Casket Case

Chapter 11

Nora and Garrett shift into a calmer relationship rhythm over the next couple of weeks. He leaves town for work for a few days at a time, and he shows up at Nora’s house when he’s finished. She doesn’t know what to make of it at first. No one is chasing or ghosting or calling at two a.m. Garrett doesn’t forget about their plans or when he promised to call or that she exists.

She had spent her early twenties waiting on text messages or calls or attention of any kind from the men she liked, and who had claimed to like her. After dark, the situation was always completely clear, especially after midnight. They liked her so much. They needed to see her again. They made plans for weekends in the future. They had never met anyone like her. Like werewolves, when the sun came back out, these men would revert to the way they were before, as if they couldn’t remember what had happened. As if everything they had said or done could be explained away by the presence of the moon.

Then she met Charlie. The connection didn’t knock her over, but he did want to hang out with her more than once, and even during daylight hours. He was kind. He was smart. He was funny. They wanted the same things. They were planning a future together before Nora realized it was happening. She spent time with his family, and he spent time with hers. They fell into a comfortable routine over the four years they were together. Nora had no complaints. It was easy. Everything was good. Until it wasn’t.

With Garrett, there was no slow build. He had almost quite literally knocked her out of her chair when she first met him. His passion had been clear from the beginning. He wanted to be with her, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. He didn’t need time to get to know her or to figure it out. He didn’t want to date around to consider other options. He wanted her, and she wanted him, too. Sure, it was becoming more routine as time passed, but it was never boring.

He brings her flowers and tiny souvenirs from his travels. They let each other complain about work. He listens to her talk about whatever moderately large animal keeps stomping through her garden at night. She listens to him talk about the fighting couple staying in the room next to his at a hotel in Gardendale. Nora starts buying groceries for healthy people. They cook pasta and grill steaks. She eats vegetables. He finds a trail near Nora’s house for early morning runs. She explains that the trail is for hunters, not runners, so he decides to run through the neighborhood instead.

Nora would categorize herself as hesitantly optimistic. In the back of her mind, she fears that something will come along to kill this relationship, that it will die like everything else. But it can be difficult to remember that feeling with all of the flirty love stuff floating around.

Nora invites her grandpa over to have dinner with her and Garrett. She closes the store on time and rushes home to make sure everything will be perfect, or at least won’t send anyone to the hospital. Grandpa has enough to deal with without having to worry about her, too, so she will show him that she is the responsible and mentally stable adult he has helped raise her to be. She will do this with barbecue chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans canned by her mother from her own garden, and rolls from a package she found in the back of her freezer.

“It smells good in here,” Grandpa says as he walks in the door.

“I told you I knew how to cook,” she says.

He’s wearing one of his short-sleeved button-up shirts, which might make anyone else look like Dwight Schrute, but Grandpa can pull it off. She gestures toward a chair at the kitchen table; he sits down slowly at first, but he lands in the chair with a thud. He might not be able to get up again. Maybe they should just eat in the kitchen.

“How’s the store?” he asks.

“Fine,” she says. “It was slow today.” She drains the boiling water from the potatoes and adds milk and butter to the pan. The potato masher is buried in the bottom of the utensil drawer, and she has almost decided to use a fork when she finally feels the blue plastic handle and wrestles it out.

“What did you do today?” she asks Grandpa as she starts mashing.

“Tended the garden,” he begins. “It was outright hot. Hotter than it should be.”

“You’re not supposed to be doing that in the heat. You should wait a few days for it to cool off again.”

“I did it in the morning,” he says. “I spent the afternoon on the phone with your cousin Mavis.”

“What did she have to say?” she asks. Technically Mavis is Nora’s dad’s second cousin, but she lives in Georgia, so they don’t ever see her. She’s always seemed like an old lady, but Nora has no concept of how old she really is. Mavis is the person with all the family gossip, even though she lives the farthest away.

“Oh, the usual. Her sister has glaucoma. Her kids don’t go to church enough. One of them smokes.”

“Well, cigarettes aren’t the worst thing to happen to a person.” Once the potatoes are the right consistency (the moment she is tired of mashing them), she adds salt and pepper. She sticks a teaspoon into the pot for a taste test, and she thinks they’re good enough. “Actually, I guess they could turn out to be the worst thing, so I’ll take that back.”

He shakes his head. “You know what I always told your daddy and what I always told you.”

“Don’t put anything on fire close to your face,” she recites.

“It’s bad news every time.”

Nora stirs the green beans and removes the chicken from the oven. People in her family have always been really particular about barbecue sauce. Her special blend involves a mixture of sauce from the barbecue stand at the Texaco down the street, hot sauce made by someone at church, and an ever-so-slight spoonful of mayonnaise. She uses a grill brush to apply it liberally to the chicken. She hasn’t gone to this much trouble for a meal in a long time. Maybe ever. Maybe the proper southern lady inside her is finally taking charge, or maybe it’s something else.

“So, your man is coming over, too?” Grandpa asks.

“Yep,” she says. “He should be here any minute.”

She digs out the bag of yeast rolls from the freezer and drops a few onto a sheet pan and slides it into the oven. Her mom always said not to look at expiration dates on food in the freezer. Probably bad advice, but she died in a car wreck, not from food poisoning.

“And he’s being good to you?” Grandpa asks. He leans back in his chair, and Nora refrains from making a joke to lighten the mood.

“He is. Things are going really well. I am taking your advice.”

“I need to go out and look at the garden before it gets dark. See if you’ve been destroying it again.”

“I hope you do go look at it,” she says. “I’ve spent the past couple of weeks trying to clear it out, so it can be usable again.”

“Does that mean you’re going to start planting?”

“I think so.”

He considers this for a moment. “You’re staying for a while?”

“Well, yes. I live here. Why are you always trying to get me to leave?” This almost sounds like a joke, but she hears the truth in her own voice.

“I just want you to be happy, Eleanora. That’s all. I don’t want you moping around for the rest of your life.”

“I’m not moping!” She flings a kitchen towel across the counter by accident.

He smiles. “You do have more pep in your step than usual.”

“Maybe so,” she says. To keep Grandpa from having to move again, she sets the kitchen table with three of everything: forks, knives, plates, glasses. The junk drawer rewards her with just enough brown paper fast-food napkins. She knows that some other people’s families have cloth napkins and matching sets of dinnerware, but Nora has never seen the Clantons use anything like that. She was too young to remember when her mom packed up all the china to store in the attic.

“What’s this?” Grandpa asks, reaching across the table toward the business card and salt packet that tumbled out with the napkins.

“It’s Garrett’s business card,” she says, handing it to him. “He gave it to me when we met. Don’t tell him I put it in the junk drawer.”

Grandpa examines it and points to the symbol at the top of the card. “Do you know what this thing is?”

“No, not really. I don’t fully understand what he does. Don’t tell him that, either.”

“Hmm,” Grandpa mutters, handing her the business card, which she tosses back into the junk drawer.

“What does that noise mean?”

“Just thinking. Do I need to have the talk with him?”

“What talk?” She sits down next to him to wait on the rolls.

“Well, I don’t know. Your daddy’s not here. Seems like I should be looking out for you, but I know you’re not a kid anymore.”

She doesn’t usually care for displays of masculine bravado, but it’s sort of nice to have someone around to offer it. In truth, she’s not sure how Grandpa plans to protect her if he can’t get up from a chair. Her mom’s side of the family is the one with all the fancy guns. “You can say whatever you want, as far as I’m concerned, but I don’t know that it’s necessary.”

“I’ll try not to embarrass you.”

“That’s not possible.” The sound of a car door out front interrupts them. “I do want your opinion.”

The creak of the screen door has her out of her chair and on the way to the door before the knock sounds.

Garrett stands on the front porch holding a bouquet of sunflowers. At first glance, she thinks he came straight from work, but maybe his button-down is tucked into his pants to make a good impression.

“You look nice,” she says, taking the flowers from him as he walks through the door.

“So do you,” he says. He puts a hand on her waist and leans in to kiss her cheek. “You smell good, too.”

“Like chicken?” She cringes.

“Like Nora.” He smiles.

“Thank you for the flowers,” she says on the way to the kitchen.

“You’re welcome. I noticed the others were dying.”

“Grandpa, you remember Garrett?” she asks.

She lets them greet each other, while she replaces the dying flowers in the vase on the table.

“This looks good,” Garrett says. “Can I do something?” He pretends to assess the food, but he’s really examining the damage she’s done to the kitchen. None of which is permanent.

“I want to put all of this on the table,” she says, pointing to the kitchen table.

“In here?”

She nods.

“Eleanora is worried I can’t make it to the dining room,” Grandpa says.

She rolls her eyes. “Maybe I just like eating in here.”

“Two things can be true at once,” Grandpa says.

Garrett laughs under his breath.

“You don’t start,” she says, handing Garrett a couple of serving spoons.

“I didn’t say a word.” His smile makes her want to kiss him, but she doesn’t. This is one of the few times she and Garrett have been around other people like this, so she’s not completely sure how to act.

Grandpa clears his throat, and she looks over to see him pointing at the oven.

“The rolls!” she shouts. When she opens the oven door, nothing is on fire, but the rolls do not look like the photo on the outside of the three-year-old package. “Oh, shoot. They’re ruined.”

“They’re not ruined,” Garrett says, leaning over with a spatula to flip one over. “Look, they’re fine.”

“They’re very done,” she says. She takes the spatula from Garrett to tap the top of one. The dark brown crust doesn’t give.

“Bring them over here,” Grandpa announces.

“You can’t even see them from there,” she says. “You might not want them.”

“If it’s cooked, I’ll eat it. No need to fuss about it.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, tilting the pan to slide the rolls into her mom’s wood-grain bread basket. “I wanted everything to be right.”

“Everything is right,” Garrett says. He tugs her elbow toward the table. “Let’s eat.”

“I’ll say grace,” Grandpa says. Nora concentrates on her breathing while he prays for their family, their friends, the church, the president, and the food on the table before them. Her nerves will settle once they start eating. Or that’s what she tells herself.

Garrett takes a piece of chicken and passes the rest across the table to Grandpa. She dollops a pile of mashed potatoes onto her plate, hoping they will at least be edible. Grandpa hands her the plate of traitorous rolls, and for a moment she considers launching them across the room.

“Y’all see the Braves last night?” Grandpa asks.

“We caught the last few innings,” Garrett says. “I really thought they were going to pull it out.” They had watched the end of the game in bed, and Nora slept through part of it even though she was the one who had turned it on. Garrett had been riveted, watching intently, following the commentary from other fans on Twitter, and reading some of the better jokes to Nora.

“You a Braves fan?” Grandpa asks.

“I’m learning to be,” he says.

“Who’s your team?”

“I don’t really have a baseball team. I’m from North Carolina, so I’m more of a basketball fan.”

Both of them slice into their chicken, and no one freaks out, so Nora assumes it’s done. She samples the mashed potatoes and the green beans, and they taste fine to her. Edible at the very least. Her roll can sit in the green bean juice and rot for all she cares.

Grandpa nods. “Which side are you?”

“UNC,” Garrett says. “There’s not much choice in my family.”

“Those Duke folks are a bit much for me,” Grandpa says.

Garrett laughs. “Some might say that about Alabama fans.”

“Not in this house,” she says, surprising herself. It comes out sharper than necessary, but it releases some of her angst about the situation.

“ I would never say that,” Garrett says. He grins at her in the purest way, and she can feel his joy in the space between them. She lets it seep into her pores, arching an eyebrow as if she could ever be truly irritated at him.

“Shoot,” Grandpa says, raking a green bean onto his fork. “You’ve never watched anything with Eleanora then.”

“I’m not that bad!”

“Breaking a window might be crossing a line,” he says.

“That was an accident.”

Garrett’s eyes widen. “I have to hear this story.”

“No, you don’t,” she says.

Grandpa sets his fork down, going into full storyteller mode. “When Eleanora was little, she would come spend weekends at our house. One Saturday, we were watching Alabama play basketball. She had a little basketball with the Alabama A on it,” he says, holding his hands out to mimic the grapefruit-size ball. Her dad had bought it for her the year before when they went to a game in Tuscaloosa.

“Next thing you know, the referee called a foul on a player she liked.”

“Antoine Pettway,” she mumbles.

“Yep,” Grandpa agrees. “Foul on Pettway and Eleanora throws a ball through our living room window.”

“I bounced it!” she says. “It bounced into the window! I didn’t throw it!”

“I can’t believe you broke a window,” Garrett laughs.

“I’m surprised she didn’t break more than that,” Grandpa says. “She was rough as any boy I’ve ever seen. She used to get going as fast as she could down the street with a basketball, and as soon as I would get the words ‘Be careful’ out of my mouth, she would fall and skin up her whole leg. She’d be fine and back on the move again before I could get off the porch.”

“That should have been my cue to stop with the basketball,” she says.

“You did fine,” Grandpa says, picking up his fork to swirl his potatoes. “More to life than sports, or that’s what I tried to tell your daddy.”

A silence falls and lingers, and she needs to fill it. She turns to Garrett to say, “I liked math.”

She tries to come up with more words: “I was better at math than sports.”

“Oh, yes, we went to our share of those competitions, too,” Grandpa says without looking up.

“I don’t think I know anyone who likes math,” Garrett says.

“Yeah, I don’t have many friends.” She means this as a joke, but no one laughs because it’s currently true. “Not a lot of party tricks.”

“She won all kinds of trophies and stuff for that brain of hers,” Grandpa says. “I’m sure it’s all out in the garage.”

“I want to see,” Garrett says.

“I think that’s enough of this conversation,” Nora says. “No more stories about me.”

“That’s fine. I’ve gotta save some for next time,” Grandpa says.

They finish their meal, without any indication of food poisoning. Nora tries to clear the plates, but Garrett does it instead. He piles everything into the sink and covers the food on the stove.

Nora retrieves the box of Klondike bars from the freezer, her grandpa’s favorite dessert.

“Now, this is the main event,” Grandpa says.

Nora bites into hers, and chocolate and ice cream start to melt onto her hands. Garrett passes her a napkin. Is she the only one thinking of their first date? Her nervousness. The way she had worried about getting ice cream on her hands. The way he kissed her in the parking lot.

“Eleanora says you work in logistics. What does that mean, exactly?” Grandpa asks.

“Well, I take care of moving parts, basically. I make sure things get from one place to another,” Garrett says.

That’s the same thing he always says, and Nora hasn’t been able to get much else out of him, even after all this time.

“I know a little bit about logistics,” Grandpa says, a smile creeping onto his face. “You do a lot of traveling?”

“Right now I do. We have clients all over the place. I’ve also been doing some training, and then I have to hang around to make sure the new guy doesn’t mess up. Or new girl, I guess.”

“This is the first time I’m hearing about the new girl,” Nora says.

He holds in a laugh. “We’re not an all-male company. That’s probably illegal.”

“So, you’ve been traveling around for weeks at a time with another girl?” She’s kidding at first, but maybe there’s a reason she doesn’t know anything about his job. Maybe it’s on purpose.

“Oh, boy,” Grandpa says.

Garrett has the gall to smirk right there at the dinner table. “My female co-worker drives herself.”

“?‘Female co-worker,’?” Nora scoffs. “As long as she knows that’s all she is. I do come from a long line of rednecks, so I can set her straight.”

“She tells the truth there,” Grandpa says.

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Garrett says. “The redneck stuff sounds interesting, though.”

“It ain’t for the faint of heart,” Grandpa says.

“I’ll remember that,” Garrett says.

“Well, I think I’m going to head out to catch the game,” Grandpa says. “Thanks for having me over.” He braces himself against the table to stand.

“You can watch it here,” Nora says. She stands to walk him to the door because she knows what his answer will be.

“No, I’ve got to get home. I’ve got an early day tomorrow. Good to see you, Garrett.” He reaches out his hand, and Garrett returns the handshake.

Nora walks her grandpa to the door. She hugs him before he steps out onto the porch.

“So, what do you think?” she whispers into his ear.

“I think you’re gonna be all right.”

“That’s all you’re gonna give me?”

“That’s all for tonight.”

She closes the door to find Garrett standing in the living room behind her.

“I think he likes you,” Nora says.

“I hope so,” he says, as he wraps his arms around her waist. “Because I like you.”

She rests her palms flat on his chest and stands on her tiptoes to kiss him. She whispers against his lips, “Are you trying to distract me from your traveling companion?”

He sulks. “This isn’t worth a conversation, Nora. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I trust you,” Nora says. She has decided that she means it, for the most part. “I’m just giving you a hard time.”

“I would prefer an easy time, if possible.”

She laughs. “I’m sure you would. Speaking of, how was work today?”

He deflates and leads her to the couch. “It was fine. I’m just tired.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” She leans into him, knowing it might be easier to share his feelings if she isn’t staring at him.

“It’s not that interesting.”

She ignores his assessment. The man thinks basketball games from twenty years ago are interesting. “Was it tiring because you had a lot to do or because what you had to do was difficult?”

He sighs. “I don’t know. The first one, I guess.”

“Are you a drug dealer?”

“What?” He sits up so he can see her face and determine if she’s serious. “Why would you ask that?”

“You won’t say anything about your job, so I figure it must be illegal or something.”

He laughs. “It’s not illegal. I just don’t like to talk about it at home. I have to think about it all day.”

“That’s probably what a drug dealer would say.”

“You should have picked a better question, then.”

Nora laughs, and Garrett pulls her into him, kissing her mouth, her cheek, then her jaw.

“I know you’re trying to change the subject.” She winds her arms around to thread her fingers into his hair. “But you’re going to have to talk to me eventually.”

“And I will. Eventually.”

A few days later, instead of sitting around waiting on someone to die, Nora closes the store in the middle of the day to run errands. Nothing in Rabbittown is open after dark, so really, it’s necessary. She picks up pasta and wine at Rabbittown Grocery. She also grabs a bag of pepperoni Pizza Rolls to bury in the bottom of the freezer for nights when Garrett is traveling.

She steps into the pharmacy to see if Margaret is around, but Margaret had to go into town for a dentist appointment. The staff tells Nora it was her annual cleaning, because that’s what Margaret told them. Really, she broke a crown eating caramel corn from a big tin she got for her birthday from her cousins in Tallahassee, according to Jean.

Nora wanders the aisles, remembering the days when she would leave a hard day of work in Birmingham and spend an hour in CVS. Drugstore products calm her. Maybelline’s Great Lash and Dr. Teal’s Mineral Soak were waiting in the same familiar places when she would wander down from the store on afternoons after school. Or when she had a hard day at her first job and needed an hour to settle down before putting on a happy face for girls’ night and The Bachelor .

She stops by the Rabbittown Senior Center because she hasn’t seen Mrs. Dooley in a few weeks. Her granddaughter Sharon had been one of Nora’s best friends growing up, and they had kept in touch after they both left Rabbittown. Sharon lives with her husband and two kids in Virginia Beach and can’t visit often, so Nora looks in on Mrs. Dooley from time to time. She knows Sharon has other family in town to do that, but she would want Sharon to keep an eye on her grandpa if their roles were reversed.

Mrs. Dooley spent her life teaching third grade, and somehow, at ninety-four, she still remembers everyone she taught. Her room is decorated with photographs and artwork from her kids, grandkids, and former students.

“Lord, Eleanora, you look just like your mama,” she says, hitting a button that makes the bed rise until she’s sitting up.

“How are you, Mrs. Dooley?” Nora asks, leaning down to hug her.

“I feel just fine. You know I’m ninety-four?”

“I knew it was slightly past finger counting.”

“Well, I don’t feel it. I don’t feel a day past sixty. I don’t even know why they’ve got me in here.” Mrs. Dooley has had three heart attacks and both knees replaced. She knows why she’s in here.

“Maybe you’ll get out of here soon.” It’s not true, but it’s what she wants to hear.

Nora shows her all the pictures she can find of Sharon and her sisters on Facebook, plus a video Sharon sent of her kids playing in the yard last week.

“That boy needs a haircut,” Mrs. Dooley says, pointing to Sharon’s six-year-old, who has shoulder-length brown curls.

“I think he likes it long.”

Mrs. Dooley shoots Nora a look, and Nora doesn’t have to press for its meaning. “Well, you tell her to give her grandmother a call once in a while. I got a phone in this place, you know.”

“I’ll remind her.”

“How are you doing?” Mrs. Dooley asks conspiratorially, like Nora has secrets to spill.

“Good. I’m still working at the store and hanging out with Grandpa.”

“I see him from time to time. Jean and Margaret, too. I hear things.”

“What does that mean?” Nora laughs.

Mrs. Dooley leans closer and considers Nora for a moment. “You better get out of this town, girl.”

“What if I like it here?”

“You’re still young. You don’t realize what you’re doing.”

“What do you mean?” This could be going somewhere worthwhile, or it could be a bout of old-people confusion. Sharon did mention that her grandmother had been more out of it lately, but Nora didn’t realize that this could be what she meant.

“You’re like one of those criminals on TV who go back to the scene of the crime.” She shakes her head as if Nora is the dumbest of them all.

“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Dooley. What crime?” None of this makes sense to Nora, but she is willing to hear her out.

“Far as I can tell, the bad stuff that happened to you happened around here.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Well, I do. I’m an old woman, and I know these things. You need to get outta Dodge.”

“What am I dodging?”

“Your whole life here is death.”

Nora has spent the past year convincing herself that the death in her life feels bigger than it is. That, logically, there are more people alive in her life than people who have died. That she’s no different from anyone else. She never thought that the death could be related to geography. That Rabbittown could be cursed. She clears this from her mind with a shake of her head.

“You need to get away from that store, girl. I can feel it. Something’s fixin’ to start up.” Mrs. Dooley leans forward in her bed to examine Nora from head to toe. She pauses on her face and looks into her eyes for a moment too long. “Or maybe it already has.”

The remaining bit of Nora’s patience seeps out with a deep sigh. She changes the subject. “Here, I brought you something.” She hands Mrs. Dooley a plastic bag from the pharmacy, filled with magazines, a couple of paperbacks, and all the junk food she could find that wouldn’t break Mrs. Dooley’s false teeth.

Her eyes light up. “You’re a good one, Eleanora.”

“Thanks. Now I have to get back to work. I’ve got caskets to sell.”

“You better visit me again,” Mrs. Dooley says. “And tell that granddaughter of mine the same thing.”

“I will. You try to stay out of trouble with the nurses.”

“No fun in that.”

Nora winds through the hallway toward the front door. She’s texting Sharon an update when a familiar face appears in front of her. A startled face with raised eyebrows.

“Garrett?”

“What are you doing here?” he asks. He’s wearing a gray suit that probably costs more than Nora’s entire wardrobe.

Nora lifts her mouth to his out of habit, and he kisses her back, but without his usual warmth. “Are you visiting someone?” She tries to think of someone he would know in this nursing home in Rabbittown, but no one comes to mind. Garrett has never mentioned knowing anyone else in Rabbittown.

Garrett looks past her and down the hall. “I’m here for work. What are you doing here?”

Nora’s brain can’t make logistics and a nursing home go together. “I was visiting one of my old teachers.”

“That’s nice of you,” he says, without taking his eyes off the hallway behind her.

She turns around, expecting to see something or someone lurking there, but the hallway is empty. “It seems like you’re busy. We can talk later.”

He looks down at her then. “I’m sorry. I’m distracted. Can I see you tonight?”

“Sure.” Between now and then, she can make a list of the one thousand questions she has about his job to ask him one by one.

“I’ll come by when I’m done here.” He kisses her cheek before disappearing down the hallway.

On the way to her car, Nora’s thoughts spin, and she can’t make herself go farther than the sidewalk just beyond the front doors of the building. What could logistics have to do with a nursing home? He’s mentioned moving parts, but what moves around in nursing homes? Equipment? Patients?

She trusts Garrett, although the less he will tell her about his job, the more she suspects something nefarious. He said his job wasn’t illegal, but would he tell her if it were?

Nora knows where she can find the answers to at least some of these questions. Inside the double doors behind her. Garrett wouldn’t even have to know she’s there. She just needs a minute or two to figure out exactly what he’s doing or who he’s meeting.

She slips back through the front doors and tiptoes quickly down the hallway, pausing to peek around every corner until she sees the back of Garrett’s head as he ducks into a room. Is he meeting with a patient? She slinks down the hall in that direction, unsure if she should slow down or hurry up. Anyone could see her at any moment and ruin the whole thing.

He’s in Mrs. Dooley’s room. She checks the numbers on the doors to be sure, but it’s the same room she left a few minutes ago. Nora gets as close as she can to the edge of the door, until she can hear Mrs. Dooley talking to Garrett. No matter how hard she strains, she can’t make out the words. The hum of their voices doesn’t tell her anything. What would Mrs. Dooley have to do with logistics?

Nora leans into the outside of the doorframe while they talk, but she still can’t decipher anything. The sound of Garrett’s voice gets louder, so she steps into the room next door. She turns around to apologize to the patient there, hoping she can convince them not to scream until she figures out what to do next. It’s Mrs. Moss, the lady who used to play the organ at church when Nora was little. Nora didn’t know she was still alive, but here she is sitting in a leather recliner next to her bed, staring at the television.

“I’m not eatin’ till after my stories,” she says without breaking her concentration.

“Uh, that sounds good.”

Has Nora really learned no spy skills from watching Alias ? The only thing she can think to do is hide, so she does. Behind Mrs. Moss’s open door. Now she can’t hear anything. She stares through the gaps between the door hinges, until she sees Garrett leave Mrs. Dooley’s room. He moves quickly down the hallway, and Nora sticks her head out in time to watch him slip around the corner toward the front door.

From the other end of the hallway, people are running. Alarms are sounding. She turns to see a group of nurses racing toward her, pulling a cart of equipment. Nora assumes they’re coming for her: Mrs. Moss must have hit some secret panic button on her recliner. She opens her mouth to try to explain, but they aren’t looking at her at all. They run into Mrs. Dooley’s room instead.

Nora steps into the doorway. One of the nurses is hovering over Mrs. Dooley, calling her name and getting no response. A doctor slides past Nora and instructs her to wait outside.

Nora knows they have to do their jobs, but she also knows Mrs. Dooley. By the look on her face, she’s not coming back.