Kevin took Reggie’s hand, and pulled him out from behind the round counter. “Be good,” he said in a strange voice over his shoulder to me. They went into a small room right next to nurse’s station, Reggie’s grin never faded. The door closed, and I felt like crying. I wanted to go and bust down the door and scream ‘STOP!’
I needed this more, though. I needed to talk to her. That need had continued to grow, and now it was near emergency. The two feelings were so powerful that I needed to sit down; I was light headed, and my knees had yet to stop wobbling.
I sat down behind the counter. Just in front of me were six black and white televisions. Each one showed a hallway. I looked up; two hallways branched left and right from the nurse’s station. I could see that each one branched right and left after a while, too. I looked back at the screens; one camera for each hallway. It made sense. I started to look through the things on the desk.
I found a clipboard underneath a huge stack of papers. On it was a sheet of paper with a set of names, numbers, and other long words with measurements next to them. McPherson, Gwen was the seventh one down. I put my thumb under her name, and ran it along the line. It said 904, and then had a star. I looked at the bottom of the page; the star had “see doctor’s instructions” written after it. She was in room 904. I stood up, but my stomach stayed in the chair. My legs were wobbling. I could tell that if I sat still long enough and listened, I’d be able to hear what Kevin was doing. I didn’t stay still.
Each of the heavy wooden doors had a rectangular window at eye level. The glass was dull, and there was chicken wire just behind it. I stopped in the hallway between 902 and 903. I knew that the next door on my right would be hers. I stared at that door for a while, as if looking at it long enough would make it invisible.
I walked to the door, and put my fingers on the handle. The metal was cold. The lights were dim, inside. I couldn’t see anyone through the window. I turned the handle, but it didn’t budge. It clicked at me. I thought “key.” I looked back at the station. The key would have to be there, somewhere. As I walked back, I heard a muffled sound, and stopped. It was a rhythmic thumping, as if something were lightly hitting the wall again and again. I wondered what it was for a moment, before the certainty settled over me. My knees gave some. I caught myself halfway to the floor.
Just behind the desk there was a large steel cabinet. My eyes were drawn there. I walked to it, playing the song I’d heard earlier by Cash as loud as I could in my head. The cabinet had a place to insert a key. I hoped that it wasn’t locked. I reached up and tugged once, and the door came open with a small creak. The keys were on little rings with small white tags above them. Each tag had a number. I took the one marked 904. The music in my head got louder as I passed back by the doors until I got to hers.
I put the key in the slot, and turned it slowly. It clicked, and the handle gave.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Hospitals have a certain smell. Anyone in the world can be blindfolded and dropped off on a hospital ward and know exactly where they are. The room was dim as I pushed the door open. The smell was different, though, than the hallway outside. Somehow, it was darker; more like something horrible than something strange.
I came in, and shut the door behind me. On the bed, the sheets were rumpled. The nightstand was a jumble of sketch pads. Crayons littered the floor. Against the far wall, a counter and a small sink snugged up under a mirror. To the right of the sink was a wall partition. I couldn’t see what was back there, but I guessed a bathroom. As I stood there, I could hear the sound of water dripping. There was a sloshing sound, and then I heard a door open.
“Who is—?” I heard her say, before I saw her walk out from behind that partition wall. “—it,” she finished, stopping. The lights above her mirror made bright lights shoot through her hair. It looked like a halo, only tarnished like brass.
She was completely naked, and covered in water. Her hair was damp, and she was older, but it still looked like her. She was almost the exact same as I’d seen her on that day she came to get Randy from the Y. My eyes traveled from her lips to her breast to her hips before I could stop them. Something in my head knew I shouldn’t be looking, but I was. Something else in me, deeper down, liked that I was looking when I shouldn’t.
I thought, from the blank expression on her face, she was going to scream. Everyone in movies screams when something like this happens. She didn’t, though. Her face relaxed into a smile.
“Randy,” she said, her shoulders relaxing.
She came forward, and put her hands under my arm I stumbled. I caught myself. She wasn’t strong enough to help, but her touch made it easier to get the strength to stand. I tried to look at her eyes, but mine kept drifting to her breasts, her neck. I smelled her wet skin, and felt its warmth against me.
“This is a surprise. Where have you been?” she asked.
“I—,” I started; her tone made me respond, “I don’t know.”
“Well, you need to stay here with your mama,” she said, her hands still under my arm. She led me to the bed, and sat us both down. I tried not to look at her thighs, at her ankles. “Always out wandering. Gonna’ get yourself in trouble, that’s what.” She reached for my shirt and started to pull it up.
“What are you—?” I asked.
“It’s bath time, Randolph McPherson. No back talk. It is late and I am not in any mood to fool with you,” she said, and pulled my shirt off. My heart was racing. Her eyes were clear! She wasn’t seeing me, but her eyes weren’t murky or cloudy or any of a million other things I’d thought about for so long. Her eyes were clear.
“Mrs. McPherson—,” I started.
“What?” she asked with a small laugh, pulling away from me a bit. “What did you just say?” she asked, her face quirking into a lopsided smile.
“Mrs. McPherson, you’ve got to listen to me for a second,” I said. Her face stayed quirked to the side, “I need to ask you something about Randy, and about the Sheriff.”
“You stay away from the Sheriff, you hear me?” she said, and reached for my belt. I put my hand in the way, and she smacked it. “Boy, what are you doing? It is bath time.”
“I—,” I said, beginning to protest, but I saw that she wasn’t going to listen. Parts of me had begun to respond to her nakedness, though. My shoulders and elbows felt cold, while every other part of me was burning. I couldn’t catch my breath. “Okay, I’ll take a bath,” I said, hearing Randy’s voice in my head as I did, “but I want to undress by myself,” I said.
“Well, I never—,” she started, but then stopped herself. The smile faded. She sighed. “Alright. I’ve never known you to be so shy, though. Go on. But you wash behind your ears, you hear? I could prolly grow potatoes back there.” I stood up and went behind the partition. I was running out of time; somehow, I knew that. I knew that Kevin wouldn’t be able to stand being slobbered on for too long. Some part of me hoped that was how he’d feel, at any rate. Moving away from her made my body start to relax.
“Mom?” I said, and nearly choked. This was the only way, though.
I knew that.
“Yes, Randolph,” she said.
“Tell me about dad,” I said. My shirt was lying next to my shoe, so I bent to pick it up and held it for a moment.
“Your father,” she said, and sighed. “Your father was a police officer, Randolph. He wasn’t the nicest man, but he was a good man. You’ll understand that someday, honey. The difference, I mean. You’ll see it. I’m raising you to be a good man, baby. A good man. You’ll see.” Even though she was still sitting in almost the same position she had been on the bed, I could tell her mind was far away from here. Something in her voice said she was seeing something other than these four walls. Her tone was flat, and the words seemed to come at a steady rhythm. “Your father was a hard man, too. I don’t think you’ll take after him like that. He knew about Peter, though. He hated Peter. Thought he was a ‘weak little nanny boy’” she said, and her voice got deeper, as if she was attempting to imitate someone. “Said ‘that man over there gonna’ take a pretty philly like you to wife?’ He didn’t say it, but I know what he meant,” she said, imitating again. The clicking switch in my head was so loud, I thought someone might come running to find its source.