“Well, you’ve got the maps, navigator. So navigate me.”
“Uh, okay.”
The nursing home was shaped like a giant brick letter U, with fading paint on the window frames and cracked cement sidewalks. It was depressing, Will thought, and nobody should have to live out their last days here.
“Well, we’re here,” Jenn said.
Will nodded. “Yup.”
“Do you want me to wait out here?”
“God, no. Please, come with me.”
“Okay, Will. I’ll go … I just wanted to make sure you didn’t want to do this alone.”
He shook his head vehemently.
“Okay. Whenever you’re ready.”
Will sighed. “Let’s do this.”
The two of them climbed out of the car and stretched their achy muscles.
“I hope she remembers me,” Will said.
“Me too.”
Will opened the door at the main entrance and held it open for Jenn as she stepped through. “Thanks, sir. You’re such a gentleman.”
“I try.” Will was nervous and he wiped his palms on the seat of his pants.
The inside was not as depressing as the outside, but it was close. It reminded Will of an old movie he watched with his father years ago about a man trapped in a mental hospital. The smell of disinfectant was overwhelming and scorched the back of his throat. They approached a counter where a young woman in Betty Boop scrubs loomed over a notebook, furiously scribbling numbers in some sort of chart.
“Hello,” Will said.
The woman looked up from her chart and smiled, showing a mouthful of rapidly yellowing teeth. “Hi. What can I do for you?”
“I was hoping to see my Grandma.”
“How nice. What’s her name?”
“Uh, Nora. Nora Grant.”
The nurse’s smile faltered but Will pretended that he didn’t notice. “Is there something wrong? Does she no longer live here?”
“She’s still here? What did you say your name was?”
“My name is William. She’s my Dad’s Mom.”
The nurse nodded and furrowed her brow. “Nora is still here, but I have to tell you that she’s not having the greatest day.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Jenn said. “Is there something we could do?”
“No, honey, it’s not like that. It’s just some days she’s more lucid than others, and on her bad days—like today—she can seem a bit agitated. Maybe there is another day you could visit.”
“There isn’t,” Will said. “We came a long way and we’re moving on today.”
The nurse nodded and shrugged her shoulders at the same time. “I understand. Please follow me. Nora’s room is just down the hall and around the corner.”
“Thanks,” Jenn said.
“Yeah, thank you,” Will added.
“Don’t mention it.”
The three of them rounded the corner. “There it is. The third one on the right.”
“Thanks again,” Will said.
“Don’t thank me yet. Good luck.”
With that, the nurse turned and headed back to her post. Will looked to Jennifer and shrugged his shoulders.
“After you,” she whispered.
Will approached the door, which was open. Grandma Nora was lying in bed watching television. He knocked lightly on the open door.
“Hello, Grandma.”
No answer. He knocked again.
“Grandma? Hi, it’s your grandson, William.” He walked just inside the open door and waved. Without looking up, she said, “If you didn’t bring my blue dress back then I don’t even want to speak to you.”
“I’m William, your son, Brandon’s, boy.”
Finally, she looked to him and her eyes went wide. “Oh, Brandon, thank God. Come here and let me look at ya.”
William moved a little closer while Jenn remained in the hallway. “Hi, Grandma.”
She put her arms out and Will leaned in for a hug. She kissed him on the cheek and he felt his heart shiver.
“They stole my dress. The blue one I wore to Susie’s wedding. I always kept it under the bed but now it’s gone. Goddamn thieving bastards!”
“I’m so sorry, Grandma.”
“Can you get it back for me, son?”
“I’ll try, Grandma.”
“Thank you, Brandon, my sweet, sweet boy.”
“No Grandma, it’s me, William, Brandon is my dad.”
Jenn walked in at this point and placed a hand on Will’s shoulder. She whispered in his ear, “I think it’s best to just let her think what she thinks.”
“Who is this lovely young lady? Is this your wife?”
Jenn stepped out to where Nora could see her in full. “My name is Jennifer, Mrs. Grant. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You as well, Jennifer. You two make a beautiful couple. I knew you two would make it. I told him as much. When are you gonna bring that baby boy of yours in here to meet me?”
“Uh, Grandma—”
“Real soon, Nora. Real Soon,” Jennifer said.
Nora Grant smiled. “Yes, you do that.”
“Listen, Grandma, I was wondering if Dad—I mean … did I come to see you a while back?”
Nora blinked away her confusion. “You’re here now, and that’s all that matters, son.”
Will sighed and Jenn squeezed his shoulder. He turned to her and whispered, “This whole trip is a disaster. Nothing but a goddamn waste of time.”
“No, it’s not. Now talk to your Grandma.” He looked at her and she stared sternly back, nudging him forward.
Will exhaled loudly before turning back to his grandmother. “A while back I came to see you. Do you remember? I drove out here on my motorcycle. I came to see you and my friend from back home … back in Chaplin Hills. My friends name was …” Will hesitated as he searched for the name of his Dad’s boyhood friend. It came to him just as he was about to give up. “Peter!”
Nora’s face changed. It was subtle, and it passed like a shadow erased by the sun. “I warned you about him, Brandon. I begged you to stay out of that tree house. You were a good boy. You were my favorite. You were always my favorite, but you were stubborn.”
“What happened in the tree house, Grandma?” Will asked.
“I told you not to go. There was something wrong with that boy. You couldn’t see it, you never could, but I saw it. I could feel it.” Nora tried to sit up, the tendons in her neck bulging as she struggled with the task. Will looked nervously around, hoping a nurse would magically appear and save him from having to help. No nurse materialized, but Jennifer did.
“Easy, Mrs. Grant. Let me help you with that.” She helped Nora into a sitting position and propped her up with pillows.
“Did Dad—I mean did I—mention Peter when we last spoke?”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t even seem to hear the question.
Will grabbed Nora’s hand. It was cold. “Please, Grandma …”
“They stole my dress. Your dad bought that dress for me. We danced.”
“It’s okay,” Jenn whispered in Will’s ear.
Still holding his Grandma’s hand, William leant in and kissed her on the forehead. “Love you, Grandma.”
“If you see your aunt Susan, you tell her I want my dress. The blue one with the flowers.”
“Of course, I will tell her. The one with the flowers.”
“You’re a good boy. My favorite. Don’t tell your brother.”
Will chuckled. “I promise I won’t tell.” Grandma Grant didn’t respond, and an awkward silence filled the room. “Well, we better get going. We have a lot of miles to cover today.”
The silence continued and Nora’s gaze drifted from Will’s face, settling somewhere between the TV and the framed paint-by-number photo of Jesus Christ.
“Bye,” Will whispered.
Jennifer left the room and Will followed. From behind him, William heard his grandmother speak. Her voice was weak; paper thin like the ski
n on the back of her liver-spotted hands.
“What did you say?” He returned and crouched at her bedside. “Grandma, I didn’t hear you. Please say it again.”
Nora, still looking away, remained silent.
Please.
“Stay away from the tree house and stay away from Peter. Your father didn’t listen and now he’s gone. Don’t make the same mistake.”
Will’s skin broke out in goose bumps and he backed away slowly, mouth as dry as a New Mexico summer.
“Gone? Grandma, what do you mean, gone? Where did he go?”
Nora’s blank stare came into focus and she trained her sunken grey eyes on Will. “Go home.”
Two minutes later, Jenn pulled away from the nursing home. “What did she say?”
“Huh?”
“After I left. When we were leaving.”
“Nothing. Total nonsense. She told me to stay out of the tree house and to go home.”
“Huh?”
“Like I said, complete nonsense.”
“We gonna keep going?”
“Hell yeah, we’re gonna keep going.”
Jenn pulled over to the side of the road. “Because we can go back. It’s perfectly okay if we go back.”
Will made no indication he was listening. Instead, he studied the map while clicking his tongue. “Chaplin Hills is that way,” he said, pointing northeast. “We should be there in forty-five minutes.”
CHAPTER TEN
Chaplin Hills
“The guy doesn’t have a Facebook profile. No Instagram. He’s not on LinkedIn, and he doesn’t even have a freaking Myspace page. That’s weird, Jenn.”
“So he’s not into social media. Big deal. My aunt Nicole deleted her Facebook a few years ago. Yeah, apparently some asshole up in St. Paul, or Minneapolis started stalking her. He tracked her down, broke in while she was out jogging, and then stole some of her dirty underwear and all of the trash from her bathroom. Now that dude, was weird.”
“What? Jesus! Why did you have to tell me that story?”
Jenn looked at him as if it was obvious. “This dude isn’t on Facebook and my Aunt Nicole isn’t on Facebook. All I’m saying is, sometimes there is a good reason.”
“So you think maybe this guy isn’t on social media because he doesn’t want anybody breaking in to steal his ball hair and toenail clippings from the trashcan?”
“No, wise ass. I’m saying some people aren’t on social media for a lot of different, and sometimes logical, reasons.”
“Okay. Thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome.”
Will could only shake his head and giggle.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
They crossed into Nebraska and shortly after that, the two travelers could see a set of towering grain bins with the town’s name—CHAPLIN HILLS—printed in black above an enormous painting of the American flag. They took the off-ramp into town without speaking, the calm waters of Chaplin Hills Lake and the public golf course stretching out on their right and a desolate KOA campground sitting to their left. Only one camper remained on the lot and a half mile straight ahead stood a concrete overpass that spanned four sets of railway tracks.
Jenn’s VW climbed the overpass, officially entering Chaplin Hills city limits, and as they reached the top, the small town spread out before them.
“Here it is,” Jenn said.
“Mayberry.”
“Yeah. There isn’t much to it, eh?”
“Nope. Pretty much what I expected.”
“Well, how do we find this mystery man?” Jenn wondered aloud.
“I don’t know,” Will admitted. “If this were a movie we’d find an old phone booth and rip his address out of the phone book.”
“What’s a phone booth?” Jenn asked playfully.
“Exactly.”
Jenn turned right on Maine Street and drove through the heart of town. The streets were wide, clean, and had a feel best described as unauthentic.
Like a movie set.
To that point, next to an auto parts store, a movie Theatre called The State sat empty and long abandoned. A for-sale sign hung above the door, and on the Coming Attractions board, there was a poster for a zombie movie called A Devil in God’s Country, which had been showing a few years back. Only a couple letters remained on the marquee, leaving it to look like an unsolved Wheel of Fortune puzzle. The old Theatre looked off and out of sorts, but somehow—in this town—it still managed to fit right in.
One block over, the bank sat on the south side of the road and shared some real estate with a place called Mom’s Cafe. The local grocery store was across the street and both Will and Jenn marvelled at how small everything looked.
“Could you live in a town this small?” Jenn asked.
“It would be so weird, right? Probably a good place to raise some kids, but Jesus Christ, it has to be the most boring place in the world.”
Jenn nodded in agreement.
Will pointed at the post office coming up on the right. “Could we just go in there and tell them we have a package for this guy? Would they give us his address for that?”
She directed a skeptical glance towards him briefly before turning her attention back to the road. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Ooh! Right there!” Will pointed to the building next to the post office.
“What?”
“Donut shop. Isn’t that where you get information in a small town? Besides, I could go for a jelly donut.”
Jenn made a U-turn at the next block and parked directly in front of Daylight Donuts. A bell chimed as Will pushed open the door. He gave Jenn an after you gesture before following her in. It was as they expected—six old men, with beer barrels as guts, sat around a large table just inside the door. Sweat stained work shirts tucked into denim jeans. Grey hair tucked beneath ball caps adorned with farm equipment logos or the large red N of the University of Nebraska. An opened box of donuts sat on the table, and six cups of coffee steamed into each sun-hardened face. The men stopped their conversation and watched Jenn and Will walk in.
“Hi,” Jenn mumbled. She offered up a half-hearted wave to go with the meek salutation as she scooted passed them. Each old man eyed both William and Jennifer with what looked like suspicion.
A middle-aged woman with short brown hair stood behind the counter. She had a writing pen in her mouth, she chewed on the tip of it as Jenn and William approached her.
“Hi, Kids,” the woman said. She removed the pen from her mouth and slam-dunked it behind her ear. “What can I gitcha?”
Jenn looked over her shoulder at Will who stared lovingly at the big jelly donuts under the glass counter. “We’ll take two of those jelly donuts and … a couple of coffees.” She looked back to Will to see if that was okay. He nodded.
“Two jellies and two cups of Joe coming up.”
Will pointed to the stools at the counter. “Can we eat there?”
“You sure can.”
“Thanks …” He leaned in to read her nametag, “Wanda.”
“You’re welcome.” Wanda smiled wide at him, pulled the pen from behind her ear, and stuck it back in her mouth.
They sat down on a pair of cracked leather swivel stools. Will spun his seat around ninety degrees and glanced at the old men. They were staring, but went back to their coffee and donuts when Will turned to them. He frowned and whispered to Jenn, “Wonder what their deal is?”
She shrugged. “Don’t like kids, maybe … or outsiders.”
“I thought people from the Midwest were supposed to be friendly.”
“Well, so long as nobody starts playing the banjo …”
Wanda arrived with their coffee. “Don’t mind them. They aren’t the best welcoming committee. They’re just a little shook up. We all are, really. They found another body.” She tapped the front page of the Rocky Mountain News that sat at the end of the counter. “It’s terrible news. This one makes three. Supposed to be b
ig city trouble,” she said, shaking her head. “Probably meth related, I’m guessing. You kids don’t mess with that stuff do you? It’s terrible—just terrible.”
“No, ma’am,” Will said.
Wanda nodded approvingly but Will didn’t think she looked completely convinced. “Either way, I hope they find who is doing this before they strike again. It’s getting too close to home. Way too close.” She turned and grabbed two jelly donuts from the glass case and sat them down on plastic saucers. Will wasted no time and dug in.
“Thanks,” he said, jelly on his lip. Jenn motioned to her lip. Will blushed and wiped his face.
“You two are cute. Where y’all from?”
They both opened their mouths to answer truthfully but then hesitated. They didn’t set out to lie or mislead anybody, but joint intuition suggested that in this place and time, honesty would not be the best policy.
They shared a quick glance at one another and that was all it took. “We’re on vacation,” Will said. “Mom and Dad are gassing up the camper and buying the provisions. We’re just … sightseeing and felt like a donut.”
“Well you came to the right place. How do they taste?”
“Oh, they’re awesome! Right, sis?”
“Delicious,” she said, her mouth full. “Sorry.”
Wanda laughed, “No problem. Glad you like ‘em.” The waitress sat down on her side of the counter. “Where you folks heading?”
After an uncomfortable silence, William said, “Right now, we’re heading out to Lincoln to see Grandma.”
“Oh, that’s nice.”
Jenn took a swallow of her coffee. “Didn’t Dad say he had an old friend that might still live here?” She looked to Will with mock curiosity on her face.
“Uh, I’m not sure.”
“Remember, he said he had an old childhood friend?”
“What’s the name, sugar,” Wanda offered, “If he’s still here, I’ll know him.”
“I’m sure you would,” Will said.
“His name is Peter …” Jenn struggled with the last name, “It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
Wanda leaned in, enjoying the game, “How old would he be?”
The Complete Bleaker Trilogy Box-set Page 17
