Gwendy stands in the doorway, taking it all in, and then she springs into action. She makes quick work of the bed, stripping the sheets, blankets, and pillowcases. Bundling them together with her father’s discarded pajamas, she runs them to the basement, holding her breath, and dumps the dirty sheets and PJs into the washer. Once that’s done, she returns upstairs and sprays the bedroom with a can of scented air-freshener she finds in the bathroom. Then she takes down clean sheets and pillowcases from the top shelf of the closet and remakes the bed.
Standing back and examining her work, she remembers the reason she came to the house in the first place. She finds an overnight bag and packs a change of clothes for her father, a clean nightgown for her mother, and several pairs of socks. She doesn’t know why she adds the extra socks, but she figures better safe than sorry. Next she goes into the bathroom and gathers toiletries. Adding them to the bag, she zips it up tight and heads into the hallway.
Something—a feeling, a memory, she’s not really sure—makes her stop outside the doorway to her old bedroom. She peers inside. Although it’s long been converted into a combination guest room and sewing room, Gwendy can still picture her childhood bedroom with crystal clarity. Her beloved vanity stood against that wall, her desk, where she wrote her first stories, in front of the window. Her bookshelf right there next to a Partridge Family trashcan, her bed against the wall over there, beneath her favorite Billy Joel poster. She leans into the room and gazes at the long, narrow closet where her mother now stores swathes of cloth and sewing supplies. The same closet where she hid the button box all those years. The same closet where the first boy she ever loved had died violently right in front of her eyes, his head bashed to a bloody pulp by that monster Frankie Stone.
And that cursed box.
“What do you want from me?” she asks suddenly, her voice strained and harsh. She walks farther into the room, turns in a slow circle. “I did what you asked and I was just a goddamn child! So why are you back again!” She’s shouting now, her face twisted into an angry mask. “Why don’t you show yourself and stop playing games?”
The house responds with silence.
“Why me?” she whispers to the empty room.
54
MONDAYS ARE NOTORIOUSLY BUSY days at Castle County General Hospital, and December 27 is no exception. The nurses and orderlies are understaffed by nearly ten percent thanks to the holiday weekend and three members of the custodial crew call out sick because of the flu—but life marches on around here.
Gwendy sits alongside the bed in Room 233 and watches the steady rise and fall of her mother’s chest. She’s been sleeping peacefully for nearly a half-hour now, which is the only reason Gwendy’s alone in the room with her. Twenty minutes earlier, she finally managed to shoo her father into the hallway and downstairs to the cafeteria to get himself breakfast. He hadn’t left his wife’s side since they were reunited yesterday afternoon and was hesitant to go, but Gwendy insisted.
The John Grisham novel sits unopened on Gwendy’s lap, a coupon for granola bars marking her page. She listens to the intermittent beeping of the machines and watches the constant drip of saline and remembers dozens of other hospital rooms very much like this one. The windowless third-floor room at Mercy Hospital where her dear friend Johnathon had taken his final breaths, dozens of photographs and homemade get-well cards affixed to the wall above his head. So many other rooms in so many other hospitals and AIDS clinics she’d once visited. So many brave human beings, young and old, male and female, all united by one basic purpose: survival.
Ever since those days, Gwendy has loathed hospitals—the sights, smells, sounds—all while maintaining the utmost respect for those who fight for their lives there, and the doctors and nurses who aid them in that fight.
“…you will die surrounded by friends, in a pretty nightgown with blue flowers on the hem. There will be sun shining in your window, and before you pass you will look out and see a squadron of birds flying south. A final image of the world’s beauty. There will be a little pain. Not much.”
Richard Farris once spoke those words to her, and she believes them to be true. She doesn’t know when it will happen, or where, but that doesn’t matter to her. Not anymore.
“If anyone deserves that kind of a goodbye, it’s you, Mom.” She looks down at her lap, stifling a sob. “But I’m not ready yet. I’m not ready.”
Mrs. Peterson, eyes still closed, chest still rising and falling, says: “Don’t worry, Gwennie, I’m not ready either.”
“Oh my God,” Gwendy almost screams in surprise, her book tumbling from her lap to the floor. “I thought you were sleeping!”
Mrs. Peterson half-opens her eyes and smiles lazily. “I was until I heard you going on and on.”
“I am so sorry, Mom. I’ve been doing that, talking out loud to myself, like some kind of crazy old cat lady.”
“You’re allergic to cats, Gwendy,” Mrs. Peterson says, matter-of-factly.
Gwendy looks closely at her mom. “Oh-kay, and that must be the morphine talking.”
Mrs. Peterson lifts her head and looks around the room. “You actually convinced your father to go home?”
“Not a chance. But I did make him go to the cafeteria and get something to eat.”
She nods weakly. “Good job, honey. I’m worried about him.”
“I’ll take care of Dad,” Gwendy says. “You just worry about getting better.”
“That’s in God’s hands now. I’m so tired.”
“You can’t give up, Mom. We don’t even know how bad it is. It could be—”
“Who said anything about giving up? That’s not going to happen, not as long as I have you and your father by my side. I have too much to live for.”
“Yes,” Gwendy says, nodding. “You sure do.”
“All I meant is…” She searches for the right words. “If I’m supposed to beat this thing again, if there’s any chance at all, then I’ll beat it. I believe that. No matter how hard of a fight awaits me. But… if I’m not supposed to… if God decides this is my time, then so be it. I’ve lived a wonderful life with more blessings than any one person should possess. How can I possibly complain? Anyway, that’s all I meant… that’s the only way they’re going to stuff me in the ground.”
“Mom!” Gwendy exclaims.
“What? You know I don’t want to be cremated.”
“You’re impossible,” Gwendy says, taking down her backpack from the windowsill. “I brought you some of those little fruit juices you like so much and some snacks. Also brought you a surprise.”
“Oh, goodie, I like surprises.”
She unzips her backpack. “Eat and drink first, then the surprise.”
“When did you get so bossy?”
“Learned from the best,” Gwendy says and sticks out her tongue.
“Speaking of surprises—and I don’t know why in the world I woke up thinking about this just now—but do you remember the year we tried to surprise your father for his birthday?” She scoots herself up in bed, eyes wide open and alert now, and takes a sip from the small carton of juice.
“When we decorated the garage with all those balloons and streamers?” Gwendy asks.
Mrs. Peterson points a finger at her. “That’s the one. He was away fishing all afternoon. We crammed everyone inside and the big plan was to hit the door opener as soon as he pulled into the driveway.”
Gwendy starts giggling. “Only we didn’t know he’d fallen off a log and landed in the mud on the way back to his truck.”
Mrs. Peterson nods. “We’d swiped the automatic door opener from his truck so he’d had no choice but to get out.” Now she’s chuckling right along with her daughter.