"Leave me alone, Teddy. I shouldn't wonder if it was you that drove Jane Hubble away."
The young man's eyes filled with amazement. His smile was sunny and very kind; he looked as if Mae Rose could not help her aberrations.
But Dillon, watching them, was suddenly all attention. Gripped by some inner storm, Dillon raised her eyes in a quick, flickering glance at Mae Rose and the pale young man; then she looked down again.
Eula said, "Everyone knows Jane Hubble's right over there in Nursing." She looked to Teddy expectantly.
"Of course she is," Teddy said kindly. "They can't let us visit them, Mae. It's too hard on sick people to have us underfoot going in and out, getting in the way. Of course she's there. Where else would she be? Ask Adelina." He put his arm around Mae. "I know you miss her. Maybe when she's better, something can be arranged."
Dillon had turned away, seemed to have lost interest in the conversation. She was all fidgets, moving restlessly, and when she settled on the arm of Eula's chair and leaned down to pet Joe, her fingers were rigid, tense; she was filled with hidden excitement-or apprehension.
"She could send word," Mae said. "The nurses could at least bring a message."
"She's too sick," Eula said. "So sick she has tubes in her arms. They wanted to send me over there with the blood pressure, but I wouldn't have it. I won't have all those tubes stuck in me."
Mae Rose's wrinkled face collapsed into a hurt mask. "I'd only stay a minute."
"The doors are locked," Eula said. "That's all I know. That's all there is to know."
Mae Rose said nothing more, sat quietly stroking Dulcie.
"If she's sick…" Dillon began, "if this Jane Hubble is sick…"
Teddy turned to look at her.
Mae Rose burst into tears, covering her face with her hands. Dulcie sat up and touched a paw to the old lady's cheek as the little woman huddled, sobbing.
"How long since you've seen her?" Dillon said to Mae, ignoring Mae's tears. "How long since you've seen your friend Jane?"
"Mae doesn't remember," Eula said. "She gets mixed up-in this place all the days run together. She knows Jane's all right; she just likes to make a scene."
But when Mae Rose finished crying and blew her nose, she fixed Eula with an accusing stare. "Your own husband went over to see her. He tried to see her. He was angry, too, when they wouldn't let him in."
"I told Frederick, don't you go over there." Eula's fat fingers pressed irritably along Joe's back. "I told him, you're not to go over there alone to see that woman."
Dillon looked at Eula uncertainly. "You didn't want your husband to see Jane? But…?" She looked blank, then looked shocked suddenly. Then fought to keep from laughing. "You didn't want your husband…" She swallowed, then began again. "Does your husband- does he live here, too?"
"Lives over in Cottages," Eula said. "You can have your own car, very stuck-up. Then if you get sick you come over here. Frederick says he can't stand it over here, says it's depressing. If you get real bad sick, like Jane with a stroke, then you go into Nursing. I don't know what Frederick does over there in that cottage all day. He says he goes into the village on the bus, to the library. I don't know what he does. I don't know what goes on over there with those women."
Dillon rose and turned away, smothering a laugh.
But after a moment she turned back, gave Mae Rose a little smile. "You must miss your friend. I had a friend once who went away."
"Her room was next to mine," Mae said. "The corner room, the one they use now for visiting. When Jane… When they moved her to Nursing," Mae said doubtfully, "they closed that room, and now they use it for visiting."
"Which corner room?" Dillon asked.
"The one behind the parlor right next to my room." Mae pointed vaguely out through the glass doors toward the far side of the patio.
Dillon walked over and peered out. Turning back, she said thoughtfully, "I don't understand. You mean visitors stay overnight?"
"They-" Mae began.
"No," Eula said irritably. "No one comes overnight. But if you're in bed all the time-bedridden-and you have a dinky little room, you have your visitors there in the big room, it makes a better impression. Those corner rooms are the biggest, private bath and all. If you have a little poky room, or if you're in Nursing, they move you into the corner room to entertain company. Your relatives come, it looks grand. They figure you're getting a good deal for what they pay.
"But when they're gone again, it's back to your own dinky room, and they shut the big room. It's all for looks. Everything for looks." Eula yawned and settled deeper into her chair, shaking Joe. He rose, turned around several times against her fat stomach. Teddy left them, spinning his chair around and wheeling away. From the kitchen Joe could hear a clatter of pots and then a nurse came out, rolling a squeaky metal cart with a cloth draped over.
"Meals for the Nursing wing," Eula said. "Not many of 'em can eat solid food. They get fed early, then get their medicine and are put to sleep."
Joe shivered.
Dillon watched the white-uniformed nurse push the cart away toward the admitting desk. And, ducking her head, pretending to scratch her arm, she kept glancing out the patio doors.
But not until Eula loosed her grip on Joe and began to snore, did Dillon pick Joe up in her arms and head for the patio. His last glimpse of Eula Weems, she had her mouth open, huffing softly.
Pushing open the glass slider, Dillon slipped out into the walled garden, into patches of sun and ragged shade. Joe sniffed gratefully the good fresh air.
Along the four sides of the building, the rows of glass doors reflected leafy patterns. Most stood open to the soft breeze. In some rooms a lamp was lit, or he could see the shifting colors of a TV. The corner room was dark, the glass sliders closed and covered by heavy draperies. Dillon, tightening her hold on him, pressing him against her shoulder, headed quickly for Jane Hubble's old room.
13
Up in the hills above Molena Point the Martinez family was gathered at the pool, Juan and Doris Martinez sitting at their umbrella table wrapped in thick terrycloth robes, their hair streaming from their swim, the two children still doing laps, skimming through wisps of chlorine-scented steam. The harsh light of afternoon had softened, and the shadows stretched long. Though the wind was chilly, the spring day was bright and the pool was comfortably heated-the water was kept all year at an even seventy-eight degrees. The couple sipped their coffee, which Doris had poured from a thermos, and watched ten-year-old Ramon and seven-year-old Juanita swim back and forth the length of the long pool as effortlessly as healthy young animals. The adults had already completed their comfortable limit for laps. Doris's limit most days was about twenty, Juan's twice that. The kids would swim until hunger drove them out.
With careful attention to the changing times even here in Molena Point, to the increase in household burglaries even in the village, they had left only the patio door unlocked, and it was in plain view behind them. They were discussing an impending trucker's strike, which would delay deliveries of window and wall components for Juan's prefab sunroom company. This, in turn, would delay scheduled construction and throw the small firm behind in its work for the next year or more, depending on how long the strike lasted.