Familiar Strangers

by Jackie Walsh

  Damn it, what will I do? I feel everyone is looking at me, that I have a sign on my back saying, ‘I slept with the boss.’

  But no one is looking at me. They are all sitting at their desks, tapping keys, swiping screens, communicating with the digital world. Ignoring the real one.

  Tucking a folder under my arm, I head for his office. I’d rather he was going to berate me for being absent a couple of days, but this is about Saturday night. I know what he’ll say. ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘I didn’t know what I was doing.’ ‘I was drunk.’ The usual bullshit that seems to come so easy to cheaters. They must all have the same back up file loaded onto their little brains for easy access.

  * * *

  Lines are etched into Stephen’s forehead when I step inside the door. He must be feeling as nervous as I am. Well, it’s something I guess, that he’s showing stress, experiencing guilt. This relaxes me a bit, until he opens his mouth.

  ‘No need to sit, this won’t take long.’

  Stepping away from the chair I grip the folder in my shaking hand.

  ‘Under no circumstances are you to utter a word about what happened on Saturday night,’ he says, his dark eyes squinting, staring through me.

  I feel punched in the stomach, unable to reply. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

  ‘I’m sure you’d like to keep your job,’ he adds, breaking his stare and turning his attention to something on his desk. ‘That’ll be all.’

  * * *

  What just happened? Did I hear right? Did Stephen Black just threaten me? It sounded like it. Afraid that sleeping with the assistant to the assistants could ruin his chances of making partnership, not to mention what would happen if his pregnant wife found out. Keep your head down, Becca, give him no reason to fear you.

  I drag myself to the door and walk out into the main office, where all my colleagues sit staring into screens unaware they’re working for a complete prick. The water cooler beckons from the corner so I make my way over still in shock at what just happened. His words echo in my head. ‘I’m sure you’d like to keep your job.’ Really, Stephen? Well, I’m sure you’d like to keep your wife.

  Chapter Eleven

  The rest of the day passes in a haze of deep breaths and shaking limbs. When I finally get home I decide to forget about Stephen Black. Let it go; nothing more will happen there. I can’t let him distract me from my mission. Pushing his threat to the back of my mind, I open my laptop and continue searching for Katie Collins.

  Facebook. Katie Collins. New Orleans. For a moment I get excited when I see a young woman with blonde hair. But on closer examination I see it’s not her, not the face on TV. I try Twitter. Instagram. Once or twice I see a face that resembles hers but when I search further it yields nothing. Is it possible she has no online presence other than the news reports, which are not saying much except that her worried husband’s name is Thomas Collins? What if I contact him? He might be able to tell me something of use. But how do I do that? How do I get a number for Thomas Collins? Turner isn’t going to give it to me, but there must be some other way. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Nothing. Resting my head against the cushion, I stretch out on the couch and fall into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  The room is dark when I wake. It’s after midnight. I’ve slept for over three hours and missed three calls. Two from Dad, one from Danny. Oh God. Something must be wrong with Mom. My fingers quiver pressing the voice message button. Dad’s voice sounds weak; my mother had a bad turn but everything is okay now. Of course he is going to say that everything is okay. I need to see her for myself.

  The night sky is completely clear, stars twinkling as I drive out to Oakridge nursing home. The gas gauge needle hovers on the red line, making me wonder if I’ll be able to cover the thirty miles to Braintree and back. I never think to check it. Other than visiting Mom or Dad my car usually sits in the underground car park most of the time because the Bridgeway and King offices are not far from my apartment. Walking gets me there quicker than driving, and anyway I don’t have a parking place. They’re kept for the people on the top floor, who are at the top of their game. The ones with their own offices, own clients, own mistresses. They are not for the mistresses. I wonder if the women in the top floor offices have affairs with the boys in the mailing room. I hope they do. I’d hate to think we have come this far and buckle under the strain of morality.

  The journey seems endless as I replay Dad’s message in my head. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, Becca,’ he’d said, ‘but I just thought you should know. No need to come rushing out here. She’s sleeping now, and the doctor says she’s doing fine.’

  I have never had any reason to disbelieve Dad, but something in his voice is unsettling me lately. It sounds flat, without any emotion, almost as if he is giving up.

  * * *

  The doors of the nursing home are locked when I arrive. I should have expected that at one in the morning but suddenly I’m panicking, banging on anything that will make a noise in the hope of alerting someone on the other side.

  When Mom first took this step towards her demise, we were given contacts and emergency numbers, a whole brochure full of anything we would need. I never even looked at it.

  I could ring my dad but that wouldn’t be fair, not at this hour. Danny, on the other hand, I don’t care about waking at this hour. It will be good practice for him for when the baby arrives. As I filter down my phone contacts I hear a jingle of keys on the other side of the door.

  ‘I have to see my mother,’ I shout at the man behind the glass. He’s wearing a brown security uniform with cream piping, the tag ‘Barry’ stitched onto the breast pocket. He’s tall and round and I can tell by Barry’s kind eyes that I’m begging a decent person. There is hope.

  ‘I have to see my mom,’ I repeat when he opens the door slightly. ‘She took a turn earlier this evening, and I need to see her.’

  ‘Well, we can’t have you standing out there. Come on inside.’

  He sounds like Morgan Freeman, a voice that is dusky, dark and on my side. I know he is going to give me a spiel about Oakridge’s policy, how they can’t have people in the building outside visiting hours when patients are asleep. Actually, they don’t call them patients. It’s ‘clients,’ as if people actually want what they are selling here. But I’m wrong. This man is even wiser than Morgan Freeman.

  ‘I’m guessing you didn’t come out here in the middle of the night unless it was really important,’ he says, ushering me over towards the reception desk. ‘What’s your mother’s name?’

  ‘Nancy Wall,’ I answer, watching him take forever to lift the visitor’s book from below the counter.

  ‘I’ll have to get you to sign in.’

  ‘Rebecca, I’m Rebecca Wall.’

  ‘Okay, Rebecca.’ He is flicking through the pages, looking for the current one. ‘Sorry about this, but for fire safety we have to know exactly who is on the premises no matter what time of the day or night.’

  Fine, just hurry up.

  ‘I understand,’ I say, thinking I might be quicker getting in if I just waited until I qualified as a client.

  ‘Here we are,’ he says.

  ‘Wait a sec,’ I say. Did I just see…? ‘Go back a page.’

  ‘Back where?’ he says.

  ‘Not that page, the page before.’

  Leaning in, I flick the page back. It’s done before Barry has a choice in the matter. ‘There,’ I say, moving around to Barry’s side to get a closer look.

  The page gives the date. It lists the time of entrance and exit. The name of the person visiting, and the person they are visiting.

  I’m looking at Friday. The day before I last visited my mother.

  I’m looking at a signature that shouldn’t be there.

  Signed by someone who has no reason to visit my mother.

  A signature that looks a lot like Katie Collins.

  Chapter Twelve

  Oakridge is a lot calmer than I imagined the m
iddle of the night in a hellhole to be. I thought it would be a chorus of snores and roars, tears and fears. Old people calling out to the shadows, missing the people they love, crying to go home to them. Hurting on the inside, hurting on the outside.

  But I’m wrong, and I’m glad to be wrong. Everything is peaceful, everyone is sleeping happily. Everyone is drugged.

  Barry insists on taking me to Mom’s room. When I get to see her, my world slows down. I won’t wake her, I just need to see for myself she is okay. As okay as my failing mother can be. Comfortable, that’s how high our bar is raised. What we settle for now. ‘Your mother was comfortable today.’ Wow, isn’t she the lucky woman?

  I move over to her bedside and sit on the chair. Tears fall down my face and I let them. I’m sick of hiding them. I want to cry.

  Mom’s hair, brushed back from her face, is in need of a wash. That’s what Friday’s are for here. Having your hair blow-dried. A young girl comes in from one of the local salons and makes a fuss of her, asking questions, getting no answers, but treating Mom like she is a regular client. On Thursday someone comes in and massages her feet; Wednesdays, her nails get painted. Monday and Tuesday, I don’t know, but I’m sure something gets groomed. Of course Mom never remembers any of it. She is far too young for this. Some of the other ‘clients’ are almost twice her age, wonderful strong people who once ruled the world but are now unable to do anything for themselves. Playing with their memory might just be nature’s greatest gift to them.

  I lean in close to feel her breath on my face. Her eyelids twitch, making me wonder if she’s dreaming. Is she dreaming of me? Does she recognize me in her dreams? Does she remember the things we did and the places we went to, the things we liked? Mint ice cream. Ketchup on my omelet, and not just a little bit, loads. ‘The biggest squirt ever,’ I’d say when she asked. Does she remember that? Or socks with no lace trimmings; if they had lace trimmings I would refuse to wear them. I kicked up such a fuss once, refusing to wear the socks my grandma bought.

  ‘Just this once,’ Mom begged, but I screamed like I was walking barefoot across shards of my own broken heart. Eventually Mom gave in.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t wear the socks, Mom.’ I place my hand on top of hers, pressing down so she can feel it. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tidy my room, Mom. I’m sorry I didn’t do my homework. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

  Sobbing now, I rest my head on her pillow, thinking of all the times I could have been a better daughter, could have done what she asked. My eyes feel heavy, so I let them close.

  A noise in the corridor wakes me. It takes a few seconds before I realize where I am. My head is muzzy, eyes stinging from the tears. Four a.m., time to go home. Kissing Mom’s head, I hold my palm to her cheek and stare at her, her twitching eyelids, her shrinking face and parched lips. I want to believe she looks happier than when I first arrived. I know I’m happier than when I first arrived. Tiptoeing out, I make my way back down to the reception where Barry is back behind his desk.

  ‘Everything okay?’ he says. ‘You were quite a while.’

  ‘She’s fine. I must have nodded off for a bit.’

  ‘It must be lovely to have a daughter like you, willing to drop everything in the middle of the night to come and see her mother.’

  Lovely to have a daughter like me. Little does Barry know. I fake a grateful smile, then say, ‘Can I ask you a question, Barry?’

  ‘Ask away.’

  ‘Are there security cameras recording who comes and goes?’

  ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘Archived on a weekly basis. Do you need to check something? Has something gone missing?’

  ‘Say it had, and I wanted to check the camera footage.’

  ‘Well, you would need to fill in a request form. That would go to the board and they would decide whether to grant access. It usually takes a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Isn’t there a quicker way?’

  ‘If it was an emergency, yes. Is this an emergency?’

  ‘I think someone visited my mom last week, someone who shouldn’t have been here.’

  Barry has the visitors’ book open on the desk. ‘This Katie Collins?’ he says.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘It doesn’t say here she was visiting your mother.’

  ‘Then who was she visiting?’

  ‘It doesn’t say.’

  ‘Isn’t it supposed to?’

  ‘Sure, but not everyone has the time to fill in every blank every time they come.’

  ‘Could you check it for me? It’d really put my mind at rest.’

  ‘You’re not getting into trouble here, are you?’

  No, I tell him, no trouble. It might even be true. All I know is that someone called Katie Collins visited an Oakridge client last Friday. I know nothing else.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It will take a day or two, Barry tells me. Once he has the CCTV coverage we can go through it together. There’s no way he’s letting me take the disc away.

  But what then? If Katie Collins is the missing Katie Collins, why was she visiting Oakridge? Was it my mom she was searching for all along, and not me?

  I can only imagine the look on her face when she finally located Mom and discovered she didn’t even know her own name. Should I tell Detective Turner? No, I want to see the CCTV footage first.

  Outside, the parking lot is dead silent. The only thing disturbing the peace is the crunch of gravel under my feet. Surrounded by tall oak trees that provide a shield against the outside world, this parking lot in the early hours of the morning is a perfect place to get mugged.

  Suddenly I’m certain I’m being watched. When I go to open the car I drop my keys, and sense a presence behind me when I stoop to pick them up. Then a squirrel scurries past, a little grey, rat-like thing. Trying to escape from me, probably. Two seconds later it’s halfway up one of the oaks.

  False alarm, Becca. Relax.

  It’s hard to relax when you feel everything around you is on fire and you’re the only one with a hose, but this search is going nowhere if I frighten too easy. I need to be strong. ‘Toughen up, Becca,’ Mom would say when I came in from the street, crying again. ‘You can’t have Danny fight all your battles for you.’ But I did. And something tells me that, as much as I don’t want to, I’m going to be knocking on his door again.

  The interstate is quiet, not much traffic at this hour. After a couple of minutes, I notice a car behind me. A white SUV, I think. Its headlight beams are very strong, blinding me when I glance in the rear-view. My hands grip the steering wheel like it’s trying to escape. I slow down, but it’s still behind me. Is this guy following me? Remember Becca; relax. I take the turn off the interstate and on towards the city. The SUV does the same. Fear comes squirming through my gut. I look in the mirror, trying to catch a glimpse of the face behind the wheel, but I can’t even make out a shape through the bright light. Who the hell is it? Should I stop?

  No, don’t stop Becca, it could be anyone. Someone dangerous, it’s definitely not a squirrel this time. With the steering wheel slippery from my sweating palms, I ease my foot off the accelerator. If I slow down again, maybe they will pass by me. If it’s Katie Collins, she will pull up beside me and let me see her.

  Fuck, they’re still behind, they’ve slowed down too. What will I do? Where’s my phone? Shit. Where’s my bag?

  It’s in the trunk. It’s in the trunk because I always put it there for safety in case someone smashes the window and grabs it. Which, right now, sounds like a much better nightmare.

  I know what I’ll do; I’ll stay in the car until I see a police station and pull up there. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to attack me outside a cop station. Unless it is a cop, Turner having me followed, trying to catch me meeting Katie Collins.

  My imagination just won’t let up.

  I keep driving towards the bright lights and tall buildings until signs of life begin to appear. There are more cars now, people on sidewalks, trying to hail a c
ab after stumbling out of a nightclub. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll drive to Mattie’s. Al and Don should still be there, standing at the door.

  Taking the next right turn, I pass the Boston Public Library and I head for Mattie’s. Soon I’m driving down the awkwardly narrow road flanked by tall buildings that leads to the parking lot at Mattie’s Club. Normally I hate that road, it’s too easy to scrape the car on the vehicles parked either side. But tonight I speed down there like it’s the Indy 500.

  I see Al in the distance, pushing the bolt on the big red door, Don beside him, hands in his pockets, watching Al do the work. I have never been happier to see these two guys. Pulling up beside them, I watch the entrance to the lot, heart thumping, hands still gripping the steering wheel.

  The SUV is nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Al came back with me to the apartment and waited until I was safely inside before leaving. He told me not to worry, that the SUV was probably just going in the same direction as I was. But I don’t think so. It was following me, I know it. But who would want to follow me? And why?

  The room seems full of shadows. Creepy little reminders of ghosts and dangers hanging around. I double-check that the lock on the door is securely bolted, then close the curtains before switching on the light.

  I used to feel safe here. Not anymore.

  There’s no hope of sleep. I lie in my bed staring into the darkness and let my worries fill the room. There is only one thing for it. I’ll have to tell Danny what’s going on. He’ll freak out, find some way to blame me. But I’ll have to put up with that. I need my brother by my side. He makes me feel safer. Ever since my first day in school when Ellen Griffin pushed me down the slide before I was ready to go. I cried with shock, but somehow Danny arrived on the scene, wiped my eyes and gave Ellen Griffin a look that made her squirm to the back of the playground. She never bothered me again. I’m not sure how long Danny waited in the wings in those early days, but I always felt he was there if I needed him. Now, I need him.