The Boarding House (31 page)

Cin laughed. “Way to go, Ellie. I like to see some fire back in your soul.”

“But without the cursing, of course,” Sophie said.

Cin rolled her eyes and sat down on the bed. “Whatever. I am so bored. No wonder people are crazy in this place. There’s nothing to do. I suppose they want us to get well, but sticking us off in these stupid lizard-green rooms with no televisions or books and leading us around like we’re in kindergarten seems counterproductive to me.”

“If you paid more attention to where we are you’d know some of the patients in here aren’t capable of putting food in their own mouths. These safeguards are here for everyone’s protection.”

Cin glared at Wyatt. “Thank you, Dr. Wyatt, for the health lesson.”

Before any more barbs could be slung, the door to Ellie’s room opened and an aide came in with her lunch. “Enjoy, Ellie. I’ll be back later to pick up the tray.”

Wyatt headed for the table. “Finally. Lunchtime.”

“Save some for Ellie,” Sophie said. “You eat far more than your share and you know it.”

Cin laughed. “You’re guys are nuts. It all goes to the same place no matter who’s chewing.”

Ellie stared at the food tray. She could still hear Cinnamon’s laugh and Wyatt arguing with Sophie, but there was a moment of clarity that shook her to the core. She could hear them, but they were no longer visible. On the verge of panic, she suddenly heard Wyatt whisper.

“Breathe, Ellie. Everything is as it should be.”

The heat of the sun coming through the window was warm on her back as she sat down, picked up her fork and began to eat.

Luther Dunn ate food
to fuel his body, unaware of taste or texture. If there was something left on his tray when he was finished, it had nothing to do with like or dislike. It was more likely from having been distracted. The voices he lived with were so loud and insistent that he didn’t bother to set them aside for any length of time.

Today when they brought his lunch tray was no different from any other until he sat down to eat. As he did, he felt a moment of quiet so startling he looked up at the aide and smiled.

She was rattled enough by the interaction that she stumbled, then hurried off to tell what he’d done.

Unusual things were happening with Luther Dunn and no one could put their finger on what had triggered it, only that it had begun after Ellie Wayne’s admission.

Dr. Ferris was notified that Luther had made eye contact with an aide and actually smiled at her. At that point she abandoned her own lunch in the hopes that he’d still be open to communication. When she got to his room, she knocked a couple of times before entering.

“Hello Luther, I see I’m barging in on your meal. I just had a quick question for you.”

Luther didn’t respond as he picked up a piece of bread and took a bite.

Sensing he wasn’t thrilled by her presence, Moira stayed in the doorway instead of walking into the room. “You never make special requests of any kind and it occurred to me that you might be in need of something and just hesitant to ask. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Luther reached for the glass of iced tea on his tray and took a drink. Just when Moira thought she’d made another wasted trip, he stood up.

“I need colored markers that will mark on glass.”

Moira stifled the urge to squeal. “Markers that will mark on glass? Right. I’ll go check on that right now. I’ll be back. Soon. Okay?”

Luther walked over to the window and sat down in the sun, but Moira was already gone.

When free time in the common room
came around, Luther was one of the first to arrive. He headed straight to the wall of windows on the west side of the room where the sun came through onto the floor. Each window consisted of sixteen small panes of glass set into an iron framework, not unlike quilt squares set into a quilt, and extended from the windowsills up, all the way to the ceiling. The frames were made so that no matter how many glass panes were broken, no one would have been able to escape. Decorative iron bars, but iron bars, just the same.

Luther laid his sack of markers on the windowsill, took out a roll of toilet paper and began to clean the glass.

“What’s he doing?” Moira asked.

The nurse standing next to her shrugged. “Looks like Luther does windows. All these years we’ve been missing out.”

Aaron Tyler walked up. “Hey, Moira, I got your call. What’s up?”

Moira pointed.

“Ah. The elusive Luther is in the room. Washing windows?”

“I don’t think so,” Moira said. “Earlier he asked for colored markers that would mark on glass.”

“Interesting, I guess we’ll—” Aaron jerked as if he’d been slapped. “Colors on glass?”

“What are you talking about?” Moira asked.

Once again, Aaron’s reality was being altered in a way he didn’t understand. “It can’t be.”

Moira grabbed Aaron’s arm. “Can’t be what? For God’s sake, Aaron. Stop being so mysterious.”

“Give me a couple of minutes to check something out. I’ll be right back.”

He hurried back to his office and began searching for his notes from his last session with Ellie, then sat down to read, scanning through the text to where she’d talked about church.

“. . . sitting where the sun comes through the Jesus window
 . . .
spills colors onto my chest and into my lap
 . . .
closer to God.”

“Damn.”

He looked up, his gaze falling on his three framed degrees hanging on the wall, then to an award he’d won a few years back for a paper he’d had published on the study of paranoia in children under the age of eighteen. There wasn’t one single thing in all of the education and experience he had that would explain what was happening here. And yet it was happening.

He headed back to the common room, curious to know if Ellie would show up.

Charlie opened Ellie’s door.
“Who’s up for some television time?”

“Me,” Cin said, and swung her legs off the bed and finger-combed her hair.

“Me too,” Wyatt said. He intended to check out this man who thought he was God.

Charlie grinned. “The more the merrier. What about Ellie?”

Wyatt paused to listen then shrugged. “Nope. Don’t think she’s coming.”

“I hope that old woman who calls me Charlotte doesn’t come today,” Cin said. “She makes me sad.”

“She’s easily distracted. Just walk away from her,” Charlie said.

“Yeah, okay.”

They turned a corner and came face to face with Aaron. “Hey Dr. Tyler, how’s it going?”

Ah, Cinnamon’s in the house today. Damn.

“Just fine, Cinnamon. Ellie not coming today?”

“I guess not, but Wyatt’s here.”

“So here we are,” Charlie said, and opened the door. Cinnamon walked in with Dr. Tyler as if they were on a date, her hand through the crook of his arm and a smile on her face.

Moira saw them come in and thought Aaron had gone to get her. She started to speak when Aaron shook his head and then looked away. Confused, she watched him walk with her to the television, talk to her briefly, then leave her there on her own.

“What’s going on?” Moira asked. “Why did you bring her here?”

Aaron shook his head. “I didn’t. I went to my office to check something. I just ran into her in the hall.”

Moira pointed. “Look at Luther. What do you suppose he’s doing?”

Aaron sighed then shoved his hands in his pockets. “If I was to make a guess, I’d say he is making a stained-glass window.”

Moira’s eyes narrowed as she looked again. Luther had just begun using the markers and was making short jerky strokes at the corner of one glass.

“I don’t see it.”

But as she continued to watch, it began to appear that Aaron was right. Luther was methodical in his intent, filling in bright primary colors in geometric shapes and then outlining them with a black marker to tie them together. It was then she began to see his intent. None of the other patients showed any interest in what he was doing, not even Ellie Wayne. She was still at a loss.

“So Ellie is here and Luther isn’t even paying any attention to her.”

“No. That’s not Ellie, that’s Cinnamon and Wyatt. Wyatt is checking Luther out and Cinnamon is checking out the soaps.”

“Oh. I keep forgetting about that. Still, Luther would have no way of knowing.”

“He knew the other time,” Aaron reminded her. “As for the stained-glass window he’s making, in one of Ellie’s sessions with me she told me that when she went to church, she always sat in the pew where the sun came through the Jesus window, which by the way was a stained-glass window depicting the Bible verse “suffer the little children to come unto me.” She sat there so that the sunlight made it appear that the colors were spilling into her lap. She thought God could hear her better there.”

Moira grabbed Aaron by the arm and dragged him out into the hall so they wouldn’t be overheard. She wanted to shake him.

“That doesn’t make sense. I know what you’re thinking and you know how crazy it sounds. We’re doctors, and you’re starting to think like a patient. I’m not going to buy into Luther being God any more than thinking he’s in any way connected to God, and I’m not about to believe he ‘knows’ Ellie Wayne because he’s been listening to her prayers.”

“There’s more. Ellie doesn’t talk to God anymore. She’s mad at Him.”

Moira backed Aaron against the wall, jabbing her finger into his chest to punctuate every word. “I know damn good and well you do not believe Luther Dunn is God.”

“Of course not.”

“Then where are you going with all this?”

Aaron pushed her hand away. “That maybe God moves in mysterious ways?”

He went back inside, leaving Moira to stew in her own interpretations. He wasn’t about to admit how staggered he was by what was unfolding. He didn’t understand it, but he couldn’t ignore what he was witnessing either.

He moved to where Ellie was sitting, but could tell by the way she was glued to the television program that it was Cinnamon who was present, so he went to the windows where Luther was working, pulled up a chair and sat down to watch.

The ends of Luther’s fingers
were stained in a mishmash of colors. The intensity with which he was working was almost manic—coloring windowpane after windowpane in perfect detail, aligning colors that didn’t clash within random geometric shapes. Then all of a sudden he stopped. It took Aaron a few moments to figure out that the markers had all run dry.

Luther gathered them up, dropped them into the sack and then turned around.

Moira was standing at the back of the room. When she took a step forward, her movement caught Luther’s eye. He went straight to her and handed her the sack.

“That’s very beautiful. Are you through?” she asked.

“No. I need more.”

“Oh
 . . .
I didn’t—” Then she took a deep breath and started over. “I’ll have them here tomorrow.”

“A lot of them?”

Moira smiled. “Yes, Luther, a lot of them.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Yes, tomorrow.”

He started to walk past her when she reached out and stopped him. “Wait. I thought you wanted to speak to Ellie today.”

The moment the question left her mouth, she knew it had been a mistake. The look in his eyes was somewhere between pained and unflinchingly patient, as a parent would have been with a recalcitrant child.

“She isn’t here,” he said softly, and walked away.

Moira’s fingers curled into fists of frustration as she strode across the room to where Ellie Wayne was sitting. “Hi, Ellie, I’m Dr. Ferris.”

Cinnamon answered without taking her eyes from the screen.

“Ellie’s not here.”

“But you—”

Cinnamon turned. “There’s no one here today but me and Wyatt. Do you want me to give Ellie a message?”

Moira was too rattled to think. “No, no message.” She saw Aaron watching her. It made her angry all over again.

It took three days,
another twenty-five packs of markers, and a very tall ladder for Luther to finish the window, but when it was finished even the most disturbed patients had taken notice.

Twelve feet high from windowsill to ceiling, and more than eight feet wide with a perfect cross left uncolored in the center. It was, in a sense, an artistic masterpiece. But for Luther, it was merely a means to an end.

Aaron had scheduled therapy sessions around this time to watch the drama unfolding. Moira kept popping in and out without speaking to Aaron, but when she found out it was finished, she was curious as to what came next. Like Aaron, she’d come to the common room on the last day to watch.

Luther came down off the ladder, sacked up the markers, and then cleared everything away from the window. Outside, the day was brutally hot, although it was comfortable inside.