“That’s nice to hear.” She waved a hand around the dayroom. “This is all new, courtesy of a generous donor.”
“I’d like to see the rest of the home,” Bernadette said.
Hannah took in Bernadette’s figure and apparently found a small woman in a suit no threat to the elderly. “Feel free to look around. I can’t give you a formal tour right now; mealtimes are very busy. Plus I work in the Memory Care Unit. Does your mom have Alzheimer’s?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not the one to give you a tour anyway.” She pointed down a hallway that skirted past the large dayroom. “Ask for Sheila at the nurses’ station. Go past the dining room, head down the hall, and go to the very end.”
“Sheila,” Bernadette repeated. “Thanks.”
Bernadette followed her nose down to the dining room. The linoleum floor was crowded with seniors, some of them piloting their own wheelchairs and walkers while others were getting wheeled or walked by aides. She wished she could question a few of the diners about Ruth VonHader, but she didn’t want to be overheard by a staff member. They might tell the VonHaders she’d been snooping.
Past the dining room was a wall covered by brass rectangles the size of license plates, the entire collection headed by a sign: “Our Generous Donors.” It was a plaque near the top containing a biblical quotation that drew her attention:
THE VONHADER FAMILY,
IN LOVING MEMORY OF RUTH.
“WHITHER THOU GOEST, I WILL GO;
AND WHERE THOU LODGEST, I WILL LODGE.”
As Bernadette stood staring at the wall, a phlegmatic cough echoed down the hallway. An elderly man in a wheelchair was trying to get by her. “Excuse me,” she said, moving to one side. “I’m right in the way, aren’t I?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and hacked again.
No one else was in the corridor. Bernadette trotted next to him. “Sir?”
In a hurry to get to his meal, he kept wheeling toward the dining hall while giving Bernadette a sideways glance. “What is it?” he grumbled.
She had to walk briskly to keep up. “Did you know Ruth VonHader?”
“Room 153,” he said.
“But did you know her?”
“Room 153,” he repeated. “She’s got a big mouth. Been here the longest of anybody. Knows everybody.”
Bernadette watched as he continued down the hall. She turned around and jogged toward the end of the corridor. Patient rooms lined both sides. All of the doors were open, and every room appeared empty. Finally she hit a room containing a patient. Eating alone, she was sitting in a wheelchair with a hospital tray in front of her. According to the plaques to the right of the door, the woman was either Inez or Gladys.
Bernadette checked the number posted over the names. Room 153. She tapped twice on the open door. “Hello.”
The woman looked up, fork in her hand, and motioned Bernadette to come inside. “Are you lost, chère?”
“A little.” Bernadette walked into the room.
The slight woman was dressed in a velour sweatsuit and sneakers. The skin on her face was olive-colored and leathery. The halo of white hair surrounding her head was as fine and fragile as a dead dandelion. She peered at Bernadette through thick bifocals, but her eyes looked clear and lively. “I had a dog like you. Blue left and brown right.”
“Catahoula leopard dog?”
“How’d you guess?”
“I spent some time in Louisiana. The breed is big down there.”
“My people are from the parish of East Baton Rouge,” the elderly woman said proudly. “I still got folks down there.”
“I thought I detected a little accent. Parlez-vous Creole?”
The elderly woman beamed. “Oui, oui. Je parle Creole. Et vous?”
“Je connais un peu de Creole,” replied Bernadette, holding up her thumb and index finger together to show a small amount. “Did I say that right?”
“Right enough for me, chère.” The woman pointed at her bed with the fork. “Sit.”
“Thank you.” Hoping she wasn’t about to sit down on dried urine, Bernadette gingerly plopped down on the edge of the old woman’s mattress.
With a blue-veined hand, the woman extended a dinner roll. “Eat.”
“I already ate,” said Bernadette. “But thanks anyway. Is it Gladys?”
“Inez. Gladys passed away last week. Died in her sleep.” She forked some mashed potatoes into her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you gonna do?” Inez sawed her roast beef with a butter knife.
Bernadette glanced around the room. The half belonging to Inez was filled with family photos, and her bed was covered in a colorful quilt. Stuffed toys were lined up along the windowsill. “You like teddy bears.”
“My grandnephews keep giving them to me, and I don’t want to hurt their feelings.” She pointed the butter knife at the collection. “I don’t know what got them thinking Auntie Inez likes them mangy things.”
Perfect segue, thought Bernadette. “A friend of a friend had an auntie here.”
“I know everybody.” She popped a sliver of meat into her mouth and chewed. “Been here forever and a day.”
“She died back in April.”
“We had four of them pass away in April,” Inez said, pushing some peas around the plate. “Bad month.”
“Ruth was her name.”
Inez took a sip of milk and nodded. “Brain damage. Had to be fed through a tube in her tummy.”
“She couldn’t eat?”
“Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sit up. Couldn’t toilet herself. She could see, but she couldn’t talk. Couldn’t move nothin’ but her pointer finger, and that was on a good day. Skinny as a toothpick, but she hung on for years and years. She was my roommate for a bit. I been here so damn long, I’ve had everyone in the place as a roommate at one time or another.”
“Did she have visitors?” Bernadette asked.
“Mark.” The elderly woman took a sip of water. “No, wait. That isn’t right. Matthew. Matthew and Luke. That’s it. One of them was a doctor. The other one, I don’t know what he did for a living. He seemed to have plenty of time on his hands. They were real good to Ruthie, especially the older one. He read to her. Massaged her feet. Brought her enough flowers every week to fill a funeral parlor.”
“That’s nice,” Bernadette said stiffly.
“They’d chat it up with the other residents, too. Got real chummy with the aides and kept in touch with them after she passed. I think they even helped a couple of them find better jobs.”
Bernadette didn’t want to hear any more about the brothers’ good deeds. “How did Ruth become brain damaged in the first place?”
“That was a touchy subject with the VonHader clan. The official explanation was ‘household accident.’”
“What kind of household accident causes brain damage?”
“Exactly.”
“What do you think happened?”
The elderly woman shrugged her narrow shoulders and resumed sawing into her meat. “Who knows? Families got secrets.”
“Did Ruth ever communicate with you in some way? Try to tell you what happened to her?”
“Like I said, poor thing couldn’t talk.”
“But did she … I don’t know—signal somehow? Did she indicate she was afraid of Matthew and Luke?”
“No, no. She loved those boys. I could tell. She looked forward to their visits. Her eyes would light up like sparklers.” Inez paused with a sliver of meat halfway to her mouth. “There was this one time, though.”
“What?”
“The older one, the doctor, this one time he treated the both of us to hairdos in the salon here. Three chairs. Looks like a real salon, only it’s open one day a week.” She dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “So we’re in there, me and Ruthie, and we’re getting our hair washed in one of those sinks. You know, the ones with the curve in them so you can rest your neck more comfortable. They’re spraying our heads with warm water and something must have gone haywire with the water temp or something. Maybe she just didn’t want someone touching her hair.”