“Then let’s just do that,” Josie said.
“Josie, be reasonable,” Stephen wailed.
“No, it’s all right,” Bernard Reynolds held up a hand. “I know that this must have been extraordinarily traumatic for you, but it is no less traumatic than what happened to Emily. She is a sweet woman, and I will make sure no harm comes to her.”
“I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her,” Josie insisted.
“Confusing a resident like Emily can be hurt enough. She’s had episodes over the years and we finally have her on an even footing. Her reality is this minute and little else. You’re going to have to accept that.”
It was obvious that Mr. Reynolds believed that would be the end of it; Josie knew this was just the beginning.
“I will accept that when I am personally convinced of it,” Josie answered. “I am her daughter. She looked straight at me. She smiled. Whether she consciously knows who I am or not means nothing in the face of the fact that there was something there. Medicine is not an exact science, Mr. Reynolds. Even if it were, you are not a doctor. I would bet that each of our assessments of her condition has about a fifty-fifty chance of being correct. I’d lay money on my fifty percent.”
“And my staff and I have cared for her for many years,” he countered. “I believe we have the advantage. I am sorry for it, but that is the reality.”
Josie steeled herself. She knew he was telling his truth but she also knew that this was no different than a witness on the stand in court. Her job was to keep them testifying until they spoke the truth she wanted to hear.
“How many patients do you have?” she asked.
“Four residents at the moment. Quite frankly, though, I don’t need to answer–”
“This is an expensive property to keep up with only four people. Exactly how exclusive are you?”
“Very.”
Clearly there was a change of attitude. The shock of what had happened was wearing off; his empathy for Josie’s plight was wearing thin. The consequences of what happened that day could be much farther reaching than the injury to Josie’s hand or her heart. Mr. Reynolds no longer fidgeted and color was returning to his face.
“I am not at liberty to discuss our residents or the particulars of this home. And I resent the cross-examination.”
“It was just an observation,” Stephen piped up. He straddled a chair back to front and draped his arms over the top rung as he tried to get into the conversation. He grinned at Josie who had no humor to spare. He tried the same trick on Reynolds who ignored him, too.
“Not true, Mr. Reynolds,” Josie said. “This is a grave situation, and I would like to know everything starting with how she is paying for this kind of facility. I would like to talk to everyone who has contact with her now and for the last however many years she’s been here. That would include the other residents. I want to see her commitment papers. Who is her guardian? I will need her medical records. Most of all, I would like to arrange to transport her as soon as possible. I’ll be taking her back to California. A referral by your doctors would be appreciated, but isn’t necessary.”
“Is that all?” Reynolds asked and Josie missed the ice in his voice.
“Yes, for now.” She got up, tugging at her long knit shirt with her good hand. The shirt and her pants were ruined, covered in blood.
“You’ll have a long wait, Ms. Bates. Not only will I not allow you access to any of our people, I wouldn’t tell you what Emily had for breakfast.” Mr. Reynolds looked at Stephen. “If there is legal action by this woman, there will be counter suits and you will also be named. This is a private institution and as such–”
“I believe this institution sits on Federal land and is, therefore, under the jurisdiction of the Federal courts,” Josie pointed out and his attention swung her way again. He was more formidable than she first imagined.
“And the buildings and the people who run this institution are private. We hold a ninety-nine year lease on forty acres within the confines of Federal parklands. I believe that clarifies our status.”
“Yes,” Josie answered. She would not leave it at that but Reynolds didn’t have to know. The good thing about a legal standing was that exception was the rule. If anyone could find it in this case, she could.
“Good. Then you will also understand that there is nothing I can do for you personally. I have no proof you are who you say you are.” Bernard Reynolds voice was flat but it quivered just a bit.
“I can give you a birth certificate, driver license. I’ll give you…”
“You could have twenty driver licenses,” Reynolds stopped her, unwilling to listen. “I have no doubt your names are the same, and that there is a resemblance, but none of that does me any good. Ha Kuna House and its administrator is legal guardian for Emily. How am I to know if Emily is your mother and not an aunt or a sister? And even if I took the mother/daughter relationship at face value, I have no independent corroboration that you are a sympathetic party. Given what you’ve told me and your behavior here today, I could argue that you are not here to help Emily at all. Perhaps you are looking for payback for something.”
“Reynolds! Please. No need to be insulting.” Before Stephen could finish, Reynolds turned on him.
“Then let me point out that you are pretty much a name on an invoice to me. I should have thrown you both out.”
Josie talked over him, “My mother’s disappearance is a matter of record.”
“I only care about what happens now. I am not at liberty to discuss anything about Emily without her express consent. She can’t give it, and I choose not to answer any questions about this institution.”
Bernard Reynolds stood up. Stephen did the same, twirling the chair and putting it back where he had found it.
“Josie, come on. Let’s catch the tide. We’ll think on this.” Stephen touched her shoulder and gave the administrator a glance as he got up. “And I’m sure Mr. Reynolds will check with his people. We’ll sort it out, won’t we?”
“I will definitely be talking to my superiors,” Reynolds answered. Stephen didn’t think that sounded hopeful at all.
Josie got up, too. She was suddenly exhausted. Her hand was beginning to throb, her heart was battered, and her brain was as close to befuddled as it had ever been. Her entire adult life she had been both decisive and persuasive. Now she was reduced to this: no clear choice, no defined course of action, and no argument that would sway this man. Josie did the only thing she could think to do: she begged.
“Let me see her one more time. Give her a chance to tell you who I am.”
“Ms. Bates,” Mr. Reynolds said her name like he was reading it off a list of people who perished in a tragic accident. “Emily doesn’t even know who she is.”
“She’ll know me. Please,” Josie whispered.
Reynolds looked at Stephen whose shoulders rose as he chucked his chin up and added his two cents. “If what has already happened didn’t upset the woman, I doubt Josie going up to say a few words will.”
Reynolds looked at him with contempt but he couldn’t deny Stephen was right. Still he warned: “The minute you are anything other than conversational, you will be removed. Is that understood?”
Josie nodded. She and Stephen followed the director up the stairs to the top floor. Emily still sat quietly in her chair. Reynolds whispered to her while Josie and Stephen held back and strained to hear what he was saying.
Are you up to it?
Visitors
You can say no
Emily looked at Reynolds as he hunkered down next to her chair. She smiled at him and watched his lips as if that would help her understand what he was saying. She wasn’t impatient or confused, engaged or curious. Emily Bates was simply there like the chair in a room or a window in a wall. She brought no energy to it, nor did she take any away. The light had passed from golden to pale as a peach as the sun went down. The glass had been swept from the floor and the jagged pieces removed from the broken frame. The la
ce panel had been removed to be cleaned of Josie’s blood. The missing curtain made the two rooms feel naked as if the resident had moved on.
Josie had that same feeling of emptiness when she stood in her father’s house after his death. It wasn’t a personal void, just a physical one. Without her father, the house was nothing more than walls, a patch of lawn, and a roof. Someone else would eat in the kitchen, and someone else would sleep in the bedroom and watch television in the living room. Someday they would be gone too and the cycle would start again.
Reynolds patted Emily’s shoulder just before he stepped aside giving Josie permission to approach. Josie cleared her throat, fearful that her voice would catch on the first word she uttered. Emily kept her eyes on Bernard Reynolds the way Max might watch Josie, with utter trust that she was safe in his presence.
Emily had nothing to fear. Josie wasn’t a lawyer, she wasn’t a woman about to be married, and she wasn’t guardian to a girl with too much courage for her own good. Josie Bates was thirteen again, in awe of her beautiful mother, shy in her presence. Emily was the woman Josie had wanted to be. She prayed her mother wouldn’t find her lacking. She refused to believe that Emily would not recognize her at all.
Josie went around the chair and stood in front of Emily. Their first encounter had been so swift, so staggeringly brutal, that Josie had only registered an impression of the woman. Now she saw her as she was: aged but still beautiful, regal, and elegant. How Josie had always wished the sum of her parts were more like her mother’s, but Josie’s height, the cut of her cheek, the broadness of her shoulders, her slim hips made her a handsome woman, not a stunning one. Josie’s movements were purposeful and athletic; Emily’s were strong but fluid and ladylike. And yet there were changes that underscored how much time had been lost. Deep lines fanned at the corner of her mother’s eyes, her skin was almost colorless making her appear luminescent, her bones were small and fragile. That was not what Josie wanted. She wanted Emily to stand up to her and explain herself, but then Josie saw her mother’s feet and wondered if Emily could even walk any longer. Every disappointment Josie had suffered, every flash of anger, every resentful moment she had experienced over the years disintegrated at the sight of her mother’s feet covered by the soft slippers. Josie had the fleeting thought that Emily could no more have stood up for her all those years ago than she could stand up to her now.
Josie bent down and hooked the fingers of her good hand over the arm of the chair to steady herself. Emily’s eyes flickered away from Bernard Reynolds and rested on Josie’s hand. When Emily looked up, Josie saw that the color had faded in her mother’s eyes like a blue pinafore left too long in the sun. Emily smiled. She inclined her head and then raised one hand. She cupped Josie’s face.
“You are so pretty,” Emily said.
“Tell them who I am,” Josie whispered.
Emily titled her head to the other side. Two of her fingers moved as if to test the mold of Josie’s jaw. Josie could not resist that touch. She nestled her face in the palm of her mother’s hand, she let her shoulders give up the great weight she had carried so many years, she let her eyes fill with tears that had never been shed. Josie sank to her knees and closed her eyes.
“Tell them.”
In what seemed an eternal moment, Josie waited to hear her mother speak. Instead, she felt Emily’s hand on hers, Emily’s breath against her cheek. Josie opened her eyes just as Emily leaned forward. They were closer than they had ever been, but Emily was smiling at someone else.
“Here’s my daughter. She can tell you who you are.”
Josie followed Emily’s gaze. There, in the doorway of the bathroom, clutching a broom and a dustpan was a young woman. The last time Josie had seen her she was wearing a hat, a heavy coat, and bending over the body of Ian Francis.
***
“Amelia. I didn’t expect you for another day.” Mr. Reynolds moved forward and motioned her into the room. “This is Ms. Bates and Mr. Kyle.”
The girl nodded to Stephen, but her eyes skated over Josie as if she were a patch of thin ice to be avoided at all costs. Slowly, Josie got to her feet. She moved her hand to the back of Emily’s chair as if to prove possession was nine tenths of the law.
Josie couldn’t believe that she had ever thought this was Hannah. This girl was at least twenty-five. Her skin was gorgeous, pale and clear with a hint of pink on her cheeks. Her long blond hair was fine and pulled back in a ponytail, her bangs caught off to the side with a barrette. Her face was heart-shaped and her grey eyes would be beautiful if you could look past the dark circles underneath them. She wore a pair of jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt, and tennis shoes.
“What are you doing here?” Josie demanded.
“I was cleaning up the glass.” Amelia locked eyes with Josie and pulled her lips together in a tight, hard line. Josie imagined she was being defiant, but on second glance she realized the girl was being cautious, pleading with Josie to remain silent.
“This is one of our aides. Amelia Francis.” Mr. Reynolds said.
“You’re a nurse?” Josie asked.
“Amelia is one of our lawehana,” Mr. Reynolds said. “In Hawaiian that means a woman who helps.”
“It means a servant,” Stephen grumbled.
“Not here,” Reynolds corrected him. “Here it means a woman who helps. Without her, Emily would not be as healthy as she is now. Emily didn’t like the woman from the agency, Amelia. She missed you.”
Emily swiveled in her chair and both hands clutched at the arm. She looked at the people around her, her expression concerned, her movement agitated.
“I would like to see Ian. I think I haven’t seen him. Have I seen him? Have I? Because I’m afraid…” Her head went left; it went right. “I’m afraid…”
Josie started to move toward her mother but Amelia put herself between the two women.
“Don’t. She doesn’t like to be touched, especially by strangers.”
Again there was a flash of something in those exhausted eyes, but Amelia looked away before Josie could figure out what it might be. It was the girl’s touch and whispers that settled Emily.
Emily whispered back but loud enough for everyone to hear. “I don’t want people looking at me.”
Amelia whispered again as she smoothed Emily’s hair. When she righted herself, she pivoted, retrieved her dustpan and walked away, speaking to no one in particular.
“I need to get the trays ready.”
Before Amelia could make her escape, Reynolds raised his arm and blocked her. “Where is your father, Amelia? I’ll bring him up for her.”
“I left him with our relatives. I couldn’t do it on my own anymore,” Amelia mumbled.
“I wish you had come to me. We should have talked about it,” Reynolds answered, obviously annoyed.
“I didn’t think I needed your permission,” Amelia said.
“No, of course you don’t.” Reynolds took a quick look around. All eyes were on him. “I’m concerned about his medication. That’s all.”
“I know. I’m sorry, but you know how he is. It’s hard to stop him sometimes.”
“Yes. I know. We’ll talk about it later,” the man said.
Only Josie seemed to realize how distressed Bernard Reynolds was; only Josie seemed to hear the catch in the girl’s throat. A lie of that magnitude was not easy to tell, and yet she had done it. Josie had the feeling that she had done it because her father – her dead father who had risked so much to bring Josie here – would have wanted her to. So Josie did what she had to do, too.
She left Ha Kuna House, taking her questions with her, already making plans to get her mother home to Hermosa. Bernard Reynolds moved to the doorway to stand beside Amelia Francis and watch them go. When Josie and Stephen were on the stairs he said:
“I wish you had consulted me about your father. I’d like to get some information on his living arrangements.”
“But he’s not a resident. I was allowed,” Amelia answered.
“You can just give me a prescription for his medicine.” Amelia moved around him.
“Let me ask about that,” Reynolds said. “It’s an intricate compound.”
“Okay.” Amelia started down the hall but he called her back.
“Give Emily two doses tonight. She’s had a very hard day.”
“She’s fine. She’s not upset,” Amelia objected.
“Give her two, Amelia,” he insisted. “Please. It will make me feel better.”
“Yes, sir.”
Amelia hurried down stairs but before she went to the kitchen to make the lunch trays, she slipped into the sitting room and took her cell phone out of her pocket. She hoped she wasn’t too late.
Neurocentrism” or the view that human experience and behavior can be best explained from the predominant or even exclusive perspective of the human brain is a delusion according to authors of the book Brainwashed: the Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience … the authors chide the premature application of brain science to commerce, psychiatry and ethics. Most neural real estate is zoned for mixed-use development… – LA Times Book Review
CHAPTER 12
“You can’t blame her, Josie. You can’t blame her one little bit. I mean that, of course, in the most practical sense. The woman is daft.”
“Don’t say that, Stephen. Just don’t,” Josie warned.
They were back on the main road headed to Kaunakakai boat harbor where the No Problem was docked. Josie’s head was back and her lashes lowered but her eyes weren’t closed. She watched the road, taking no pleasure in the scenery. She was exhausted and her hand was beginning to hurt like the devil. Her thoughts were at once immovable objects refusing to be prodded into some sort of order and stream of consciousness washing away before she could grab hold.
Forgotten Witness Page 13
