Whispers and Lies (31 page)

Instantly, Alison pulled back, as Josh had earlier. Out of my arms. Out of my reach. “No! That’s not what I meant. You don’t understand.”

“My God,” I said, scrambling to my feet, my hand covering my mouth. “My God, oh my God.”

Alison was on her feet beside me. “It’s all right, Terry. Please, it was a misunderstanding. It’s all my fault.”

“What have I done?” I stared down at all the shattered women at my feet, at their lost earrings and broken
strands of pearls, pieces of their smiles mixed with stiff strands of their hair. All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men, I thought, seeing my reflection in Alison’s horrified eyes, knowing we were all broken beyond repair, that nothing could be done to put any of us back together again. “I have to get out of here,” I cried, fleeing the carnage, racing for the front door.

Alison was right behind me. “Terry, wait! Let me come with you.”

“No, please. Just leave me alone. Leave me alone.” I was in my car before she could stop me, the doors locked, the engine running, the car in reverse, my foot on the gas.

“Terry, please, come back.”

I backed out of the driveway and onto the street, mowing over the grass of the corner lot and almost colliding with Bettye McCoy and her stupid dogs two blocks away. In response, she gave me the finger and called me a name, although it was my mother’s voice I heard.

I drove through the streets of Delray for the better part of an hour, drawing comfort from the little seaside town that had somehow managed to retain its quaint, thriving downtown without falling prey to the towering office buildings and ugly strip malls of most of Florida’s older cities. I drove past the small, old homes of the historic marina district, past the newer oceanfront condominiums and luxury estates along the coast, then doubled back, headed for the gated communities, retirement enclaves, and country clubs that existed west of the city limits. I drove until my legs were stiff and my hands felt welded to the steering wheel. I drove until the dark black clouds spreading above my head exploded in a thunderous rage,
flooding the thoroughfares with sheets of angry rain. Then I pulled the car over to the side of the road and quietly watched the rain as it pounded against my windshield, an eerie calm settling over me, like a warm blanket. My tears stopped. My head cleared. And I was no longer afraid.

I knew exactly what I had to do.

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER
, I pulled my car into the parking lot of Mission Care and ran through the continuing downpour into the lobby, shaking the water from my hair as I headed for the stairwell. I kept my head down, not wanting anyone to see me. I was supposed to be in bed with the flu after all, not gallivanting around in the rain. Besides, my visit was personal, not professional. There was no reason for anyone to know I was there.

I climbed the steps to the fourth floor, stopping at the landing to catch my breath before cracking open the door and peeking my head around. No one was there, so I proceeded cautiously down the corridor. I was halfway down the hall when one of the staff doctors emerged from a patient’s room, heading right for me. I thought of lowering my head, stooping to pick up an invisible penny from the floor, maybe even ducking into a nearby room, but I did none of those things. Instead I gave the young doctor a shy smile, preparing to tell him how much better I was feeling, thank him so much for asking. But the vacant smile he offered in return announced he had no idea who I was, that I was as faceless to him in my street clothes as I was in my nurse’s uniform. I could have been anyone, I realized.

In fact, I was no one.

Myra Wylie was lying in bed staring at the ceiling when I pushed open the door to her room and stepped inside. “Please go away,” she said without looking to see who it was.

“Myra, it’s me, Terry.”

“Terry?” She turned her cheek to me, smiled with her eyes.

“How are you today?” I walked to her side, grasped the bruised hand she extended toward me.

“They told me you were sick.”

“I was. I’m feeling much better now.”

“Me too. Now that you’re here.”

“Has the doctor been in to see you yet?”

“He was here a little while ago. He poked and prodded, lectured me about eating more if I want to keep up my strength.”

“He’s right.”

“I know. I just don’t seem to have much of an appetite these days.”

“Not even for a piece of marzipan?” I produced a small candied apple from the pocket of my navy pants. “I stopped at the bakery on my way over.”

“In this rain?”

“It’s not so bad.”

“You’re a darling girl.”

I opened the wrapping, broke the small piece of candy into two pieces, placed one on the tip of her tongue, enjoyed the pleasure that filled her eyes. “I saw Josh today,” I said.

Immediately her eyes darkened, like the sky. “Josh was here?”

“No. I drove to Coral Gables.”

“You went to Coral Gables?”

“To his house.” I deposited the remaining piece of marzipan on her tongue.

“To his house? Why?”

“I wanted to see him.”

“Is there something wrong? Something the doctors haven’t told me?”

“No,” I reassured her quickly, as I’d reassured her son only hours ago. “This wasn’t about you. It was about me.”

Concern swam through the milkiness of her eyes. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I just needed to talk to Josh.”

Myra looked puzzled. She waited for me to continue.

“He told me he’s back with his wife.”

“Yes.”

“He says you’re not very happy about it.”

“I’m his mother. If that’s what he wants, then I’m happy.”

“It seems it is.”

“I’m just an old worrywart, I guess. I don’t want to see him get hurt again.”

“He’s a big boy.”

“Do they ever really grow up?” she asked.

“How long have you known?”

“I think I’ve always known they’d get back together. He never stopped loving her, even after the divorce. The minute she started making reconciliation noises, I knew it was only a matter of time.” Myra twisted her head from side to side, no longer able to find a comfortable position.

“Here, let me fluff that up for you.”

“Thank you, darling.” She smiled, lifted her head, allowed me to extricate one of the meager pillows from behind her head.

“I wish you’d told me,” I said, kneading it with my fingers.

“I wanted to. But I felt a bit foolish after the things I’d said about her. I hope you understand.”

“It would have saved me a lot of embarrassment.”

“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”

“I drove all the way down there, made a complete fool of myself.” A sound, halfway between a laugh and a cry, escaped my lips. “How could you let me do that?”

“I’m so sorry, dear. I had no idea. Please forgive me.”

I smiled, smoothed several fine strands of hair away from her forehead. “I forgive you.”

Then I lowered the pillow I was holding to her face and held it over her nose and mouth until she stopped breathing.

I
t’s such a strange sensation, killing another person.

Myra Wylie was surprisingly strong for someone so frail. She fought me with a determination that was stunning in its ferocity, her long, skeletal arms flailing blindly toward me, gnarled and brittle fingers clawing helplessly toward my throat, the muscles in her neck warring with the pillow in my hands as her desperate lungs screamed silently for air. Such stubborn tenacity, the instinct to survive in the face of certain, even longed-for, death, caught me temporarily off-guard, and I almost lost my grip. Myra seized that split second’s hesitation with all the strength left in her, twisting her head wildly from side to side and kicking frantically at her sheets.

I quickly refocused, pressing down harder on the pillow, patiently watching as her feet twitched to an almost graceful stop beneath the tightly tucked hospital corners of her narrow bed. I listened to her last desperate intake of
breath and smelled the pungent odor of urine as it leaked from her body. Then I counted slowly to one hundred and waited for the unmistakable stillness of death to overwhelm her. Only then did I remove the pillow from her face, fluffing it out before returning it to behind her head, careful to arrange her hair the way she liked it. It was damp with the sweat of her exertion, and I blew gently on the matted strands at her forehead in an effort to dry them, watching as Myra’s thin eyelashes fluttered girlishly in my warm breath, as if she were flirting with me.

Watery blue eyes stared up at me in frozen disbelief, and I closed them with my lips, my hands trembling toward the exaggerated, open oval of her mouth, contorted in a way to suggest that, even now, she was still trying to suck air into her withered, broken frame. My fingers quickly molded her lips into a more pleasing shape, as if I were an artist working with fast-drying clay. Then I stood back and observed my handiwork. She reminded me of one of those floats people buy for their pool, stretched out and waiting to be inflated. Still, I was satisfied that Myra looked peaceful, even happy, as if she’d simply slipped away from life in the middle of a pleasant dream.

“Good-bye, Myra,” I told her from the door. “Sleep well.”

I proceeded briskly down the hall toward the exit, confident no one would notice me. I even smiled at a young man on his way to visit his father, the blank look I received in return reassuring me I was still invisible—a ghost haunting the hallowed hospital halls, as insubstantial and fleeting as a whisper in the wind.

How did I feel?

Energized, relieved, possibly a little sad. I’d always liked and admired Myra Wylie, considered her a friend. Until she’d betrayed me, abused the many kindnesses I’d shown her. Until I realized she was no better than any of the others who’d abused and betrayed me over the years, and that, like those others, she was the author of her own misfortune, responsible for, and deserving of, her fate.

Not that I enjoyed being the minister of that fate. The truth is that I’ve never liked watching people die, never really gotten used to it, no matter how many times I’ve borne witness. Maybe that’s what makes me such a good nurse, the fact that I genuinely care about people, that I want nothing but the best for everyone. The idea of taking a life is genuinely abhorrent to me. As a nurse, I’ve been trained to do everything in my power to sustain life. Although, some might argue, why sustain a life void of purpose, a life that is increasingly more parasitic than human?

Besides, whom am I kidding? Nurses have no power. Even doctors, whose exalted egos we stroke daily and whose daily mistakes we’re constantly covering up, have no real power when it comes to matters of life and death. We’re not the caregivers we claim to be. We’re
caretakers
. Janitors, really—that’s all we are—looking after the leftover detritus of all the people who’ve exceeded their “best before” dates.

Lance was right.

I pictured Alison’s ex-husband, if that’s who he truly was, tall, slim-hipped, irredeemably handsome, and wondered if he was really gone. Or was he still in Delray,
squatting among the obscene appendages of an overgrown screw palm, biding his time, waiting for just the right moment to leap out at me from the darkness?

Time’s up, I thought with a smile.

I walked calmly down the four flights of stairs to the exit, grateful to see the rain had stopped, and that the storm clouds that had carpeted the sky all day had given way to the cautiously optimistic sun of twilight. Happy hour, I thought, checking my watch as I climbed into my car, debating whether to stop on my way home for a celebratory drink, deciding that it was still too early to celebrate, that much still required my attention. It was important that I be fully alert for the night ahead, that I not let down my guard in any way.

A siren was wailing as I turned my car into the rush-hour traffic along Jog Road, and I watched an ambulance speed by on the outside shoulder, probably on its way to the Delray Medical Center. I wondered how long it would be before one of the nurses looked in on Myra, checked her vital signs, and realized she was dead. I wondered if anyone would call me to relay the sad news. She was my patient after all.
Where’s my Terry?
she would say, the first words out of her mouth every morning, as if I weren’t entitled to a few hours away from her side, as if I weren’t entitled to a life of my own.

Where’s my Terry? Where’s my Terry?

Everyone always thought it was so cute.

“Here’s your Terry,” I said now, gripping the steering wheel as if it were a pillow, pushing on it with all my strength, hearing the loud blast of the horn as it spun out into the traffic, then crashed into the dying afternoon.
Instantly, half a dozen other horns began polluting the air with their mindless bleating. Like lambs to the slaughter, I thought, smiling at the motorist in the car ahead of mine as he extended the middle finger of his right hand into the air without even bothering to turn around.

Why should he turn around? What was there to see? I was invisible.

There would be no autopsy. There was no need. Myra’s death had been expected, even anticipated. It was long overdue. There was nothing remotely surprising or suspicious about it. An eighty-seven-year-old woman with both cancer and heart disease—her death would be considered a blessing. The nurses would acknowledge her passing with a collective nod of their heads and a brief notation in their charts. The doctors would record the time of death and move on to the next cadaver-in-waiting. Josh Wylie would quietly arrange for his mother’s burial. A few weeks from now, he might even send the staff an arrangement of flowers in appreciation of the excellent care his mother had received during her stay at Mission Care. Soon a new patient would occupy Myra’s bed. After eighty-seven years, it would be as if she’d never existed.

An old song by the Beatles—
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!
—came on the radio, and I sang along loudly with it, surprised to discover I knew all the words. This made me feel strangely exhilarated, even elated. The Beatles were followed by Neil Diamond, then Elton John. “Sweet Caroline,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” Long a devotee of golden oldies, I knew every word, every beat, every pause.
“Soldier boy!”
I belted out along with the Shirelles.
“Oh, my little soldier boy! Bum bum bum bum bum. I’ll—be—true—to—you.”