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NOLA KNOX
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Nola woke to the muffled alarm from her cell phone and rose stiffly from the sofa’s lumpy cushions where she’d fallen asleep. The night before, Nola kept walking up and down the basement steps to check on the boxes hidden beneath the stairs, trying to determine whether or not they looked out of place among the other mildewed cardboard boxes and broken rattan furniture.
Around one in the morning she pushed the mountain of clothes from the sofa to the floor and tried to rest but with little luck. She kept thinking she could hear the scritch-scratch of rodents in the walls and wondered if there might be more in the basement.
The ringing continued and Nola found her phone buried beneath the pile of clothes and silenced it. There were dozens of missed calls from her mother’s number. She couldn’t put it off any longer; she needed to go to the hospital and talk to Charlotte about Eve’s case.
Nola called the vet clinic to let them know that she wouldn’t be coming into work today. That she would come into the clinic tomorrow but then wouldn’t be in for the remainder of the week, that she needed to spend time with her mother. Nola hadn’t missed a day of work in ten years. The last time being when she received a nasty bite to the arm. She had been in too much of a hurry, too careless and it cost her a trip to the emergency room to get cleaned up and be prescribed some antibiotics. Good thing the ER was busy and the physician didn’t ask too many questions.
Nola moved to the kitchen and blearily poured herself a cup of coffee from the automatic coffee maker. Sipping the hot liquid, she opened the front door and stepped outside. The warm air was still and thick with moisture, the sky a hazy blue.
Nola felt someone’s eyes on her and looked around to find Colin Kennedy standing on his front porch, cigarette and coffee cup in hand, watching. Colin, Maggie’s older brother, had always been an enigma to Nola. She remembered him being so different than his pretty, popular sister and his big strong police chief dad. He was a common sight riding around town on his skateboard wearing his flannel shirt and cargo pants. He was brooding, quiet and dumb as a box of rocks. Or, Nola thought, that was what he wanted people to think.
A screen door slammed and Henry Kennedy stepped out onto the porch to join his son. Nola hadn’t seen him in a long time. She left for work early in the morning and often didn’t return until late evening.
Nola remembered Henry exuding confidence and authority, but now he was stooped and frail looking. Puzzled, Henry stared at Nola for a long time as if trying to place her. She had heard that he had memory issues. What would that be like, Nola wondered, to gradually forget all that you’ve ever known? She had the opposite problem. She never forgot a thing she read, heard or saw.
Henry leaned close to his son and spoke into his ear. Colin nodded and lifted his coffee cup toward Nola in a greeting. She didn’t wave back. Henry shuffled back inside the house with Colin close behind. Nola wondered if they were talking about her.
Across the street, Joyce Harper dragged her garbage cans out to the end of the driveway, the plastic wheels clacking against the concrete, and nearly tripped when she spotted Nola.
Her eyes lingered on Nola’s face, probably wondering why Nola was still at home at this hour. Or, Nola thought, Cam had told Joyce about their little conversation the night before, but Nola doubted it. The last thing Cam Harper would want is his wife to know about his proclivities. Joyce quickly placed the garbage can on the curb and rushed back into the house without saying a word. Nola had to smile. Joyce was clearly nervous around her, perhaps even afraid.
Or maybe Joyce’s nervousness had nothing to do with Nola at all. After all, Joyce Knox lived with her own kind of monster.
Nola glanced down at her watch. Eight o’clock. Normally she would be on her way to do her herd health rounds, visiting dairy farms, performing pregnancy checks on cows and looking in on the new calves. Now the entire day stretched out in front of her like a black void. She was restless, jumpy.
Nola thought of Charlotte, sitting in the hospital in Willow Creek, probably waiting for her to call, to come visit. Nola sighed. She would go see her mother and combine the visit with her other errands. It was time.
Nola made the drive to Willow Creek and the hospital in twenty minutes. After Eve died and Nola was expelled from Grotto High for pushing Nick Brady into a glass trophy case, her mother enrolled her in Sacred Heart, the Catholic high school in Willow Creek, a pretty college town with acres of woods and hiking trails nearby. Sacred Heart was better than Grotto High, Nola thought, but not by much.
Nola moved through the halls of Sacred Heart in a fog, attending classes but not paying attention, not interacting with her new classmates. What she really wanted was to graduate early but her mother refused to even consider the idea. You can’t leave me too, she cried. Not yet.
Nola drove by a handful of farms that she had visited many times. She passed the Ransom County Fairgrounds where 4-H kids showed their pigs and calves and rabbits each summer at the fair. As she sped down the highway she passed a hand-painted sign for O’Keefe Orchards & Landscaping and wondered if Maggie had slept as poorly as she had that night. Together they had found Eve sprawled out across the cave floor, eyes open wide, staring up at them. It was a terrifying sight. One that Nola relived often, mostly at night under the cover of darkness. She imagined that Maggie did the same.
Nola came into Willow Creek and drove directly into the hospital lot and let the engine idle. Having her mother out of the house the past few weeks was freeing. She felt like she could breathe again. She could pull out her display boxes and examine the contents and she could add to her collections without having to worry about Charlotte barging into her room or yelling down the basement stairs complaining about the odd smells. Turning off the ignition, Nola was confident as to what she needed to do next. It was for her mother’s own good.
Leaving the cool air of the truck, she advanced through the half-filled parking lot, the hot sun beating down on her scalp, and pushed through the hospital entrance. Once inside she found the elevator that would take her to the skilled care floor.
Nola tapped on the door of 318 and a creaky voice told her to come in. Her mother was sitting up in her hospital bed, one arm in a cast; her long ash-gray hair hung in stringy hanks against her shoulders.
“Nola?” Charlotte wheezed. “Where the hell have you been? You haven’t been back to see me since the surgery.” Charlotte’s face, pale and puffy, was strained with pain and fatigue. “I saw the news. Are they really looking into Eve’s murder again?”
“Hi, Charlotte,” Nola said.
“She’s always called me Charlotte,” her mother said. “Ever since she could talk. It was never mommy or mom or mama. Always Charlotte.”
Nola looked around, unsure who her mother was talking to but then a young man dressed in yellow scrubs stepped from the bathroom. He pulled the latex gloves from his hands, tossed them into a nearby wastebasket and smiled.
“I’m Ray, your mom’s nurse,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Nola gave the man a nod and turned back to her mother.
“I tried to call you. Why didn’t you call me back?” Charlotte shifted in her bed and winced.
“I’ll let you two catch up. Holler if you need anything,” Ray said and left the room.
