And old socks, Corky thought, nodding. “A little.” The crumb drying on her arm was driving her crazy. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the nurses watching them. Nurse Barbara, the same one who had taken her soda away from her. Why did she say nothing about this toast?
“When I go, I want my daughter to feel like it was alright. You know? Is your uncle’s family handling his… you know. Are they handling this well?” Then, without waiting for an answer, “I saw a group yesterday that was just devastated, I swear you’d have thought they had no idea their mother was even ill. They acted like it was such a surprise. But Mattie – that was the woman who died, I played a few hands of Gin Rummy with her when I first got here – she had been here for weeks! And her kids, well… they had only visited a couple of times. Maybe they really thought it was just a hospital, you know, where she’d get better and go home.”
“That’s...” Corky’s discomfort was intense, and she couldn’t think of the words she wanted. “That’s a shame.” She nodded, glancing at Moony’s door to see if it was open yet. It wasn’t. She shook her arm again, and this time the crumb flew off. It landed on one of the pillows. Corky stared at it.
“I tell my daughter, to be glad that the living die. ‘Be glad the living die, and pray that the dead shall rest,’ I say to her. That was a saying of my mother’s. Why, can you just imagine if nobody ever died?” The old woman chuckled, not seeing the way Corky’s face had gone over all pale.
“Yes. Um. Yes, that’s certainly…” Corky looked over toward her uncle’s door (still closed) and spotted Nurse Barbara still watching them. “Will you excuse me? I need to talk to the nurse about something,” she said, rising abruptly. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Oh, certainly, don’t let me keep you.” The old woman smiled at her, laughing. “Don’t tell her about my toast.”
But Corky didn’t talk to the nurse. She headed right for the bathroom to wash her arm. With soap. And hot water. Absurd to need such hot water for such a small crumb, but there it was. She felt so dirty. Like she could catch that woman’s upcoming death as if it were a virus.
She washed her arm over and over until it was red, and then peeked out from the bathroom again. The old woman was gone.
***
The door to Moony’s room opened briefly, and Pam came out. When she spotted Corky sitting in the lobby, she frowned, then rolled her eyes and walked toward her, shaking her head.
Corky rose to meet her. “Pam, I—”
Pam cut her off. “Just don’t even start, Corky. Dad’s slipped into a coma. He’s doing very poorly. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Are you… are you doing OK?”
“I’m as well as can be expected. Bruce is on his way over now to sit with him. I… I have to go, excuse me.” She pushed past Corky and moved off through the lobby.
Corky turned to watch her go, then turned back toward the rooms. Moony’s door was firmly shut again. She wasn’t sure whether she was allowed to go in, but she sort of suspected not. She chose a seat in the far corner of the lobby, as far from the crumb-bespitted couch as she could find, and sat there, trying to work out what to do next.
She wanted to talk to Moony, but of course she couldn’t do that. She watched the door for a while, wondering at the lack of activity there. Shouldn’t nurses be rushing in and out? But no. Why would they? He was dying; that was the whole point. They’d only make sure he was comfortable. Corky rubbed her eyes, wondering how it felt to be in a coma.
She’d had surgery as a little girl, for her appendix. She remembered lying on the table, and a man telling her to relax, that she would be feeling sleepy. Then, nothing. Not sleep, not dreaming, just…nothing. A blankness, just a blink, and she was coming around, a nurse there telling her to open her eyes, to wake up. The coming around was something like waking up, but the black nothing before it was not in any way like sleeping. She imagined that was how a coma would feel: like nothing. Like it was before you were born.
A noise to her left distracted her from her musings, and she glanced that way. One of the side doors in the lobby was slightly open. She peeked over her shoulder, and saw two men pushing carts. The carts were grey, like the uniforms the men wore; Corky assumed they were janitors. She turned back around, but she could still hear them talking to each other, laughing. One of the men said something about his girlfriend, and there was a bit of quiet, then another burst of laughter. Corky looked at the floor. Such contrast between the world in that hallway and the world she was in. She remembered a job she had as a teenager, working in a theater part time, tearing tickets and running a sweeper over the carpet between showings. Everything always had to be so clean, at least “up front.” But in the back, there were sacks of popcorn with holes in them, and boys squeezing tubes of fake butter at each other, shooting for distance.
A particularly loud outburst (“Oh, yeah, can I get a fist bump on that, brother?”) caused her to look up again, and she saw Nurse Barbara hurrying toward the door. She glanced at Corky with a mixture of apology and irritation as she passed her by. The nurse pulled the door shut behind her, but Corky still heard bits and pieces of scolding, rising and falling behind the door, muffled. It sounded like a nest of baby birds.
Not wanting to be there when Nurse Barbara came back, Corky rose and wandered down the side of the lobby, looking at the paintings there. There were large portraits next to each of the wide halls that branched off of the lobby, and placards underneath the portraits. The halls were named for these people. Eleanor Moffin 1923-1978. Eleanor in her portrait was thin and unsmiling. Corky peered into the hall as she passed, but saw nobody. The next portrait was of a youth. Peter Patterson 1967 – 1982. In Patterson Hall there was a flurry of nurses moving into and out of the first room on the left. Corky stared at the portrait and eavesdropped on the nurses. The patient would be gone in minutes, they agreed. A small light went on over the patient’s door as the nurses stepped inside and closed it. Corky wondered if the light meant the patient was dying or if it was for something else.
Circling around the lobby, she came again on her uncle’s hall. His door was still closed. Francene Andrews 1934-1990. Bored, she stood and reviewed the portrait. Then she heard some voices in the hall and saw a pair of nurses move quietly into Moony’s room like spirits. Corky felt a little chill, and her hand went to the cross she wore, and absently fingered it through the fabric. She watched, but the light over the door remained dark.
Martin Moonrich died about twenty minutes later.
Chapter 14
…We are helpless, he is too strong for us. He grows worse every night. Nobody can catch him, no bars could contain him. We sat up late last night in the dark, talking. The things she tells me! If only he could be destroyed…
I am a failure to us.
Bruce was sitting in the chair next to Moony’s bed when Corky peeked in.
“Bruce… I’m sorry. How are you doing?” Corky took a few steps into the room and patted Bruce on the shoulder. “It’s good he didn’t suffer.” Like she had any way of knowing whether there had been suffering. But Bruce only nodded at her.
She tried again. “Is Pam on her way back?”
More nodding. Then, “Yes, she’s… she was here earlier. If she hadn’t left, she’d be here already.” Bruce shook his head and added with a snort, “Well, obviously. I’m sorry. I’m kind of tired.”
He looked tired. Corky patted his shoulder again. “Of course you are. This sort of thing takes a lot out of you.” She leaned on the wall, watching Bruce nodding at her. “Would you like to be alone?” she said, expecting to see the nodding continue.
It didn’t. “No, no. It’s… it’s fine. I took the day to spend here, so… well, I guess I should call work and tell them about this. Excuse me a second.” Bruce turned away, dialing on his cell phone. He wasn’t supposed to bring a cell phone in here, but everyone did it.
Corky turned away, looking at the form under the sheet. She supposed they�
�d leave him there until Pam got back, and then they’d wheel him off to… wherever. Probably down the hall with the grey-clad janitors. How many bodies were hidden back there? She wondered when the funeral would be, and figured she’d talk to Pam about that when she got there.
As if on cue, Pam arrived. She went to the bed and lifted the sheet, sighing. “Well, I guess that’s that,” she said quietly.
“I’m so sorry, Pam.”
“It’s alright. We knew it was coming.” She glanced over at Bruce, who was still on the phone. “Who’s he talking to?”
“His work, I think.” Corky shrugged. “I guess to let them know.”
Pam poked her brother in the arm and made hand gestures at him. “Well, he needs to get in gear so we can talk about this. I don’t know what he thinks is going to happen if we don’t make some arrangements.” She turned and began moving briskly around the room. “I guess I’ll have to pack the things he has left here,” she said. “I don’t imagine you’ve decided to return the cross?”
Stung and stunned, Corky stood silent. What could she say? She longed to tell Pam the truth about the cross, if only to see the look on her face. But how could she do that? Pam would never believe her. The only way to prove the cross had never really belonged to Aunt Vi would be to show Pam what Uncle Moony had written, and Corky wasn’t about to do that.
Pam folded her arms together and shrugged. “Well, I guess it’s your own decision.” She moved to where Bruce was still talking on the phone and tugged at his sleeve, urging him to get off the phone. When he did, she drew him aside and began talking to him in a whisper about arrangements.
Corky stood watching them for a moment, but their backs were turned to her and she felt absurd standing there. She turned to leave, and spotted the little mirror on the nightstand, the mirror Moony had tried to give to her. On impulse, she picked it up and glanced into it, seeing a reflection of her cousins behind her. Their backs were still turned. She slipped the mirror into her pocket like a thief.
***
At the nurse’s station, Nurse Barbara smiled in a small way at Corky as she walked past the desk. “May he rest in peace, dear.” After Corky was out of sight, she folded her hands in front of her and said a small prayer.
She had seen Corky take the mirror off the nightstand and slip it into the pocket of her sweater. But she had also seen Mr. Moonrich try to give the girl the mirror earlier; she had seen that and had seen his daughter take it away from them both, scolding.
Nurse Barbara saw a lot of things.
After the families did their visiting, there were always long stretches of time when patients were alone, and they wanted to talk. Family only goes so far, after all; family only hangs around for so long before needing a break from the walking dead. Family goes home, but the nurse stays.
Nurse Barbara had spent some long hours with Martin “Moony” Moonrich. He had talked about all sorts of things, some sensible, some not. Patients in the last stages often had strange things on their minds. Sometimes, while Barbara sat by him soothingly and checked his charts, Moony had spoken of vampires.
Not often, and not a lot, but enough for her to put two and two together. She had seen the cross when he still kept it hidden in the hat under his pillow. He showed it to her once, and she read the inscription there: let him not find you sleeping.
Barbara is one of the Faithful, and she knows the rest of it. What I say to you, I say to everyone: Watch! And she does, she watches. Nurse Barbara always watches.
She saw Moony give the cross to his niece, and because she watches she suspects the girl wore it under her shirt every day when she visited – though she could not see the cross itself, she saw the chain at the edge of her neckline. Now, sitting at her station and watching the two kids discuss arrangements, she felt for her own crucifix under her uniform. “God loves the faithful,” she whispered to herself. And he punishes the wicked.
The good Lord knew Nurse Barbara had seen much of that. Years of duty on a hospice desk had shown Barbara a variety of good and evil. Children who sat faithfully by their parents and made their decisions for the good of their loved ones. Lazy people who just didn’t care. Wicked people who went out of their way to take everything they could from the dust-dry and desperate souls who were trapped in their charge.
Nurse Barbara sat at the desk, watching. A light went on in the hallway and she stood up. Another patient; room 314. She would say a prayer for him, too.
Chapter 15
…Edgar has left me no restful time, I am lost.
Back at her motel room, Corky sat despondently at the table, flipping pages in Moony’s book. The funeral was to be held on Saturday. If she had already gone home, she’d probably not have been expected to come back for the funeral. If she had gone home, gone home like she had wanted to this morning. Earlier actually. She had wanted to go home almost since the moment she arrived here. She glanced at the newspaper: Thursday. Had she really driven up here only Tuesday?
“Well, now I can double my fun,” she muttered. Since she had not gone home, she’d have to stay longer. Stay for the funeral, of course. Head back late Saturday or early Sunday. She was glad she had taken the whole week off. So much for having a few days to herself, though. And so much for going to the zoo with Seth and Sarah.
Shit. She glanced at her watch and reached for the phone. She needed to let Seth know what was going on. He’d be expecting her home tonight.
His voice when he answered was gravelly and sweet in her ear and she suddenly felt like she might cry. She told him about Moony.
“That’s a bummer… but at least it was fast, right?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, pacing around the room. “It was fast. He was in a coma for a few hours. That could have dragged out.”
“So. You’re staying for the funeral? When’s that happening, did you say Saturday?”
“Saturday morning, yeah.” Corky had been surprised that it was going to be held so soon; her own mother’s funeral had taken almost a week to arrange. But that was Moony’s wish. It had to be as rapid as possible. And it had to be cremation. She had overheard the argument Pam and Bruce had about it, and been surprised at the ferocity with which Bruce had argued in favor of having the funeral as his father wanted it. Pam’s position was that it didn’t make a difference what their father had wanted (“Funerals are for the relatives, Bruce, for us. Not for him. He’s gone.”) but in the end she had allowed Bruce to sway her. It would be cremation (which was cheaper anyway) and it would be Saturday (the earliest Bruce could arrange) and Pam had stormed off to make phone calls, muttering that hardly anybody would be able to make it to a funeral on such short notice.
Corky dearly hoped this wouldn’t be true, that it wasn’t going to turn out to be just her and her cousins and nobody else at the funeral. Surely there would be some relatives who would show up. She figured though, that Pam was probably right; a lot more people would come if they had more time to arrange plans. But Corky knew, or at least suspected she knew, why Uncle Moony had wanted to be cremated immediately.
It was the only way to be sure he couldn’t return as a vampire.
She didn’t know why he had wanted the funeral to happen so fast, though. Lost in this train of thought, she paced around the room with the phone at her ear. “He could have had his body cremated right away and then waited weeks for a memorial service.”
“Huh?” Seth said, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, sorry. I was thinking to myself.” Corky apologized, filling him in about the funeral. “I was thinking that Pam’s kind of right; there’s probably a lot of relatives who won’t be able to get here by Saturday morning. The place’ll probably be empty.” Her mind wandered a little, mentally tabulating relatives who lived within a day’s drive. She couldn’t remember many. Come to think of it, she could remember hardly any relatives at all. The funeral was likely to be a bleak, bleak affair. “Maybe Aunt Vi’s sister, whatshername… Harriet? If she’s alive. She us
ed to live pretty close, I think.”
“Aw, babe. I’m sorry. You want me to drive up? I can maybe get a few days off, leave tonight—”
“No,” Corky said, sighing. She didn’t want to do that to him, though she would very much like him to be here right now. “You’re sweet, I love you. But this is just going to suck. Besides,” she added, “you have Sarah and the zoo.”
“She’d understand.”
She would, too, Corky was sure. Sarah would understand. But no, she didn’t want to do that to her. Didn’t want to do that to either of them. “It’s fine. I’m going to try and head home right after the funeral, so maybe I can even come see you guys on Sunday. You can tell me about the big cats you saw.” Sarah was mad for the cats. Corky joked that if Seth had a cat, Sarah would visit more.
Seth laughed. “Yeah, every time I have her she asks me why I don’t have a cat. Maybe I should get one. A cool one, like your bookstore cat.”
“He’s cool, alright,” Corky smiled. Thump was the best. “But he knocks crap over all the time. Be prepared, cats get into everything.” She sat down at the table, where Moony’s book caught her eye. She ran her fingers over it. “Too bad I don’t have a cat here to play with. I’m going to be so bored until Saturday.”
“Yeah, go get one,” Seth said, grinning. “Plus, it can warn you if a vampire comes.”
“That’s not even funny, Seth.” Corky spoke lightly, but she was upset. “I’m already having nightmares. I guess I can finish reading this book today, at least that will give me something to do.” There were perhaps twenty or thirty more handwritten pages; it wouldn’t take long. Then what? She glanced at the box by the door and shook her head. She owned every vampire book ever written, but somehow she didn’t suspect she’d be in the mood to read them. Ever.
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