Chapter Five. Riley, Present Day
CHAPTER FIVE
RILEY, PRESENT DAY
Two things happen as I drive past the closest neighbor’s house: A shaggy brown dog charges the fence, barking frantically and wagging his tail just as furiously, and my phone signal kicks in.
I pull over and email my boss at the hospital to give my immediate notice. She won’t be happy with me, since I’m scheduled to work a shift in two days, but Betty won’t know that because she didn’t ask for references.
My fingers stop typing. Why wouldn’t Betty check out a stranger she just invited to move into her home?
Maybe she did, I reassure myself. The social worker at the hospital, who I’ve known casually for a couple of years and who was assigned to help Betty after Douglas died, could have vouched for me.
Perhaps Betty also knows that nursing aides can’t work in hospitals if they’ve been convicted of violent crimes.
I finish my email and hit send. A whooshing sound indicates my resignation is on the way. I brace for a pinch of guilt that never arrives—maybe because I’m in survival mode, with no room to focus on anything other than how to claw my way out of what feels like a dark pit.
No one knows how bad things got these past few months.
I lied to my family and friends, isolating myself because I was too embarrassed to reveal the truth: Danny desired the rush of gambling more than he desired me.
Logically I know addiction is complex, with snarled psychological and physiological roots, but Danny’s betrayal reinforced the secret shame I’ve carried around for most of my life: I’m not good enough.
I never had to look far to find evidence—my older brother and sister were straight-A students who earned master’s degrees, but I have a mild form of dyslexia and school never came easily to me, which is why I dropped out of college.
When I’m with my successful siblings and their perfect spouses and beautiful children, and my father and mother who paid off their house and are now spending their retirement years traveling, growing organic vegetables in their garden, and volunteering, there’s a low hum of disappointment surrounding me, even if on a frequency only I can hear.
Knock off the pity party, I order myself as I pull into the Food Lion parking lot.
An Ed Sheeran melody plays softly from overhead speakers as I steer a cart through the aisles, collecting eggs and cottage cheese, canned pears and iceberg lettuce, spaghetti and Jell-O.
In the cleaning section, I find Bon Ami and Brillo scrubbing pads.
The last two items written in Betty’s spidery cursive are a can of salted peanuts and English muffins.
I look longingly at the dark chocolate caramel bars in the checkout aisle—my kryptonite. After I get my first paycheck, I’ll splurge on one, I promise myself.
When I pull back up to the house, Betty is waiting on the wooden porch.
“You found the store!” she cries as I carry the bags up the steps. “You can just set those on the kitchen counter.”
She shoos me away when I start to put away the groceries. “I’ll take care of all this,” she insists, tucking the perishables into the small fridge that’s also bright teal. “Why don’t you finish unpacking, then we can chat awhile?”
For someone who requires an aide, Betty sure seems independent, I think as I reach for my bedroom doorknob and try to twist it. It’s locked.
Betty must be planning to give me a key. I’m about to ask her for one when I realize I’m at the wrong door. My bedroom is the next one down.
Something makes me tilt my head closer to the locked door, listening. I swear I can sense something within—not a presence. It’s more ephemeral, like a mild electric current. Goosebumps rise on my skin.
I back away from the door, breaking the spell.
I think I know what’s going on; my mind is playing tricks on me.
I’m bracing for the next bad thing, conjuring problems where none exist. I saw this happen with patients I treated at the hospital who’d endured traumas, their panicked eyes always seeming to ask, What’s next?
I dive into my antidote for anxiety—organizing my surroundings.
I neatly fold my clothes into the dresser drawers and stack my bins in the closet.
The bathroom I’ll share with Betty is at the end of the hall.
I open that door to another 1960s color explosion: The walls, pentagon-shaped floor tiles, and even the toilet are canary yellow.
There’s a walk-in shower with accessible bars and a special chair with rubber grippers on its legs.
After tucking my toiletries bag in the cabinet beneath the sink, I check my reflection in the mirror.
Even though I made an effort this morning with concealer and mascara, I look tired.
I scrape my hair into a ponytail, then head back to the kitchen, where the rattle of ice against metal greets me.
Betty is mixing a drink in a silver shaker.
“Douglas and I always had a cocktail before dinner. Would you care to join me? I’m making old-fashioneds tonight.”
“I’d love to. I’ve never tried one.”
She pours brown liquid into two highball glasses and touches her glass to mine. “Bottoms up.”
My eyes water as I taste a sip. “The bitters take some getting used to,” Betty tells me.
“It’s good,” I insist, hoping she doesn’t see through my fib.
She picks up the jar of maraschino cherries off the counter and pours a splash of juice into my glass.
“That was my old trick to sweeten the taste, but over time, I learned to enjoy the flavor,” Betty says.
I settle onto a counter stool. It’s low enough that Betty and I are at eye level, and the seat fabric is worn. If it’s strange to see me in what must have been her husband’s spot, Betty conceals it.
I know from caring for elderly patients that they feel as if time is erasing them, and they want to be seen—not just as they are now, but as they were in their more vibrant years. So I ask, “How did you and Douglas meet?”
“At Marquis University,” Betty replies, naming a college about seventy-five miles away. “He was my first and only love, and I his.”
“Do you have any pictures of the two of you?”
“Our wedding picture is in my bedroom,” Betty says. “I’d love to show you. Let me get it.”
She wheels away and comes back with a sepia photograph in a silver frame.
Betty is in a white satin gown with a sweetheart neckline and elbow-length gloves.
She looks tiny next to her tall, lanky husband.
He’s classically handsome, with a square jaw and a shock of straight chestnut hair.
They’re both staring at the camera, unsmiling, as if the photographer had instructed them to strike a serious pose.
But his arm is around her waist, and her hand covers his.
“You look wonderful together,” I tell her truthfully. “Did you have a honeymoon?”
“We did, at a nice hotel right here in Virginia. That’s why I was marveling at your parents’ adventurous journey to Italy. I’ve never traveled.”
“Outside of the United States?” I try to clarify.
“Or inside. I was born in Virginia. I’ve lived here all my life.
My family did go to the shore every summer until I was sixteen, but just for a night.
Of course, my parents are gone by now. My sisters, too.
And Douglas and I never had children … We’d hoped to, but after the accident…
” Her voice trails off. “Douglas bought this house and had everything arranged for me by the time I was out of the hospital.”
“He sounds like such a good man,” I say gently. I’m curious about the accident—all the social worker told me about Betty’s injury was that she’d been paralyzed from the waist down—but I don’t want to pry this early in our relationship.
A bubbling sound draws my eyes to the turquoise stove, where water in a big enamel pot with a floral pattern comes to a boil.
Betty wheels over and slides spaghetti noodles into the water, then stirs the sauce in a smaller matching pot. I hadn’t even noticed she’d started dinner.
I jump up. “Can I make a salad? Or set the table?”
“Oh no, dear. You just relax. I enjoy cooking.”
Betty doesn’t need me to cook or clean. Given her bathroom setup, she can probably shower independently, too.
I can’t ignore the question: Why did she hire me to move in?