by Greg Dragon
“So,” the reporter said, buttoning her coat against the chill, “you’re interviewing me?”
He smiled and turned up his hands. “I’ve answered your questions.”
“True.” She turned off the tape recorder and flipped over her notepad to a clean sheet. “Evaney Harwood was a senior at Duke University. After fall break, she and five other students left school to hike in northern Alabama. No one knows why—except they enjoyed going on adventures.”
Wilbur stretched out his legs. “Go on.”
“Evaney Harwood was the lone occupant in another student’s Land Rover when it crashed. Head trauma put her in a coma. The other students were never seen again. What happened to them is trapped in her head.” She finished writing and tore off the paper. “The students’ names and their hometowns. I’ve played with their story and tried to find a new angle. Nada. Call me if you find new facts.” She put her card on the paper and pushed them across the table. “Thanks for being a good sport.”
They shook hands and Wilbur glanced at the names: Winn Eastman—Boston, Jax Dunway—San Diego, Dave Collins—Houston, Kaylee Goldstein—Manhattan, and Jordan Sweeney—Philadelphia. He planned to Google them.
Wilbur cut greenhouse flowers for the reporter to take home and escorted her back to her car. He jogged to the hidden garden where Lee waited with Evaney Harwood in a wheelchair. Despite the cooler temps, they protected her from sunlight. Shade corners were built around the estate.
“You’re late,” Lee said. “I’ve got a date tonight. What did J-Bone toss you? Her stories win awards.”
Hurt that Lee made plans without him, he didn’t answer. Wilbur scanned their patient and tucked in a blanket. He’d hoped to discuss the interview with Lee and maybe guess who leaked information. His eyes lingered on Evaney. Her posture looked natural and comfortable, and her pasty skin tone had flushed cotton-candy pink. “With whom?” The question flew out.
“I’m not sharing my personal life in front of her,” Lee said. “I swear she’s been diggin’ into my head. I’ve heard a scraping sound in my ears the whole time you were gone.”
He winced at her tone. Did he see a tear on Evaney’s cheek?
“Miss Evaney, you with us?” Wilbur peered into her open eyes and ignored Lee. He dabbed a tissue on her tears. Was she dreaming or had dirt blown into her eye? She had the prettiest eyes, warm brown like spring honey, and gracefully arched eyebrows. Even the beauty mark on her left jaw resembled a small heart. As sick as she was, her facial skin remained clear, but she had body scars, plenty of them.
Don’t forget, she slithers across the floor too.
“You act like her lover, not her orderly,” Lee pointed out.
He stepped back from the wheelchair, shocked. “What?”
“Just describing what I see.”
He was fussing over Evaney and acting like an old fool. His mind betrayed him over and over in her presence. He did things without thinking, like a mindless zombie. His actions made him shiver inside, remembering the first time. “Would you go up in the attic and bring her school trunk down?”
“Me? Carry that big thing downstairs?” Her tone rebuked him.
“Run on then,” he said, wishing Lee took better care of her nails. Cardinal-red nail polish was chipped on both hands. He hated the way the effect made her seem untidy.
Lee’s face scrunched into a scowl. She jammed fists into her coat pockets and strutted off on her tippy toes. Wilbur couldn’t take his gaze off her fine backside. He sat in the warm chair she vacated and decided to go in the attic. The thought made his throat constrict and a long-forgotten word popped into his head.
Yellowbelly.
What drudged up his childhood misery? Could Evaney be perturbed at him like he with Lee? He cleared his throat.
“I’m obsessed with your story,” he said. “Hope it doesn’t kill me.”
Ever since Evaney woke up, he became fixated on puncturing his fingertip to see if she’d respond to his blood like a dinner gong. He realized he had a sick fascination with blood drinking and forced himself to stop. Besides, she received his O-neg blood donation earlier.
Still, if he forgot to pin his car keys to his shirt, he panicked, like a demented man. Plus, he had become secretive. His entire being wanted him to resign, but he wasn’t a quitter like his mother. He stayed on to sift out the truth because it mattered to him. Poets used words to make connections, and without connections verse lost power. He had to take his power back or never make another connection or create another poem.
Wilbur heard someone cough and turned his head. He’d seen the new nurse, Rose Carson, sitting in the garden earlier and talking to a spinning pendulum. He had read about dowsers using pendulums and odd jewelry, but never expected an RN to use one. Pendulums weren’t scientific. Watching her and the flying pendulum made it easy to believe in ghosts, except there weren’t any ghosts at Harwood House, just a ghoul.
“You’re pretty good with her,” Rose said. “Most men your size are clumsy or heavy-handed. You’ve got the healing touch, you know?”
He liked that she didn’t ask why his big-ass self wasn’t off playing football. Sports were fine, but he enjoyed exercising his mind more. “Thank you. You’ve started a day early.”
“I decided to catch up on her past medical history and meet my co-workers. Doc said the records were in the attic and gave me permission to read them. I found two trunks. One contained her school records. Cookie said you might want to read them.”
Impressed, Wilbur asked, “How did you get the trunks down?”
“There’s a winch. I attached the hooks like a patient lift device and lowered them. I’m reading the records in the hideous purple guest room.”
“You’re talking about the first medical charts after the car accident?” he asked.
Rose nodded. “They’re copies, but whole. I took the job because Doc didn’t try to hide her health history. My gut instincts urged me to decline.”
Wilbur whistled. “My grandmother honored her gut instincts.”
“Usually I do. I kept asking myself, why are they paying double hospital salaries and still have openings? The same day I accepted the job, Mary died.”
Wilbur winced and the Hum inched up higher. “See any rodents in the attic?”
“Nope, it looked tidy.”
He studied her closer. Rose was long and lean without a single curve to her body. “Lanky” was the adjective he’d choose to describe her. She kept her auburn-dyed hair short and tidy, but her feet impressed him. They looked like flippers.
“You know how Mary died?” he asked.
“Yeah. Pretty tough on you, I’ll bet.” Rose followed his gaze. “Size thirteen and I have to special order or else wear shoes from the men’s department. Any jokes about clown feet and I’ll demo one on your hiney.”
Wilbur chuckled. He liked a little sass now and then from co-workers. They sat.
She offered him a smoke, but he shook his head as she lit hers. The estate wanted the grounds kept non-smoking like the mansion, but half the help smoked. It wasn’t like family or lawyers ran around and enforced the rules.
Wilbur admired Rose’s hands, ivory white with long, graceful fingers and short nails buffed to a natural pink shine. An unusual look for a smoker. Unlike most women her age, she didn’t have any brown age spots to mar the effect. He had noticed Rose brought nail brushes with her and placed them at the sinks. A few nurses wore those fake nails and the crud got under them faster than ants on sugar. He didn’t even want to think about baby worms taking refugee under their fake nails.
“Would you like me to call you Wilbur or Burr?”
“Burr.” Rose was all right and Southern born. Maybe Miamians didn’t consider themselves Southern. Maybe they called themselves islanders or tropicals. “My grandmother nicked me that one because I stuck so close to her after my mother dumped me on her. Mom came back during my sophomore year in high school and took me to Detroit. She died a month before I gradua
ted.”
Rose exhaled and said, “Well, your grandmother did a good job raising you. You’re kind and decent to Miss Harwood. Makes me think you’re that way with everyone.”
“Thank you. Why leave sun and surf for this hot time?”
“Grandkids.” She grinned, and then began swinging her crossed leg back and forth. “All three girls have autism. I came up to give my daughter a rest spell, and her husband ups and dumps her. Think he watched for the best opportunity. Said he couldn’t live another minute in the chaos. We decided Daisy, she’s a lawyer, stays home with the kids. I’ll help her on off days.”
“He left her without support?” Wilbur asked.
“He pays their bills and lives on their yacht. Kids need extras for psychologists, speech therapists, behavioral therapists, occupational therapists, vitamin and mineral supplements—the list is endless and expensive.”
“Hard to believe yacht owners are hard up,” Wilbur said.
Rose took a drag. “One of his clients paid him with the boat. He fixed it up and hoped to flip it for big money. Then the sailing bug bit him. Autistic kids and sailboats don’t mix.”
Wilbur nodded. If someone asked him, which they wouldn’t, but if someone did, he would point out the many problems inside the head, changing people’s brains. Autism, ADHD, ADD, Alzheimer’s, depression, all kinds of facial tics; it was like a war being fought in the brain and no one started a draft to end it. “Did anything unusual pop out of her chart?”
Rose stared off into the distance like she hadn’t heard.
Wilbur admired the fall garden. The colorful mums were damaged after the storm. Light snow fell last night but melted on the ground. Ice remained on the gigantic water feature’s statues. In the center, mischievous cherubs spouting water out of every orifice, including their little metal peckers, pretended to shoot cupid arrows. Beyond the large pond and garden, a serene lake awaited exploration. Wilbur liked to walk around the lake path while he composed poetry. It hurt to remember how easy words came to him before Mary died. He looked away, blinking.
“It’s a big estate,” Rose mumbled.
“Sure is.” Multi-hued teals and geese covered the lake, taking a rest before resuming flight south. The geese rapped back and forth like they were calling out holiday greetings while birds in trees chattered like a crowd waiting for a concert. Recent walks hadn’t cleared his head of the pervasive fear that something unnatural had taken over Evaney’s body. The same fear tried to suck him in like it did Mary. Life was draining out of him—next he would stop reading.
“I reached my own conclusions and it scared me,” Rose admitted.
He sat straighter. “Care to share?”
“Doc keeps our patient’s worms, he calls them wigglers, in a private collection. Man has them in a fish aquarium on his desk. The aquarium sat at eye level during my interview. I kid you not, he’d reach in with bamboo skewers and lift them out of the sand. I swear a few had teeth! The whole time he interviewed me they slid around, throwing up little clouds of dirt. He grossed me out when he dropped clotted blood from a red-top tube into the aquarium. The worms got all excited like pets do at feeding time. He claimed he sent samples to the CDC years ago and never heard back. Doc talked to them like beloved pets and had even named them—Mars, Brutus, and Hector. He spooked me, Wilbur. Will I regret hiring on here?”
“Nah.” He tried to sound casual, but felt repulsed. When Lee changed Evaney’s diaper during Doc’s last visit, the old man took one look at her steaming, worm-infested stool and upchucked on the floor. He had reacted like it was his first time to spot them, but according to Rose he nurtured and named them. Lee was pissed because she had to clean up after him too. Wilbur didn’t do poo, pee, or puke. He lifted, carried, and turned. In hindsight, he wondered if Doc pretended sickness to be alone with Evaney.
Lee had gone to get a mop and bucket, and he left to ask Miss Cookie to make tea to settle Doc’s stomach. How much time had he been left alone with her? The sudden anger he felt toward the older man made Wilbur uncomfortable.
Rose sucked in a deep breath and her belly contracted. “Doctor Hatcher hired me ’cause I’m not religious. I thought I should put it out front and center. I keep my spiritual beliefs private, and I hope no one holds it against me.”
He had been raised in the arms of religion, but not the nutty kind. Over the years, he had learned the shrewdness of Grandmother Pearl’s “wissams” as she called them. His favorite was: Words don’t connect human beings, but hands do.
“Miss Harwood was an atheist,” Wilbur said. “We’re forbidden to pray around her. Some people think that’s why she suffers now.”
Rose cleared her throat. “I guessed as much.”
“What’s bothering you?”
“Her diagnosis,” Rose said and took another drag. “She’s got the Alzheimer gene but not the disease. Doc said acute porphyria has complicated her case.”
“Porphyria?”
“Interferes with the body making red blood cells.”
“What about meningitis?”
“Hospital records are clear—blunt force trauma to the head. No brain infections noted or porphyria. Doc Hatcher added the porphyria as a recent diagnosis. It’s why her skin is sensitive to sunlight.”
“She requires blood transfusions due to porphyria?”
Rose hesitated and said, “Guess so.”
“I can’t stop thinking about the missing Duke students. You read about them?”
“Answers have been in the attic the whole time you’ve worked here. Why didn’t you read her charts?” Rose flipped ash to the ground.
How could he admit the attic scared him? “I needed my job. Cookie told me nosy people get fired.”
Rose looked amused. “Cookie rules this place with an iron hand.”
He nodded. “How could Miss Harwood hike and camp out with her sensitive skin?”
“Porphyria symptoms popped up after the accident.”
“She caught the disease from a person?”
Rose sighed, taking another drag. “Porphyria is inherited, but her blood, urine, and stool tests came back negative. Doc called them weak positive, but specialists said tests were negative.”
“What are you saying?” he asked softly.
“She had a bite on her right leg. Wound never healed until she got blood transfusions.”
Wilbur reached over to check Evaney’s blanket to hide his shock. “Doc lied about her condition?”
Rose shivered and stubbed out her cigarette on the stone walkway. “I’ve said too much. Doc must think I’m stupid, or he doesn’t care if I know. I’ll drop Miss Harwood’s school notebooks in your door slot. She was an English lit major.”
“Rose, is he lying?”
“He is. The question is: why?” She picked up the cigarette butt and walked back to the estate.
“Don’t restart the job hunt,” he called after her. “We need you.”
Evaney’s fingers began to strum the air.
He rolled her back to the ward. Afterward, Wilbur found his door slot filled with spiral notebooks decorated with Duke Blue Devil stickers. He planned to read every page.
Eddie Jean
Scot shut the glass door, cutting off the nurses trying to stop them. He made a football passing gesture to Bill. Bill’s mottled lips spread into a faint smile as Scot stepped over to the bedside. Bill grasped Scot’s hand like a life preserver.
“Thanks, buddy.” Bill’s voice sounded hoarse.
Eddie Jean managed to control her panic and stared down at Bill Franco. His dark eyes were voids, wider than normal and empty of expression like a nazar. His chest and stomach heaved from the work of breathing. His condition scared her. Bill would be the sickest person she had ever tried to heal. Was her faith strong enough?
“Scot,” Bill’s parents said in tandem, standing from their chairs. His father said, “You kids can’t be here. We’re waiting for the anesthesiologist to put in a breathing tube.”
A guy hunched over a ventilator, glanced up, and then resumed his equipment check.
“Eddie Jean can heal Bill, Mr. Franco,” Scot said. “Will you let her try?”
A woman in white scrubs burst into the room. “Kids, it’s not visiting hours, and you’re not family. You must leave. Now!”
Bill’s mother, with eyes ringed soot-black, tugged on Scot’s arm. “She can’t heal him. Now, please go back to school!”
“Mom,” Bill said, gasping. He reached for Eddie Jean’s hand. “She.” He coughed and sucked in air. “Makes miracles happen.”
Eddie Jean squeezed Bill’s hand. It was sweaty and ice cold. His nail beds were as pale as soda crackers.
Pity creased his mother’s face. “Son, the doctor will be here soon. She can stay until then.”
Another nurse entered carrying a clipboard. She began jotting down numbers on a spreadsheet. “You’re upsetting my patient. Please go.”
“Quitman thinks she can heal, Mrs. Franco. Let her try,” Scot begged.
Scot wouldn’t look at her after the granddad comment. “He’ll be able to suit up for the game. Right, EJ?”
“I hope I can heal him.”
“Okay, let’s go, young lady,” the older nurse said, taking Eddie Jean’s arm.
Bill’s mother added, “Scot, Bill is out of sports until next year.”
Eddie Jean resisted the nurse and didn’t move. She held her mental focus for Bill’s sake. Hope washed over Bill’s father’s face, and she believed he would act.
Mr. Franco stepped in front of his wife and said, “You’re risking team suspension, Scot. Now, that doesn’t help Bill. But thank you for caring. Both of you.”
Scot removed the nurse’s hand from Eddie Jean’s arm. “We’re both risking suspension. That should tell you how much I believe in Eddie Jean helping Bill.”
His words gave her courage. “It’s not up to your parents,” Eddie Jean said to Bill. “Do you want me to help you?”
Bill nodded, and then caught his father’s eye. “Please.” The effort of speaking one word made his lip color fade from beige to blue-gray.
