Lana wants to object, but she can’t. One of her mother’s boyfriends had been a painter, and he always smelled like paint thinner, even on weekends when he wasn’t painting. But Whit never smelled like anything other than himself, or lime shaving cream, or sometimes smoke and gin.

“The widow Mullins is rich and she’s old,” Veronica says, “but she’s not so old she doesn’t like a little … 
company
.”

“Are you saying …,” Lana says, but she doesn’t even know how to complete the sentence.

“I’m saying that one thing Whit and I have always
understood is that allies come in all shapes and sizes.” Her smile is sly and wintry. “It’s how we got into the foster business.”

Lana shakes her head violently. “But Whit likes us.”

“It’s true,” Veronica says. “He does. But without the check from the state each month, he would like you less.” She smiles. “Quite a bit less, actually.”

Lana stands dazed. She feels vulnerable. She wishes she had something to put on over her swimsuit.

“You see?” Veronica says. “You’re surprised. In fact, you’re mortified. That’s because of your child eyes. When you’re a little more mature, you’ll see things differently, and, believe me, you’ll have allies, too, lots of them, probably more than Whit and me combined.”

“I won’t!” Lana says, and even as she says the words, she hears how young her voice sounds.

Veronica seems to hear it, too, because she feels no need to rebut it. She starts again to go upstairs but again stops for another word.

“Oh, and just so you know, that magazine with the cute, stark-naked men in it? I didn’t bring that home. Whit did. He likes me to go through it and decide which one I’d like to … canoodle with”—Veronica actually winks—“if I wasn’t married to him.” She smiles. “It’s surprising how it ratchets up the evening’s high jinks.”

Lana tries to hold herself very still. She feels actually, physically ill.

“Ah,” Veronica says. “You’re appalled. And yet, someday, you won’t be.”

Veronica takes the stairs then up to her room. By the time her door closes, Lana still has not moved. What has come into her mind are the words Veronica’s friend Louise
had used to describe Veronica’s going out to find Whit the night of the car wreck:
The tender little secrets between a wife and her husband
.

Louise had made it seem like these were the kind of secrets Lana couldn’t understand now but one day would, but she was wrong about that, Lana thinks, she was completely wrong. Lana will never understand secrets like these.

Lana takes a beach towel from the back of a kitchen chair and wraps it all the way around herself, feeling the thin cotton fabric tighten over her shoulders, elbows, and wrists. She stands there like that for at least a minute before Tilly’s voice calls her into the backyard.

“Found a marble!” Tilly shouts, and waves the small object in her hand. She’s wearing a pink two-piece that makes her look oddly toddler-like, and her knees are muddy. “It’s a green one,” she says, beaming, “but I’m calling it Pinky!”

“Makes sense to me,” Lana says, but without her usual irony. The truth is, at the moment, calling a green marble Pinky makes as much sense to Lana as anything else in the world.

O
ne slight change for the better.

Veronica hasn’t thumped her cane today. Probably she knows Lana will no longer respond and doesn’t want to give Lana the pleasure of proving it, but no matter what the reason, it’s one slight change for the better.

Around three, Veronica comes down and makes herself some toast and soup. (Lana watches her struggle one-handedly with the can opener for a few seconds before opening it for her.) Veronica then sits at the table eating and reading
Us
magazine without a glance at anyone or anything around her.

When she’s finished, she leaves her dishes on the table and says she’s not to be disturbed, she’s taking a nap. “Dr. Gooch says I need a one-to-two-hour nap every afternoon.”

After she’s beyond earshot, Lana says in a low voice to Tilly, “Dr. Gooch is probably practicing without a license.”

Once it’s quiet upstairs, Lana goes to the house phone and dials Hallie’s number. She gets a secretary who says, “I think Miss Simpson’s in a meeting. Let me check.”

Lana knows what
Miss Simpson’s in a meeting
means. It means Hallie’s trying to get some work done or is taking a break or is just in a really bad mood, but whatever the reason, she doesn’t want to be disturbed and, since she’s Hallie, she isn’t going to be.

Which makes it all the more amazing when Hallie comes on the line and says, “Hello, Lana. How are things?”

“Something bad’s happening here, Hallie. I think the state’s going to close this place down or something.” She starts to tell her about Inspector Stilller, but Hallie gently interrupts.

“I heard about it this morning. There has been a serious complaint.”

“Was it the woman across the street? Mrs. Harbaugh?”

“It was a family member.”

Lana is confused. “What do you mean, family member?”

“Someone from one of the clients’ families. Someone from the immediate family.”

The answer comes to Lana with startling certainty. “Was it Garth’s mom? A Mrs. Stoneman? Was it her?”

Hallie says she has already said too much.

So it was her. It was Garth’s mom. Lana can hardly believe it.

“Now what?” Lana says. “What will happen to us?”

Hallie explains that the department will quickly come to some disposition with regard to the complaint and investigation. “They could close the place, they could order another inspector out, or they could do nothing.”

“What do you think they’ll do?”

A second or two passes before Hallie speaks. “I don’t know, Lana. But I’m pretty sure they’ll do something.”

“Could they put us all someplace together?”

Over the telephone line, with more than five hundred miles between her and Hallie, Lana can almost feel the kindness of Hallie’s soft laugh. “Oh, sweet Lana,” she says. “You are such a dreamer.”

“But could they?” Lana says.

“This is the state, Lana. We’re already standing room only. There’s no way we’re going to find five seats together in one row.” She is quiet a moment, and then she says, “A couple of months ago you wanted me to transfer you away from these kids. Now you want the whole bunch of you to stay together? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Lana says. This is the absolute truth. She doesn’t know what happened. All she knows is that something has.

“Is there another element here, Lana? Someone you’re attached to?”

“Maybe.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.” This is the truth, too. It’s Whit, of course, but it’s not just Whit. Tilly and Garth and the other Snicks need her, and the Inside Whit needs her, and this has changed everything for Lana, the fact of people needing her. “Look, Hallie, could you try to get another inspection, tell them that the first inspector came at a bad time and kind of had a chip on her shoulder?”

Hallie takes a deep enough sigh that it’s audible over the phone lines. “I’ll try, Lana. But no promises.”

“And if there’s another inspector coming, could you give us a little heads-up?”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Hallie says, but Lana knows that she did hear it and that she’ll give the heads-up if there’s some discreet way she can do it.