Chapter 45
Virgil stops in front of me as I look up at him from the bench. “I was going to ask if you’re okay, but I can see that you are.”
“You can still ask if I’m okay.”
He half-shrugs. “All right, then. Are you okay, Laurie?”
“Yes, Virgil. I’m okay. A little sad, though, that such a good friend is leaving town. And very likely my life.”
Virgil perches on the bench beside me and leans forward heavily on his cane.
“Dixxie told me this morning about talking to his ex. Not that they don’t ever talk because they do own property together, but his conversations are usually very civil and short. When he told me that he had been talking to Margaux every day this week, that’s when I knew that you’d either fallen for him or, well, that you’ve been too nice. I did warn you.”
“You did?”
“Don’t you remember? Right after you started dating, I asked you if you really liked him and told you that if you did, not to be too nice to him and certainly don’t fall in love with him. I’m surprised you were with him as long as you were. If you’d given him your full attention, y’all might have lasted for two dates. You’re not his type at all, you know, but I guess with you being so focused on your mom, he saw that as being distant and you were more of a challenge.”
“Challenge! I had other priorities. My mom. I haven’t had a lot of time for a romantic relationship, but I was never mean or intentionally distant to Dix.”
“That’s what I tried to tell you. If you wanted him, you needed to learn to be mean to him. The second-best thing to him after being abused was to be neglected, even if you didn’t mean to. But I can guess what happened. He finally won you over.”
“Not the words I would use, but yeah, I did come to appreciate him. A lot.”
Virgil nods knowingly and pats my forearm. “Yeah, that’ll do it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this pattern play out with my brother, and it always leaves him unhappy and searching. He needs to be unhappy. See, Dix was the popular kid who had everything way too easy, way too young. He needed to fight for it. Everything has always come easy to him. Money, sports, women. He needed to bring you flowers and have you tell him they weren’t enough. Or to refuse him as a lover, so he had to work for it. Or become your lover but live with constant belittlement from you. He’s gone back to his Margaux now because she’s been friendly to him for the last year or more, and now they’re fighting about this property of theirs that he’s wheeling and dealing on, and she’s telling him he’s stupid and a failure, and he likes the way that feels, not so he can keep feeling bad but so he can flip it and win her over. And at the same time, you’ve been acknowledging him more. He needs to be cut down so he can prove himself and make you love him. Margaux will make his life hell until she finally goes sweet on him again and that’s when he’ll lose interest. Poor guy can’t even get a boner with a woman who adores him, no matter how beautiful or smart or talented.”
My mouth works but nothing comes out. There’s nothing I can say without admitting how right Virgil was—or that I either forgot or ignored his advice, maybe because it didn’t make a lot of sense at the time.
“Look, him going back to Margaux is not going to last. He’ll wine and dine her for a couple of months, and she’ll publicly humiliate him a few times before he finally wins her approval and then he’ll lose interest. If you care for him and want him back, all you have to do is to be sharp-tongued and critical the next time he calls you. Tear him down in public a few times. He’ll eat that shit up. I kid you not.”
I hang my head. “I can’t. Not intentionally. I don’t want to play games with his feelings or mine. That may be what he wants, but it’s just not me. But I will miss his friendship.”
“Listen, Laurie, I—” His phone buzzes. Frowning at the number on the screen, he sinks it into his pocket again. Before he can start over, it buzzes again. This time, Virgil rolls his eyes at the number and turns it over on his knee. “Sorry about that. It’s been that way all day, and I’m tired of it.”
“A resident needs you?” Was Virgil being called to “walk home” an elderly man or woman?
“Not at the moment. I have husband and wife residents who are close, and I’m not sure which will go first, but they’re trying to do it together, I think. Childhood sweethearts. They’ll keep me busy over the next few days. And an incoming resident who’s probably going to pass later in the week. No, these calls aren’t the real work. They’re just bullshit I don’t have time for.”
“What’s wrong, Virgil?”
Most people think of him as the most positive person they know, especially given his position at the hospital. I know what’s underneath, even if he rarely shows it. He’s a man who’s worked through most of his issues and made peace with the harsher aspects of life, but he still complains about anything that tries to interfere with his contentment. All his consternations at this point in his life are from outside sources, and he’s generally chill about any troubles in his past.
I can read Virgil now. I’d forgotten how this happens, this psychic bond where I can feel others’ joys and distresses. Any time I’ve been in ritual with another person more than once, I’ve developed some type of bond where I can sense their emotions as well as big events in their lives. It happened to me with the Grand Coven, the Elders’ Coven, my healing center rituals, with Christabel. And now with Virgil. Something about all the magick flowing around us and merging our energetic fields within the sea of energy swirling inside the circles we’ve cast. The more intimate the ritual, the closer the bond.
“Thanks for asking,” he whispers. “Other than Dix, I really can’t talk to anyone about some things. Not even Pam or Niecie. I dare not complain to anyone who works with me and have word accidentally get back to my employers. They’re already feeling iffy about me right now. Plus, I don’t want my coworkers to see me as flustered as I feel. The work we do isn’t easy, and they see me as their rock.”
Frowning down at the grass, he kicks at a brown leaf. It crunches under his touch. This is the first time since I came back home that I’ve seen Virgil this tense. His jaws are so tight, they look as if they’ll shatter.
“Virgil? I’m here if you need to talk. Or just want to. And I think you already know that I can keep a secret.”
He chuckles at that, but I’m not sure if it’s related to Bobby, my mom, his brother, or the rituals we’ve shared.
“I have a resident who’s been just awful to his family, especially his children. I might have told you about him. It’s unfortunate how family can be so entitled sometimes and think they can mistreat their own and the victims must endure it because, well, they’re family. Now that he’s nearing the end of his journey, he wants them with him and he’s using his failing health to manipulate them into forgiving him when they’re just not feeling it. He treated them like shit all their lives, disowned them, dismantled their committed relationships, saddled them with debt, humiliated them on a regular basis, and now he wants to gather his family around him so the whole town can see what a good man he was and have his kin cry and moan over him. They’re not having anything of it, though.”
Grimly, I nod. I understand. I do. If it had been my mom who died last year and my dad who’d suffered a stroke, things—unbelievably—would have been even worse. No doubt, I would’ve had a dozen of his relatives coming out of the woodwork to dictate what I “should” do, and I wouldn’t have been able to throw restraining orders against them because he would have needed them present to play manipulation games.
“But inevitably,” Virgil continues, “there are the family peacemakers—recent in-laws and distant cousins twice removed—who keep getting involved to force a reconciliation. The man’s parting gift to his family is to tear them in two and set them against one another. His favorites can’t fathom their beloved relative treating another relative differently. This man has a grandson who is constantly trying to force his parents and aunts to make up, and since I’m the only one standing up to the grandson, he’s trying to get me fired.”
Ah. Andy Ray’s son, Little Ray. I overheard the meeting in Virgil’s office with Andy Ray, and I know Andrew-Raymond-the-Third has been a thorn in Virgil’s side since last May, if not earlier.
Virgil’s phone buzzes again, a different number this time. He curses under his breath and turns his phone off.
“The grandson isn’t around all the time, fortunately. He lives in Tennessee or Virginia—I forget which—and he drives down about once a month to visit his grandfather, who uses him as a henchman without the kid realizing it. At first, he’d show up at my office and harass me or his parents who still live here. He’s harassed several other supervisors at the nursing home to convince us to guilt-trip his family into seeing his grandfather, but I keep putting a stop to their helping him to manipulate the people his grandfather abused so badly. So now he has it out for me.”
Virgil’s worried frown scares me. “I’m sure the more vulnerable family members appreciate you standing your ground. I know what it’s like to be pestered constantly to forgive someone when you’re not ready and when forgiveness means letting them keep abusing you. This grandson can’t really hurt you, can he?”
“Maybe. I have a bad feeling about him. Like, makes my skin crawl kind of feeling.”
Shrugging, Virgil leans back on the bench and studies a black car with tinted windows as it makes its way slowly around the parking lot to an empty space. Before he can continue, an elderly man exits the car with a walker and guides his female passenger toward the hospital lobby. Virgil sighs his relief.
“Little Ray’s been calling every employee of the hospital system to try either to get dirt on me or tell dirt on me. It hasn’t worked. Yet. But you know how things are with small town drama: people will steer clear of you just because they don’t want to be the subject of the next tall tale. So now, whenever the grandson is in town, he tries to visit all the board of directors and their spouses to convince them to fire me. He’s coming to town soon for a face-to-face meeting with them, but if he keeps harassing my staff, I’ll have him barred from visitation—and that’s going to make him even unhappier when he can’t see the grandfather he treasures.”
“I know you don’t want to ‘magick’ everything into compliance, but why not use every resource at your disposal?”
Virgil twists his jaw to one side, then stretches his neck to release some tension. “I’ve tried. Not at first, but more recently, yes. Maybe I need you to join me in ritual because every time I ask for answers, all I get is that help is on the way.”
I slide my hand over his. “I’d be honored to join you in ritual if you think it would help.”
“You have more important things to worry about, Laurie. That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
My breath catches in my chest. I know what he’s going to say, and I don’t want to hear it. I’m already shaking my head.
Virgil grabs my hand and squeezes it. “Laurie, I think it’s time for you to try again to get in touch with your brother. She took a turn for the worse this morning, and as much as I hate to say it, I’m starting to see signs that she’s moving into—”
“The actively dying phase.” I felt it ever since her confession.
That and her readiness to be done with this world.
“Her pulse is weaker. Refusing food. Oxygen lower, marked increase in breathing rate. Hallucinations.” He glances up at me in that knowing way. “Or not hallucinations. Staff reports that she’s been mostly non-responsive since last night. I know it may take Shelby several days to get here, but you’re gonna have to make some decisions soon, and your brother should be here with you.”
“I’ve tried, but I’ll try again. All I know is that he’s under deep cover, and they can’t pull him out.”
“All right. Knowing her state right now might be bad for Shelby. He needs to keep his mind on his mission so he can come home. I know—I’ve been there myself.” He taps his cane tip against the ground. “He may not want to see her like this, and she might not be able to communicate or even recognize him by the time he gets here. If your brother can’t be here, Laurie, I’m not going to let you do this alone.”
“H-how long?”
“Priyanka said they have room for her for the next week, barring any unforeseen shifts in the needs of the hospital. We can send hospice staff in to check on her there. That buys you a week. After that, we need to talk about how to care for her. You don’t have the training to care for her at home and keep her comfortable.”
Holding back my tears, I do my best to steady my breathing. “That’s all I can ask for. That she’s as comfortable as possible.”
“Then her being comfortable is with me. I’ll get her one of the hospice rooms closest to my office so I can watch over her, and you’ll be able to visit as often as you like. She’s asked me to walk her home when she’s ready. I guess… I guess word gets around about me. She trusts me, and being her champion in these coming days is very humbling.”
“But how long? Not how long can she stay where she is now, but how… how much more time do I have with her?”
“I can’t say that it’ll be quality time. But how long before her heart stops? Could be a few days from now. Could be another month. It’s hard to tell, but at this stage, it’s like you can see the Angel of Death hovering, waiting. That’s what some physicians call it. Not a literal angel in their cases, but for me, I start to see a black aura around them.”
“My mom’s energy is pink. It was bright pink when I first started seeing auras, but it’s pale and muddy now.”
“No, Laurie. It’s now black.”
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