Mom hustled me out of the room when he said that. She shoved me out the front door and said, "Go on home. Mrs. Patrick and I will take care of things here."
"But -"
"No buts. Go." She opened the front door, shoved me out so I almost slipped on the icy, snowy sidewalk, and shut it firmly behind me. It was a definitive click that came from it, and I knew better than to turn around and go back in, a thought that did enter my mind. But, I just glared at the closed door and stomped off home. Mom came home a couple of hours later without appearing very upset or relieved and wouldn't answer any of my questions about what went on in Mr. Jessup's house.
Tay Jessup died a week later. Dr. Leqeuex was in his house when it happened, doing a favor I guess. Mrs. Patrick had harangued him for days to at least go and look in on Mr. Jessup as a friend. It was a small, very quiet funeral, with only a few adults from town, who had been schoolmates of his, invited. There was so much mystery about his illness and death, that that was all we could talk about at school for the rest of the month. Everybody was frustrated with how little information their parents were letting them in on and curious about what was going to happen to Merry. Nobody knew anything about where she had gone. I assumed Dr. Leqeuex had taken her to the hospital or maybe sent her to another one, a psychiatric hospital, but then one day I saw her face in Mrs. Patrick's upstairs window. I stopped dead in my tracks and stared up at her, and she stared blandly down at me like somebody watching grass grow. Not a shadow of interest flickered on her face. We had our little staredown for a minute or two before it got too unnerving for me and I ran inside. "Mom," I said breathlessly, "Why didn't you tell me Merry was with Mrs. Patrick?"
"Damnit, I told her to keep the girl away from the windows." grumbled my mother as she folded shirts. Then she turned to me and said, "I didn't tell you because it's not your business. It's not your friends' business either. It's nobody's business but Dory Patrick's and I don't want you or anybody else mucking around in it. I'm absolutely serious, Lori." I believed she was serious. I don't think I've ever believed so much in anybody's seriousness before or since. I brooded over my bit of knowledge, but in the end it got out without any help from me. That does seem to be how things work when I have a secret anyway.
Spring break was coming up, although spring wasn't much in the air yet that year. There were still piles of snow on the street corners and the sky was the same monotonous, cottony grey for weeks on end. One afternoon I was walking home from the library with the Mulligan twins, Martha and Curtis, and we saw Mrs. Patrick wandering around in her bathrobe in front of her house. She would take a few short steps in one direction, stop and look around as if confused, and kind of trot of in another direction. Martha and Curtis didn't know what to make of her and didn't want to go near her, but she was my neighbor and I felt like I should say something at least. "Mrs. Patrick, what are you doing outside without a coat?" I called over the gate to her. I also noticed she was wearing slippers and no socks. She looked at me with a puzzled expression, like I was speaking in a language she didn't understand. "Are you alright, Mrs. Patrick?" I called again. She didn't answer and slowly her gaze turned away from me and she tottered off to stare uncomprehendingly at her peach tree. I looked up at the window expecting to see Merry and yes, she was there. What I wasn't expecting was to see her so fascinated with watching Mrs. Patrick. Her eyes were wide open and she was riveted to her host's movements. Since she had never shown any expression in public before, I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing, or be sure I was interpreting it correctly. As eerie as she was with her normal, blank face, this was even creepier. I backed away from Mrs. Patrick's gate and hurried to join the twins, who were standing in front of my door.
"I think you should call an ambulance for your neighbor," said Martha tensely, "Even that weird sea-girl looks worried."
"Worried? You think so?" I asked.
"Yeah. Did you see how big her eyes were? She looks really freaked out."
We went inside to go over some notes and found Dad cutting up vegetables in the kitchen. We told him what was going on next door, but instead of calling 911, he mumbled, "I'll take care of it." and zipped out the door. We were working on our notes for a couple of hours and didn't notice when he came back, but he was in the kitchen with Mom when I walked the twins to the door. They had the door almost closed and I couldn't hear the words they were using, but the tone was very serious. I looked out the side window and saw Mrs. Patrick's yard was empty. I went up to the kitchen door, ready to go in and ask what was going on over there, but just when I was about to open it, Mom hissed some kind of impolite words and somebody slammed a fist on the counter. It didn't seem like the time to intrude.
The next morning at breakfast both my parents had such grim faces that I didn't dare bring up what had happened the afternoon before. Somehow, in the fuzzy light of morning, it didn't seem so important, or even real. If it hadn't been for my parents' thundercloud faces, I might have thought it was all a dream, or maybe a misunderstanding of what I'd really seen. As the day went on, it seemed less and less tangible in my memory, although Curtis Mulligan did start a question in the hall that seemed like it was going to be about what we'd witnessed, but after, "So did your dad...?" he just shut his mouth and walked away. When I got home I didn't see anybody around Mrs. Patrick's house, not in the yard or in the windows. Nobody was home to query either. I had to wait for hours to satisfy my gnawing curiosity. Of course, it wasn't satisfied even when Mom came home from grocery shopping because she just shook her head in disgust, saying, "I don't even want to think about that right now." She just radiated so much tension when I tried to ask the question that I knew way better than to try again. I just stomped off to my room to stew and wait for dinner while pretending to do homework. I was a little apprehensive about joining my parents for dinner, but by then they had relaxed and everything seemed to be just like always.
I didn't feel like rocking the boat right away, especially with ACTs on the horizon, so I decided to leave things alone for a couple of days. Maybe, just maybe, somebody would slip up and let a little information into the air around me. Sure enough, rumors and bits of phone conversations started to paint a picture of hospitals and locked doors. Mrs. Patrick had gone to stay with her sister in Ohio, while Merry had been taken to the hospital again. They found she had hardly eaten in over a week and she was put in bed with an IV. It seemed like that would be the end of any trouble for a while.
In fact, it was. Merry left the hospital about a month later and put in a sort of managed care facility. Like with old people. Now that the snow was pretty much gone, she could fumble around outside in her wheelchair. Since she had people checking on her, she didn't need to go shopping for anything, and since she didn't have any friends, she didn't have anywhere to go. Mostly she sat and stared at everybody who walked by her little square of the complex's lawn. I didn't have much need to go to that part of town, and now I had even less desire to do so. I heard some kids at school talk about going to "stare down the weirdo" or throw eggs at her window while she sat behind the glass like some uncomprehending goldfish, but I think that was just talk. There would have been indignant letters to the editor and auds on tolerance and preventing vandalism or something if anybody had actually gone through with such provocation.
I put my mind to my classes and my tests and my scholarships. Packets of information were showing up in our mailbox by the pound, and that was more exciting than Mr. Jessup's mute widow, who never bothered to leave the property she was allowed to use by the county. I did some virtual visits online and Dad and I went to see a couple of nearby colleges on weekends. They were nice enough, but I really wanted some more distance between me and my childhood home. Not that I had a need to escape, but I wanted a little freedom to see how much I could change in a new, unshadowed environment. Most of my friends were of similar minds, although a lot of them were perfectly happy to attend the state university, almost 4 hours away. That was enough distance for them to feel they'd slipped their hometown bonds. Actually, the distance itself was enough for me, but so many of my classmates would be around that I wouldn't be able to shake old habits, I felt. Mom tried to argue that with almost 15,000 students I wouldn't be running into my fellow small-towners all that much, but I didn't want to take the chance. She also tried to convince me with Suzie; the poor thing was old, what if she got sick and I was far away, I wouldn't be able to say goodbye before she died. Something about that made me more determined to go farther away. It just felt like uncalled-for emotional pressure. Eventually, I thought I had set my heart on a small college in one of the Rocky Mountain states. They had vibrant history and writing departments, and that was just the sort of atmosphere I was looking for. Financial information was sent and scholarships were offered, and by May I had everything set up for my great new start in September. I, like my friends and classmates, was so absorbed in planning my future, that stories from the younger students about weird things going on in town were brushed off without a second thought.
I got myself a summer job at the big bookstore at the mall off the interstate. Even with scholarships, no reason not to gather up a little more cash. Kate Owen was working there too, and we carpooled most days since we had the same shift. One day in July, towards the end of the month, she was late picking me up. It kept getting later and later and I was worried about having to explain to the supervisor that I didn't know what happened, but I missed my ride. After 15 minutes, I even went out to the curb to wait, kind of to drive home that I had noticed the time. But I didn't say anything about it when she finally pulled up and I saw her face. I wasn't sure if she looked more angry or sick, with red eyes and cheeks but mostly grey skin underneath.
"Holy shit, do you have the flu?" I asked, "You shouldn't go to work if you're sick."
"I'm not sick," she muttered, "I just saw something..."
She didn't finish the thought and I was pretty sure she wasn't interested in talking about it, so I just let it drop. She looked almost healthy when we got to work and when we left she was her normal self, so my question just drifted into the back of my mind. Until that night when I was getting myself a snack and my parents were in the living room watching the local news. I heard my mother gasp, "Oh my god!" from the kitchen and I trotted out to see what was going on. Both of my parents were sitting on the edge of the couch, leaning intently towards the screen. I just saw the tail end of the story, but it looked like the outside of the nursing home where Merry was being kept.
"What's up?" I asked, and they both jumped like I'd stuck a pin in their behinds.
"Oh honey, I'm glad you didn't see it," Mom said, "Some guy just committed suicide this afternoon in front of the nursing home. They don't know why, he just walked out the door and waited for a truck to come down the street. Then he jumped out in front of it."
"Was he one of the residents?"
"No, he was one of the nurses," answered Dad.
"I bet you anything he was taking care of Merry!" snapped Mom. Dad kind of groaned and rolled his eyes. "Yes, Steve, I do think it's possible. You know what happened to Tay and Dory."
"Well, I don't think we have to discuss it now, not in front of her anyway," grumped Dad and Mom threw her hands up and a "Fine, you're right." over her shoulder as she stomped off upstairs.
"What's going on, Dad?" I asked timidly, trying to put on my best little girl face.
"Oh honey, it's not something you should have to know about. You're going off to college all those hours away in the fall anyway."
"But Dad-"
"No," he sighed, waving his hand, heaving himself off the couch and switching off the TV, "There will be no discussion. Not until your Mom calms down and tells me what's OK for you kids to know." Then he kind of shuffled off to bed, rubbing the back of his head. As soon as he was out of sight I switched the TV back on, but of course the report was over, and they were into the weather. I turned the TV back off, wondering if that's what Kate had seen that affected her so much.
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