Whispers and Lies (21 page)

She shrugged, the tiny gesture upsetting her delicate equilibrium, throwing her frail body into a series of exaggerated spasms. I grabbed a glass of water from the night table, extended the straw to her lips, watched as she coaxed the tepid liquid into her mouth.

“Do you want me to call a doctor?”

Myra shook her head, said nothing.

“What is it? You can tell me.”

“I’m just a silly old woman,” Myra said, really looking at me for the first time since I’d walked into the room. She tried to smile, but the attempt disappeared into a prolonged set of twitches that made her jaw quiver like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

“No, you’re not.” I smoothed several fine wisps of
hair—more like threads really—away from her forehead. “I think you’re just feeling a little sorry for yourself, that’s all.”

“I’m a silly old woman.”

“I brought you a present.” I watched her eyes fill instantly with a child’s delight. We’re never too old for presents, I thought, pulling a small package out of the pocket of my uniform.

She struggled with the wrapping for several seconds, then gave up and handed the present back to me. “You open it,” she instructed eagerly, and I discarded the paper to reveal a pair of bright, red-and-green Christmas socks.

“So your feet will stay nice and warm.”

She brought her hand to her heart, as pleased as if I’d brought her diamonds. “Will you put them on for me?”

“It will be my pleasure.” I lifted up the bottom of the sheets, felt her toes ice-cold against the palms of my hands. “How’s that?” I asked, slipping on first one sock, then the other.

“Wonderful. Just wonderful.”

“Merry Christmas, Myra.”

A shadow, like a large palm frond, passed across her face. “I don’t have anything for you.”

“I wasn’t expecting anything.”

The shadow disappeared as quickly as it had come, her eyes noticeably brightening. “I might have some money in my purse.” She nodded toward the end table. “You could take as much as you want, buy yourself something nice from me.”

I bet you get pretty close to some of these lonely old biddies
, I heard Lance say.
I bet it wouldn’t be too difficult to get them to include you in
their wills, have them sign over the bulk of their estates to you.

He was right, I realized in that instant. It wouldn’t be difficult at all.

And once I had their money, then what? Was I expected to sign over my own estate to Alison? Was that the plan?

Was I the lonely old biddy to whom he’d been referring? Was I the real target here?

Why not? I had a home, a cottage, a retirement savings plan.

Sounds like a plan to me
, I heard Lance say.

Everything is going exactly as planned
, I recalled Alison telling her brother over the phone after Thanksgiving.

What was the matter with me? I wondered impatiently. Where were these thoughts coming from? Hadn’t I made a conscious decision to banish such silliness from my mind?

“Terry,” Myra was saying. “Terry, dear, what’s the matter?”

Instantly, I snapped back into the here and now. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

“I asked if you could get my purse from the drawer.”

“Myra, Josh took your purse home with him months ago. Don’t you remember?”

She shook her head, dislodged several fresh tears.

“You miss Josh, don’t you? That’s why you’re so depressed.”

Myra buried her cheek into the side of her pillow.

“I miss him too,” I said, trying to sound upbeat and cheerful. “But he’ll be back real soon.”

She nodded.

I checked my watch. “It’s only five o’clock in the morning
in California. I’m sure he’s planning to phone you as soon as he wakes up.”

“He called last night.”

“He did? That’s great. How is he?”

“Fine. He’s fine.” Myra’s voice was curiously flat, as if someone had rolled over it with a tire.

“Myra, are you sure you’re okay? Does something hurt you?”

“Nothing hurts. You’re here. My feet are warm. What more could I want?”

“How about a piece of marzipan?” I pulled a miniature marzipan banana out of my pocket.

“Oh—I love marzipan. How did you know?”

“One marzipan lover can always spot another.” I unwrapped the marzipan candy, placed it between her lips, felt her nibble at it like a squirrel.

“It’s delicious.” Her hand reached toward my face. I leaned forward, felt her fingers trembling against my cheek. “Thank you, dear.”

“Anytime.”

“Terry …”

“Yes?”

She lifted her mouth to my ear. “You’ve been so kind. The daughter I never had.”

You’ve been so kind
, I repeated silently back at her.
The mother I never had.

“I want you to know how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me.”

“I know.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” I whispered, burying my tears in the
soft threads of her silver hair.

There was a knock on the door, and I turned, half-expecting to find Josh standing there. If this were the movies, I thought, then Josh Wylie would have flown in as a surprise gift for his mother on Christmas morning. He would have seen me standing beside her bed, recognized me as the great love of his life, and instantly dropped to his knees, begging me to be his wife. But as this wasn’t the movies, when I turned toward the knock I saw, not a love-struck suitor, but an indifferent, gum-chewing orderly. “Yes?”

“Phone call for you at the nurses’ station.”

“For me? Are you sure?”

“Beverley said to tell you it was important.”

Who would be calling me at work on Christmas morning? It had to be Alison. Had something happened? Was anything wrong?

“You go, dear,” Myra said. “I’ll see you later.”

“You’re sure you’re all right?”

“I’m always all right when you’re around.”

“Then I’ll be back before you know it.”

I left the room and headed for the nurses’ station. “Line two,” Beverley said as soon as she saw me. “He said it couldn’t wait.”

“He?” Josh? I wondered. Calling from San Francisco to wish me a merry Christmas, to say he missed me, to tell me he was coming home early? Or maybe Lance, I second-guessed, calling to tell me there’d been an accident, that Alison had been critically injured. “Hello?”

“Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you,” I repeated, disappointed it wasn’t Josh, relieved it wasn’t Lance.

“Erica sends her love, says she’s sorry she couldn’t be with you for the holidays.”

“Who are you?” I shouted, unmindful of the people walking by. “Enough is enough! I don’t know what your game is but—”

“Terry!” Beverley cautioned from somewhere beside me, lifting a silencing finger to her mouth.

I dropped the receiver angrily into its cradle. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to raise my voice.”

“Who was that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I’ve been getting these nuisance calls.”

Beverley nodded. “You don’t have to tell me about those,” she said, chubby fingers carelessly tapping the desk as she leafed through a small stack of patients’ files. She was thrice-divorced and at least twice her fighting weight. Her hair was too short, too permed, and too many shades of blond. Clearly, this was a woman only comfortable with extremes, possibly the reason for the three divorces, I thought, but then, who was I to judge? I’d always felt vaguely sorry for her. Now I wondered if she felt the same about me. “After my last divorce,” Beverley was saying, “my ex-husband called me fifty times a day. Fifty! I changed my number four times, didn’t do any good. I finally had to sic the police on him.”

“I guess I might have to do that.”

“Kind of hard when you don’t know who it is. You have no idea.…?”

A smiling trio appeared before my eyes—Lance and K.C. flanking the man with the red bandanna. “No,” I said.

“Too bad. He sounded so sexy, the way he said your name. Real slow. Kind of like he was purring. I thought it might be, you know, someone special.” She shrugged, returning her attention to the stack of papers in front of her. “Probably just some stupid kid getting his jollies.”

“Well, if anybody else calls, just tell him … I don’t know. Use your imagination.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.”

I heard her laughing as I walked down the hall, no clear idea where I was headed until I found myself in front of Sheena O’Connor’s door. I peeked inside, saw her sitting up and talking animatedly on the phone. I was about to withdraw when her voice stopped me.

“No, wait.” She waved me inside the room. “Come in. I’ll just be another minute.”

While she finished her conversation, I checked on the many flower arrangements and poinsettias that filled the room, watering several that were in dire need, and silently counting the others, stopping at fifteen.
We love you, Mom and Dad. Merry Christmas, Munchkin, from Aunt Kathy and Uncle Steve. Way to go, Love Annie
. I paused the longest at the two dozen long-stemmed yellow roses, recalling the roses Josh had sent me for Thanksgiving, wondering if there’d be a surprise bouquet waiting for me when I got home.

“Smells like a funeral parlor in here.” Sheena laughed as she replaced the receiver.

She looks beautiful, I thought, brown eyes as soft as sable against the whiteness of her skin. Her face was still swollen from the beating she’d received and her subsequent corrective surgery, but the deep scratches around
her mouth had faded into fine lines, and the only sign her nose had been broken was a slight curvature to the left, an imperfection I rather liked, but one she probably wouldn’t.

“I think it smells nice,” I said truthfully.

“I guess.” She nodded toward the phone. “That was my parents. They’re on their way over with a truckful of presents.”

“I bet they are.”

“I just wish I could go home.”

“I would think you’ll be going home very soon. You’ve made remarkable progress.”

“Why don’t you sit down,” Sheena suggested. “Talk to me for a while. Unless you’re busy …”

I pulled up a nearby chair, plopped down into it. “I’m not busy.”

“How come you’re working today? Doesn’t your family mind?”

“They don’t mind,” I said, deciding Sheena wasn’t really interested in the details of my life story. She was just making pleasant conversation as a way of passing the time before her own family arrived.

“Are you married?” she asked unexpectedly, glancing at my bare ring finger.

I pictured Josh, his warm eyes and warmer lips. I felt his mouth graze mine as his eyelids fluttered against my cheek. “Yes,” I told her. “I am.”

“Do you have any kids? I bet you have lots of kids.”

“I have a daughter,” I heard myself say, and almost gasped at my audacity. What was I doing? I tried picturing Alison as she must have looked as a little girl. “She’s older than you are.”

“Just the one child?”

“Just the one.”

“I’m surprised. I would have thought you’d have at least three.”

“Really? Why?”

“Just ’cause I think you’d be a really good mother.” She smiled shyly. “I remember the way you sang to me. How did that song go?”

“
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra
,” I sang softly. “
Too-ra-loo-ra-lie
 …”

“That’s it. It was so beautiful. It was calling to me.”

I stopped singing. “What was it like?”

“Being in a coma?”

I nodded.

She shook her head. “I guess it was like being asleep. I don’t really remember anything specific. Mostly voices off in the distance, like if I was dreaming, except there were no pictures. And then the sound of someone singing. You,” she said, and smiled. “You brought me back.”

“Do you remember anything about the attack?”

A shiver swept the smile from Sheena’s face.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized immediately. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, that’s all right,” Sheena said quickly. “The police have asked me about it a hundred times. I wish I had something to tell them. But the truth is, I don’t remember a thing about the attack itself. I just remember that I was lying in my backyard, working on my tan. My parents were out and my sister was at the beach. I was waiting for a phone call—this guy I liked at school—so I didn’t want to leave the house. I stretched a blanket across the grass and lay down on my stomach. I remember undoing the
back of my bikini top. It’s pretty secluded in my backyard. I didn’t think anyone could see me. I was almost dozing off when I heard it.” She stopped, her eyes coming to rest on a large red poinsettia behind my head.

“Heard what?”

“There was this sound. The leaves were rustling. No,” she corrected immediately. “It wasn’t as strong as that. It was quieter.”

“They were whispering,” I said, my own voice hushed.

“Yes! That’s exactly what it was.” Her eyes fastened on mine. “I remember thinking it was so strange that the leaves would be moving when there was no wind at all. And then I felt someone standing over me, and it was too late.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“My instincts were trying to warn me, but I didn’t listen.”

I nodded. How often we ignore our instincts, I was thinking. How often we ignore the whispering of the leaves.

“Will you sing to me again?” Sheena asked, lying back against her pillow and closing her eyes.

“Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra,”
I began softly.

“Too-ra-loo-ra-lie,”
Sheena sang with me.

“Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra,”
we sang together, our voices steadily gaining strength. And I was able, for a few fleeting minutes, to pretend that the leaves had stopped whispering, and all was right with the world.

“H
e called again,” Beverley said as I returned to the nurses’ station at the end of my shift.

I didn’t have to ask whom she meant. “When?”

Beverley glanced at the large, round clock on the wall. “About forty minutes ago. I told him you were dead.”

I laughed in spite of myself. “What did he say?”

“Said he’d catch you later.” She shrugged, as if to ask, What can you do? “Holiday season brings out all the crazies, I guess.”