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After a minute, she hangs up.
I call back and she answers, same song and dance.
As usual, we go back and forth like this a few more times.
But this time, on the fifth call, Nina doesn’t hang up.
“Please talk to me.Jesus Christ, please talk to me.” Her voice is shaking violently. “James? Is this you? Please, baby, say something. I won’t be mad. Please, baby, I just want you to come home. Please, please, please talk to me.” She dissolves into heaving sobs. “I miss you,” she croaks out. “I miss you, my baby boy. Please come home so I can keep you safe. Please come back to me. Please. Oh my God, baby, please come back ...”
Her words become inaudible.
I listen to Tristan’s wife sob for a solid ten minutes, then I hear a mattress creak as she crawls onto her son’s bed and cradles the phone.
The sobs eventually turn into whimpers.
I imagine her hugging the phone against her chest.
Smiling, I grab the bottle of wine, tip it up, and chug the remaining few sips.
12
Lavinia
Iam dead tired. Like,can hardly keep my eyes opentired.
Crazy Meredith stood in Nina’s bedroom doorway, watching her sleep, until four thirty in the morning.
Fourthirty.
Once she’d left, I crawled back into bed and fell asleep almost instantly. Then Nina’s movement monitor went off at five thirty.
I’ve lifted Nina out of the bed and placed her in her favorite chair, fed her oatmeal—organic, per the notes—and have read her a few chapters from the book we began yesterday. She seems more coherent today and watches me closely.
I know I need to assist in changing her clothes and bathing her, but my stomach sinks at the idea. From everything I know about Nina, she was—is—a dignified woman. I can’t imagine how she would feel having a stranger wash and clothe her.
It is now ten in the morning and the house remains quiet. I assume Meredith is still asleep in the guest room downstairs, but I’m surprised Tristan hasn’t visited his wife yet. Her medication schedule seems sporadic, and I don’t like this. I’m going to wait until my role in the home becomes more solidified, then I’m going to request to take over her medications. I shudder to think of how little Nina has been tended to before I arrived.
Nina is staring out the window, her fingers tapping rhythmically against the armrest. I’ve learned that she does this when she is most lucid.
It is another cloudy morning, but warmer than the day before. According to the local weather forecast, temperatures are expected to climb to eighty degrees by this afternoon. Summer is sneaking in. I make a mental note to ask Tristan if Nina has a wheelchair so I can take her on a walk.
“Nina?” I say, sliding the book on the coffee table between us. “Do you mind if I borrow your laptop?”
Nina doesn’t move, which isn’t a protest.
“Thank you.” I rise from the chair, cross the room, and grab the laptop that’s been sitting on the dresser since the day I arrived.
I settle onto the chair next to Nina and power it up.
The internet browser opens immediately. No password.
Nina remains focused on the view outside the window, while I click into the browsing history.
It’s blank, as are all the folders. The computer appears to have been wiped clean. Seems odd, but perhaps this laptop is intended for the help? Regardless, I’m connected to the internet, and that’s all I care about.
I open Google and type the nameMeredith Nichols, Rock Hill, GA.
After a few minutes of sleuthing, I learn that Meredith is a sixty-two-year-old Rock Hill native and, as Tristan mentioned, has been married four times. Tristan was her first husband. She was only eighteen and he was twenty when they married. The divorce was finalized almost exactly two years later. What happened to spin them into divorce after such a short marriage?
