Chapter 38

Chapter 38 of 56 · 5-minute read

“Wait here,” Virgil instructs as he leads me to a painfully familiar ICU waiting room. He tugs his hospital badge at the end of a bright red lanyard to flash across a small black box on the wall next to the double doors to the ICU nurses’ station. The box clicks and buzzes, then the doors open. Virgil disappears inside.

The hospital can be a little creepy this late at night. Janitors and, less often, nurses roam the deserted corridors. The floor cleaner always stings my eyes and nostrils. I fantasize about dancing alone down these corridors with a lone nurse somewhere behind closed doors watching me on a security camera and murmuring that the woman who won’t leave her mom behind and sleeps on cheap straight chairs has finally taken leave of her senses.

An hour passes before Virgil returns. “I need you to stay here. This is harder than it should be, but you’ll need to sign some paperwork for your mom to move to, um, where we’re moving her.”

Standing in front of Virgil, I wring my hands. “No. Not the nursing home. I promised her I’d never take her there. I⁠—”

“Not the nursing home, Laurie. Not yet anyway. Though we do need to talk about it. When your mom finally leaves the hospital, you won’t be able to care for her alone, and your mom has already said no to having help in her own house. One of those generational things where she doesn’t want outsiders to see her in that condition in her own home. She’s really fragile right now, and sending her back home, well, I’m worried that she might accidentally burn the house down with you in it.”

In my heart, I know Virgil is right. I’ve been exhausted for months trying to watch her every waking moment, especially since she tried to make a pizza in the middle of the night while I was sleeping, and the smoke alarm woke me because she forgot and went back to bed after putting the frozen pizza inside its box in the oven. Was that two?—three times?—she’d done that since my homecoming? It’s worse than the old advice about sleeping when a baby sleeps because she’s still capable to setting fires accidentally whereas a newborn isn’t.

But I don’t want to hear it. Not now. Not ever.

Even before she curled up in a fetal position the night the sheriff and three deputies showed up at her house with questions about Bobby’s car and his whereabouts, I could barely take care of her. Just as with Jesse’s depression and drug abuse, I can’t love my mom enough to be greater than her dementia. The worst part—and there’s always a worse part with dementia—is that unlike many people who don’t realize they’re forgetting everything that made them who they were and everyone they loved, my mom is fully aware that she is losing her memories. The sadness of that is unbearable.

“If not the nursing home, Virgil, what then?”

“Mmmm. Promise you won’t get mad.”

“Virgil! Really? Do I look like I have the strength to be mad at you? Especially after all you’ve done for us?”

“Okay, look, whatever happened in—” he lowers his voice to a thin whisper— “whatever happened in the swamp and whyever she’s been talking about it for months but wasn’t able to remember why it was on her mind, Everett and Emmett’s visits cause faster deterioration. Anything law-enforcement-related terrifies this woman who’s always lived by the rules. They’ve not been allowed to see her for the last three weeks she’s been in the ICU, and she’s been sedated much of that time, which has only made her fragile muscles weaker. She can’t even walk now. Once she leaves the ICU, they’ll have another chance to question her.” He sets his jaw and squints at me. “Unless she’s in another part of the hospital where they’re not allowed to visit her.”

I don’t understand. And I’m tired. “Virgil, just tell me.”

“I pulled some strings, and we’re sending her to the behavioral ward for evaluation and counseling over the next two weeks.”

“You what?”

“No, hear me out. You told me how she’s been abused her entire life, so her doctor has agreed that she might benefit from some one-on-one care with our psychiatric staff. Maybe calm her a bit? Help her deal with knowing her mind is going? It won’t delay the inevitable, but it’s a kindness she’s never had extended to her before. A chance to make peace with her troubled life.”

Already, I’m shaking my head. My mom has never requested help in dealing with her own traumas. She would consider it a weakness to ask. That is, if she understood the detour through this next stop before hopefully going back home. At this point, she doesn’t.

“Laurie, this wasn’t easy. Please. The behavioral ward has plenty of beds right now. We’re not going to get a better opportunity. You’ll need to sign her in as her power of attorney. It’ll be hard on you because you’ll be allowed to talk to her on the phone during that time, but you can’t see her. No one can except the staff members and doctors caring for her. Do you understand? For the next two weeks in the behavioral ward, no one will be asking her questions about Bobby. They’ll allow you to talk to her on the phone twice a day, but absolutely no visitors while she’s in there. That’ll be hard on you not to see her and hold her hand three times a day, but you’ll be able to wave at her through the lobby window and talk to her through the glass by phone.”

“Like a prisoner?”

Virgil dodges my scowl. “Like a person who’s safe. You’ll still have access to her, and the staff will dial the phone for her. The deputies will have to wait, and hopefully, they’ll get tired or distracted in the meantime.”

Slowly, he makes sense to me. “All right. I’ll do it.”

“Good. I’ve called in some favors, and the staff psychiatrist is coming in overnight to check her in. She’ll bring papers for you to sign and will meet us in the behavioral ward. It’s inside the hospital but in a locked-down section on the fourth floor where she’ll be safe from looky-loos. Including deputies and your cousins. We—you and I—are going to take her there tonight after her sedation wears off. We’ll keep it quiet. The fewer staff to know, the better. We don’t need anyone sticking their nose in your business or reporting back to your cousins so they can report to Everett.”

“But I’ll get to talk to my mom? Tonight?” Three weeks have passed since we’ve had a coherent conversation. The rest of the time, she doesn’t seem to know me. I’ve been sleeping in the ICU waiting room straight chairs for weeks just in case she’s awake during one of my three possible ten-minute visits a day to her bedside or in case one of the doctors calls me through the locked double doors. I don’t want to not be here if she needs me.

Virgil nods. “You’ll get to talk to her. I promise. Now wait here. It may be another couple of hours. If the twins show up before I do, er, call me and this transfer won’t happen tonight.”

As my fingers skim the phone in my pocket, Virgil disappears again behind the locked doors.

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