A Haunting of Words

by Brian Paone et al.

  I carry my son to his bed, pull down the covers single handedly, then gently lay him down and pull the covers to just below his chin. He smiles at me through sleep-heavy eyes.

  “Lay with me, Mommy?” he asks, refusing to remove the arm that he slung around my neck as I covered him.

  “Always,” I reply, climbing in behind him and drawing his warm, snuggly body into mine. He fits perfectly.

  “Love you.”

  “I love you more.”

  He giggles softly. “No, I love you most, Mommy.”

  I awaken with a degree of disorientation to a regular beeping sound and a strange, oddly medical smell. A memory of the home for the elderly where I visited my grandmother when I was child fills my head, and I thrust it away, shuddering. I disliked the smell as a child and feel the same way about it now. I briefly recall how my grandmother died, alone and confused, having suffered from dementia for the final few years of her life.

  My mother only visited my grandmother once in her final year, a fact that makes me angry still. The home where she was taken care of was a five-minute walk from my high school, so I took to visiting her after school every Friday afternoon. The first couple of times I did this were fine. There were two school buses available for me to catch, and I timed it so that I could tell her what I’d been doing all week, then dash off for my ride home. I knew my grandmother did not know who I was, but she seemed to enjoy my company and I enjoyed hers.

  The third time I visited, I misjudged the time and missed the second bus. My English teacher, Mrs. Clements, happened to drive past the stop and caught me in floods of tears, not knowing how I would get to my home ten miles away from school. She pulled over, wound down her window, listened to my tale of woe, and told me to get in the car. She drove me the entire ten miles home and listened to my explanation of why I’d missed the bus and how angry my mother would be when she found out what I’d been doing.

  “Well, that’s a problem that’s simply solved,” I can still hear her warm voice saying. “I generally leave the school around half past four. I’ll come by the home and take you back. No need to worry about catching the bus from now on, and look, there’s the bus you missed. You’ll be home earlier than usual today.”

  Mrs. Clements kept her word every week without fail for the next few months. She even made arrangements to pick me up from the corner of my road to take me on a Friday afternoon during the school holidays, with the exception of four weeks when she was on vacation herself. It was she who suggested I wait for her on the corner, aware that my mother would not be happy about her taking me. My mother never did find out, and she died several years later still blissfully unaware of my escapades.

  The final time I saw my grandmother, she had an unusual moment of brief clarity toward the end of my visit.

  “I love you,” she whispered, clasping my youthful hand in her frail, old one. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

  “No need for thanks,” I whispered in reply, trying to hold back the tears that stung my eyes. “I love you more.”

  “I love you most.”

  She passed away that night.

  The memory makes my eyelids prickle, and a small tear leaks out. It trickles down my cheek and is caught by the pillow. I feel for Joe’s warm body but instead touch something cold and metallic. I pry my eyes partway open, utterly confused. I remember going to sleep cuddling my son, but now there are bars around the bed and the mattress feels … different somehow.

  It is hard beneath my hip, which, I note, aches terribly. I raise my arm to push my hair away from my face and wince at a sudden pain. I bring my hand closer to my face and see that an IV line feeds into the back of it; at the point where the line enters is a massive purple and brown bruise and some dried blood. Beneath the bruise, the hand I am staring at is dry skinned and wrinkled and not mine. Alarmed, I attempt to sit up but am unable to lift my head from the pillow.

  “Joe! Joe! Where are you?” Panic bubbles to the surface, and I cry out for a second time, “Joe! Come to Mommy, sweetheart! Don’t be scared!”

  I hear the sound of a door squeaking open and footsteps approaching the bed.

  “Hush, be still now, my lovely. Don’t be scared. Nothing to be scared of here.” A lilting voice speaks, followed immediately by a cheerful brown face that leans over and smiles down at me. It is topped by a mop of black curls. The middle-aged woman has brown eyes that are lit with gentle humor, and I have no idea who she is.

  I watch as she lifts her cool hand and takes a hold of the old, IV-lined hand, and curiously, I can feel the touch. I wonder if this is how Alice felt when she dropped down the rabbit hole as my eyes search for the owner of the old hand. I can see nobody apart from the smiling woman.

  “I need to refresh the line.” The woman holds my eyes as she speaks. “I’ll be as gentle as I can be, my lovely, but first I need to turn you. You don’t want to be getting bedsores, do you?”

  I wonder why she’s not looking at the old lady to whom she is evidently talking, but don’t have time to ask as, without further ado, she moves something that had been resting against my back, cranks a lever at the side of the bed (how did that get there?), and my head gradually drops as I roll onto my back and lie flat. I feel her move my arms so that they cross my chest, and note that she moves the IV line carefully. She stands at the side of Joe’s bed, and there is a clunk as the metal rail slips down from my view. She takes a pillow and her cool hand separates my knees as she places it between them. She then takes a hold of Joe’s bottom sheet and pulls it gently up toward her. I find myself rolling over and focus on a window that has bars outside it. Joe’s curtains are gone, as are the sea-painted walls.

  I find myself screaming and am unable to stop, even when the strange lady’s face appears in front of me, genuine concern written all over it.

  “Oh, my lovely! Did I hurt you? I tried so hard not to.”

  “Where’s Joe?” My voice sounds different, guttural almost. “I want my son brought to me, now!”

  “I know you do, my lovely, and I promise you’ll be seeing him again very soon. I promise, you hear?”

  Something in her voice tells me she is genuinely distressed for me, but the terror that strikes at the core of me and keeps me immobile is simple; why isn’t he here, now? This thought overrides the emotions of a woman I do not know, and with a strength I have to dig deep for, I find I can move my arms, and I flail and cry out as the visceral pain of loss floods my body from toes to hair.

  I want my son. It is as simple as that. Why won’t she let me see him?

  When I run out of strength, which takes a shockingly short amount of time, I draw breath and ask the questions I fear the answers to the most. “Did someone break in? Was Joe hurt? Why can’t I remember? Am I in the hospital? Is Joe here too?”

  The woman strokes my head tenderly; her eyes lock on to mine, and she does not look away as she answers. “No, my lovely. No break in, and no, you’re not in a hospital. You’re in your own room.”

  She tucks something soft into my hand, and my fingers instinctively enfold around it as her words sink in.

  “I’m not in my own room!” I shriek.

  I want to lash out again, but instead I whimper as the biggest, most agonizing pain imaginable explodes deep within my chest, and as an alarm bell sounds and the room fades away, I finally hear Joe calling me …

  “Mommy!” Joe’s little voice is ecstatic.

  Eager to get to him, I pull myself out of bed and turn toward the sound. The love I feel for my boy overwhelms me, as it does every time I hear him. There he is! Joe stands just inside the doorway, and I laugh to see that he is wearing his red coat and red wellingtons. He holds a blue leash in his left hand, and Rufus strains at the end of it, his tail spinning like a dervish as he tries to reach me. Sweet yelping sounds come from his throat, and I laugh again as I make my way eagerly toward them, fall to my knees, and encompass them both with my embrace.

  “My Joe,” I say as hot, salty tears
of joy course down my cheeks.

  I cover my son’s face with kisses as his arms twine around my neck. I breathe in his familiar smell, and the warmth of his love instantly heals the pain in my heart.

  “Sweet boy,” I tell Rufus as I reach out one hand to stroke his silken, wonky ear.

  Rufus’s tongue rasps on my wrist. I am filled with an uplifting sense of belonging and peace. I am with my family, and all is right with the world.

  I gradually become aware that the lady who had been by my bedside is still in the room with us. I remember her name now—Lydia, and I also recall that she is a nurse. She is greeting someone I recognize as being one of the resident doctors into the room with us. He is young and I do not like him.

  I glance behind Lydia to a hospital bed, which holds a very old, frail woman, who has various medical lines disappearing into her arms that, in turn, feed into machinery that is now still and quiet. I note with a pang that she is beyond help, and as Joe turns to look where I look, I cover his eyes so that he does not have to see. I am surprised when he pushes my hand away and smiles at the body of the old lady but says nothing as Lydia speaks.

  “She passed at five past seven. She’d been calling for her son again. We’d hoped after her escapade yesterday that she’d sleep most of today.”

  “Yes, I heard about that. What happened?” The doctor fidgets on his feet, flicks paper on the chart he holds, and turns his wrist to look at his watch.

  Lydia makes a moue of displeasure. “Am I keeping you?” she says pointedly and waits until the doctor’s shoulders sag a little. She has made her point. “She ripped out the IV line and took herself back to the park. God knows how she found the energy to get out of bed again, let alone get past the security systems at the door. She took the dog leash with her, and the teddy, she never let out of her sight. Sergeant McKinney saw her wandering past the station; he waved at her, the damned fool! Didn’t think to go out and ask if she was okay. She went home, then to the play area and frightened the hell out of some woman who was there with her daughter—she reported it to McKinney on the way home—and then she went to the shop; you know, the one at the back of the park? Mr. News I think it’s called? Bought three ice cream cones, gave one to an old boy’s little dog, and fed one to a teddy. The old man said that very specifically; she fed one to a teddy. Obviously, he thought she was a bit confused and rang the station when he and his wife got home. By the time McKinney got off his butt and went looking for her, she’d disappeared.”

  Electric currents run up my spine as I listen to her words.

  “Where had she gone?”

  “Home again. She still had her old door key. The owners never bothered changing the locks. After so many years I guess they didn’t think they needed to. They came home and found a mess in the kitchen; water all over the floor, cooked spaghetti on two plates at the kitchen table. God alone knows how she didn’t burn the place down. Then she took herself to bed in what used to be her son’s room.”

  Confused, I turn to little Joe. “We went to the park yesterday, didn’t we?”

  He nods.

  “Poor woman,” the doctor says with not a shred of concern in his voice.

  “She was!” Lydia snaps. “Losing a son in the way that she did is enough to turn anyone’s mind!”

  “Oh, yes, of course! Um … remind me again … ?” The doctor realizes his mistake and tries to make amends.

  Lydia tuts between her teeth and busies herself by pulling a sheet straight on the bed. Not looking at the doctor, she says, “She was coming back from a trip to the park with her son and the family dog. Joe twisted out of her hand and ran into the road just opposite the police station. He liked to walk on the wall outside apparently and wanted to do it without any help. The dog saw a car speeding down the road, yanked his lead from her other hand, and according to witnesses, tried to head-butt the child out of the way. The car hit them both. She was in the road but she wasn’t touched. She saw the whole thing.”

  Joe squeezes my hand. I stare down at him as dark memories crowd into my head. In slow motion I see my beautiful son running across the road toward the police station wall; I see the car racing toward him; I see Rufus snapping the lead from my hand and darting toward our boy; I hear my feet slapping against the tarmac as I rush out into the road behind them; I see Rufus head-butt my son’s body in his frantic attempt to push him clear of the vehicle; I feel in my bones the high-pitched squeal of brakes as the driver sees, too late, my boy and my good dog, and then I am deafened by the deadly double thud of impact mere inches in front of me. I see Joe’s impossibly tiny body sucked beneath the car and pray that he falls flat, stays down—oh stay down Joe, don’t lift your head, don’t move, don’t move, don’t move …

  I see his head slide into a jagged pothole in the road, and his neck and upper chest are caught by the front left-hand tire, which severs his head from his body and sends it flying through the air, landing neatly, neck down, on the sidewalk; I see Joe’s wide-open eyes and his mouth set in an oh of shock; I see his golden curls turn to red; I see the red pour down his skull, onto his face, into his eyes and mouth, and I don’t see him blink or hear him cry or spit or gag or swallow. I see Rufus flying partway over the bonnet of the car, then rebounding twice as fast back down to the tarmac, head first because his leash was caught beneath the front right tire. I hear the crunch as his neck breaks on impact. I see Joe’s little red wellingtons poking out from beneath the car as I pass in front of it; I hear my breath, heavy and hitching in my chest and throat, as I walk on numb legs to the sidewalk to pick up Joe’s head and return with it cradled in my arms so I can stroke Rufus’s head as he tries to lick my hand and takes his last shuddering gasp of air. And finally I hear the SNAP that sounds like a shotgun going off in my head as I break.

  “Oh.” The doctor grimaces. “That was tough.” He thinks for a second. “Explains why she was such a pain. Still, you’d think that after sixty years she’d have got over it.”

  Sixty years! Joe and I both turn to look at the old woman in the bed.

  Lydia’s head flashes toward the doctor. “Don’t,” she warns. Her voice trembles with an incredulity she is no longer trying to contain. “Got over it? She lost her entire family! What sadistic bastard condemned her to sixty years in this particular room, staring out of that window at the road that killed her husband and then took her only child? I’d be bloody upset too!”

  “Upset? She was either catatonic or thrashing around and screaming blue murder!” the doctor protests.

  “Did you not hear me? She could see the exact spots both of them died! For sixty years! Today is a blessing for her!”

  Is it my imagination or does she glance at me?

  Her voice drops to a whisper. “The only things that gave her comfort were Pudge and the dog leash.”

  “Pudge?” The doctor is backing toward the door, away from her suppressed rage.

  Lydia’s eyes grow colder still. “The teddy! You know, the one someone hid in her drawer at some point over the years? The one she asked for every day? It’s in her notes—look, there!” Lydia bounds across the room to the doctor, rifles through the papers until she finds what she is looking for, then jabs her fingernails against the writing. “Patient is requesting puj? Any ideas anyone? There’s the first note, and oh, look at the replies: Perhaps she means that awful sludge the cook doles out? Probably needs her bum changed. Did she have her teeth in?… Shall I go on? No, I didn’t think so. She was still begging for Pudge when I came along, and looked for something out of the ordinary. See? She’s holding it now.”

  Unwillingly, the doctor looks at the unmoving body of the old woman in the bed. A moth-eaten teddy that has no fur left on its ancient body lies beside the hand that has lost its grip in death. A tatty leash is tied around its neck.

  Joe squeals with delight. “Can I have Pudge back now?”

  “Of course you can.”

  I kiss his golden curls, take comfort from his unique little-boy smell,
and reluctantly lower him from my arms. My mouth is dry as I watch him run to the hospital bed to collect the moth-eaten teddy as the doctor almost runs from the room.

  He bends and kisses the old lady’s face, and I clearly hear him say, “Thank you for taking me to the park yesterday.”

  I sink to my knees and find myself cuddling Rufus as he sticks his snout onto my lap. I take his head in my hands. His brown eyes glow with love for me, and I scratch him in his good place behind his ears and kiss the top of his head repeatedly.

  “Good dog,” I tell him. “Best dog!”

  Rufus chuffs contentedly.

  Joe comes back to me. He holds Pudge carefully in his little hands and says, “We’ve been waiting for you!”

  My head turns from my son to the body on the bed and back again as I try to accept what I am evidently being told. As though in confirmation of this, Joe turns toward the doorway behind us and points. My eyes automatically follow his arm, and I can just make out the outline of a tall male figure that stands in the darkness just beyond the doorway. I frown. There is something very familiar about that shape, but I know from walking around town after Joe’s birth that my eyes can lie.

  As if fed up with waiting, the figure moves swiftly through the doorway toward us, bringing with it a brilliant light: so bright that I do not understand how I could have believed he stood in darkness, so strong that I am unable to make out his features. I stare in wonder as the light spreads out into the room, encompassing Joe, Rufus, and me.

  Strange as it may seem, I am not scared. I find myself laughing in incredulity as I look beyond us to the man who has silently moved to crouch in front of where I kneel with Joe and Rufus, and with a shock that is electric, I know that my eyes do not lie this time.