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“She’s fine. ”
“Fine?”
The nurse, who still had not identified herself by any name, said, “Fine for 103. ”
I threw her a bone. “You can just tell me she’s a pain in the ass, if you want. I know that much already. ”
“She’s a paying client. ” She didn’t relax, but she slumped a little. “She’s . . . a real piece of work, as my mother would have said. The other girl took the day off. I’m here alone with Miss D today. ”
“Oh shit, I’m sorry. ”
“Th
at makes two of us. Right this way, please. ”
“Doesn’t someone . . . I mean, as old as she is—doesn’t someone live here with her?” I asked, feeling a great swell of pity for anyone with such a post.
“Used to. They keep quitting. Right now we’re working in shifts. There’s a third girl, comes in on weekends and sometimes at night. ”
Through the halls we went, and up the stairs, and down the corridors where all the furnishings were threadbare but expensive. The wood paneling threw back every footstep, creak, and breath. Each step and syllable happened twice, or three times where the rug was thin and there was nothing to cushion the noise.
“Look, I don’t mean to sound harsh,” the nurse said, as she stopped and turned to face me. “But if you were close family or friends, I’d have seen you before now, so I’ll just tell you how it is. She’s very old, and we don’t expect her to be with us much longer. She was hale and hardy up until these last few years, or that’s how I understand it. But when they reach this age, sometimes they go downhill suddenly. She’s as bad as you said and more. I don’t know how she’ll receive you, and I can’t even promise you she’ll be lucid. She isn’t, not always. ”
“That’s okay. She can’t stand the sight of me, so I’m not expecting any charm or manners here. There’s no need to warn me. ”
“Good—because if you don’t know what she’s like already, there’s not much bracing you for her. But remember, would you? Remember she’s a dying old lady. Keep it in mind, before you’re too hard on her when she’s hard on you. ”
“I can take it, and I won’t bite her head off. I know what I’m getting myself into. ”
“All right, then. ” She shook her head, and took another few steps down the hall.
I knew where we were; I remembered the place. I remembered every nook and cranny from when Harry and I had stripped the house bare, looking for a book that was six hundred miles away. When we finally found it there, we let it burn with everything else in that swamp house. We let it burn with Avery, and with his bubbling stove and glass bottles and smelly mixtures.
If we hadn’t, Eliza would still be up and around, going strong for another twenty years or more like Avery had. So if she hated me, and if she wanted me dead, and if she had no intention at all of speaking to me in anything kinder than a spit and a shout . . . I couldn’t blame her.
Maybe it would be easier, with her mind half gone. Maybe I’d find what I needed more easily in the wreckage of her head.
I stepped around the corner into Eliza’s bedroom.
“I’ll be downstairs if you need anything. Just holler. I’ll hear you. ”
“Thanks,” I told the nurse.
She left me there in the doorway. I stared down at the tiny shell on the bed and tried to superimpose another image over it—the image of the fierce little woman I’d met before. But I couldn’t. It didn’t work.
She’d been petite to start with and had lost twenty pounds since then, at least. Her thin white hair was all but gone; her scalp crawled with veins and was dotted with liver spots. The hollows of her eyes and cheeks were cavernous and tinged with blue. The nurses had dressed her in a mint green nightgown. It looked like it had been laid down over a scattered pile of forks.
She didn’t hear me come in, so I said her name. “Eliza?” I said it softly, like I didn’t really want her to answer.
Her neck craned up against a pillow.
“Hey there, Eliza,” I said. It was easy to sound gentle. All the nurse had said aside, this was only a shadow of the woman I knew and loathed.
“Who?”
“Eliza, it’s me. Do you remember me?” I crossed the stale-smelling room and stepped past a pile of crumpled tissues. There was a seat beside her with a magazine on it, face down. I moved the magazine and took the seat.
Eliza turned to see me, sort of. She twisted her neck with a series of pops that sounded like potato chips being squeezed in a bag. Her eyes were wet and big, with tiny pupils that made her look sharp even as she reclined, an invalid.
