“Some,” I said.
He nodded to himself, and turned to look out the window once more, “God damn shame to waste a pretty gal like ‘at on someone like Pete. Now, book learnin’ is fine, don’t get me wrong, but Gwen Ladd?” he said, turning to face me again, leaning forward on the desk, his elbows spread wide, “that was the horse shouldn’t never been broke’.” I didn’t understand, but I didn’t know what to say, so I stood still. He looked down at the desk, and said “Last thing that woman needs is for someone to come along digging up that little boy of her’s.”
“Do you—?” I started to ask, but had to clear my throat. He looked up sharply when I did, “Do you know where she is?”
“Up ta’ Delany. Was you around when that boy went missin’?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
He looked up at me, his eyes dialing down to that sharp hardness, “how old was you back then? ‘Bout eleven? Twelve?”
“Twelve,” I said.
He shook his head some, “That boy was her world, son. You got family?” he asked. I shook my head ‘no’, and he nodded once, to himself, as if confirming a suspicion. Then he said “That boy was her world. When he disappeared, well,” he paused, “I believe she didn’t see no reason to stick around.”
“But I thought you said she was at—?” I started.
He tilted his head a bit to the side, and said “Her body is in that loony bin, son, but Gwen Ladd? She stepped out for a cigarette some time ago, and ain’t been back yet,” he paused, “Twelve,” he whispered, shaking his head and looking at the desk. “I tell you this, boy,” he said, looking back up at me, “were the lord god himself to come back today?” he said, tilting his head up at me and squinting, “he’d burn us all down to cinder, and sweep us into the gutter.” Chills ran up my arms. “That’d be about right,” he said, and nodded to himself. My whole body flashed cold.
Somewhere on the ride, I started to wake up from whatever haze I’d slipped into.
To this day, I don’t remember leaving. I don’t remember driving. I don’t remember a lot, except running those final words over and over again in my head, like a movie. When I did wake up enough to know where I was, the car was off. I was in a parking lot. The sunlight didn’t look too much different than it had a bit ago, so it wasn’t much later. I looked out the window and saw that I was at the hospital. Not the emergency room, though; I was parked near the regular building entrance. As I watched, an old man and a younger man walked in the doors together.
“Why?” I asked myself, out loud. No one answered. I knew why, though. I thought back to that day, seeing Mrs. McPherson in the car. I remembered looking past Randy to see her, and the sun reflected in her eyes. I had to know, I guess. Some writer would probably describe that better, but all I understood was that I needed to know.
The doors slid open for me, and I walked inside. The hospital was cold and white. All four rows of chairs in the lobby were white leather. The whole place seemed too clean, a purposeful clean that made me feel queasy. I walked to the desk in the middle of the room. No one was there, so I waited. I watched the monitors showing patients and doctors moving around in black and white. Some cameras were pointed out at the parking lot: I watched a large bus stop outside, and an old black woman get out and hobble toward the front steps.
Just to the right of me, the bathroom door opened, and a man walked out in a white uniform. His ID badge dangled at from his beast pocket. As he walked behind the desk, the phone rang. He picked it up without breaking stride. “Delany admitting, please hold,” he said. He punched the little red button without even looking.
He looked up at me and asked, “Can I help you?” still cradling the phone between his ear and his shoulder.
He was familiar. I’d seen him before; something in the eyes. “Go ahead, it’s not all that important,” I said. He looked down at a page on the desk and tapped the red button again, “Delany admitting, thank you for holding. Can I help you?” He listened for a moment, his eyes roaming the paper in front of him. I couldn’t help but stare. I moved to get a look at his ID badge, and then it hit me. I’d seen those same eyes before, but in a girl’s face. His ID read ‘Leonard Marshall’ and in the photo, he was smiling. I’d seen that same smile, and those same eyes on Jennifer, his sister, so long ago. I flinched, thinking once more about the night I lost my virginity. ‘Lenny’ was ‘Jenny’ Marshall’s little brother by about five minutes. They were twins.
“Yes, ma’m, but I’m afraid visiting hours would be over before you could get here, though. Would you like me to connect you to the phone in that room?” he paused, waiting, then said “Okay, hold on just one minute.” He tapped a few buttons on the phone and asked me “Can I help you?” before he’d even set it back on its cradle.
“Lenny?” I asked, and his eyebrows shot up a bit. “Hi, I’m Mikey Kendall. I dated your sister—god, what? Ages ago,” I said. His eyes relaxed some. I could tell he didn’t remember.
“Ah. Okay. You’re not looking for her, are you? Because she’s—,” he started.
Before I realized I wanted to know the rest of what he was about to say, I said “No, no. Not here to talk to her.”
“Okay,” he said.
“What I’m actually here for is—,” I started before I realized that I really didn’t know what I was here for. I wanted to see Gwen McPherson, but I didn’t know why.
“You’re not a reporter, are you?” he asked.
My eyebrow shot up, “No, why?”
“They’ve been here, already. They’re asking to speak to Mrs. McPherson, poor woman,” he said. He leaned forward like someone in a movie and whispered, “there are a lot of people who think that those bones they found? They think those are Randy McPherson. Or, what’s left, anyways. You know, the kid who disappeared a while back?” I nodded. “Well, seems they want to ask her what she thinks about that.”
“How many have been by?” I asked.
“Four or five, for right now. Guy came from the Tribune, another from the Journal. One guy came in all the way from Duncanville,” he said, leaning forward a little.
“No, I’m not a reporter—but—well, I’ll be honest; I want to see her,” I said.
He nodded as if I’d confirmed something he’d been suspicious of all along. “Thought so. I don’t have any Kendall’s on my roster for today, so I know you’re not visiting any kin,” he said, “you know I can’t let you up, though.”
“None of them got up, either?” I asked.
He shook his head, “Nope. Doctor Baker says no one gets up to that ward without seeing him first,” he said, “and he’s away from the hospital, today.”
I looked down at the counter, my blurry reflection looking back up at me. I smiled and turned away. “Hey, wait,” he said. I turned back to face him. “You’re that guy she went up to Lake Taboga with that one time, right?” I nodded. “Thought so,” he said, and sat down in his chair. I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but turned to walk away, instead.
For some reason, seeing Mrs. McPherson had become a burning thing inside of me. I still don’t know why, but it was all tied up in that same feeling I had the day I figured out that Randy wasn’t in the coffin they put in the ground. In my head, thinking ‘I want to see her’ was the same thing as thinking ‘it’s too narrow’. Randy had never fit in that coffin. I opened the driver’s side door and stared up at the windows, thinking ‘which one?’
The whole drive back to my parent’s place, I couldn’t tell you how I knew any of that. Gradually, it just became certain. I knew that, when the press conference was on the local news at six, those bones would be Randy’s. It was like someone was sitting at a keyboard, somewhere, typing this all out, and I was only finding out line by line. The worst part was that the feeling I had no choice in any of this happening settled into me, and my arms felt heavy. I wanted someone to hold me. I knew that I had to call Susan back, but I found that I wanted Kevin’s arms wrapped around me. I shook my head when I thought of that, and turned the stereo up louder. Unfortunately, my father had pre-programmed only A.M. talk radio shows and I was attempting to block out Kevin’s arms with baseball statistics. I snapped the radio off violently, and forced myself to think about Susan.