Flicking an ear, he leaped down and trotted on inside.
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The letter had been folded many times into a tiny rectangle no larger than a matchbook. It had been stuffed between layers of cotton filling in the belly of the doll, and the doll’s stomach sewn shut again with the ragged green stitches. The letter had lain concealed for more than three months, and the doll hidden and forgotten.
Dear Mae,
I don’t know if I’m being foolish in writing this. Maybe my distress and unease are only a result of my condition or of the medication they give me. Maybe that causes my shaky handwriting, too. I do feel odd, off-balance, and my hands don’t work well. I was so hoping you would visit me here and that we could talk. The nurses say you haven’t asked about me, but I don’t believe them. I’ve longed to come over to your room or the social room. You’re so near, just beyond this wall, but it’s as if a hundred miles separate us.
The doctor told me to walk, so I have been all around the halls, but always accompanied by a nurse, and none of the nurses will let me come over to the social room. They are so needlessly stria, and I haven’t the strength to defy them, not like I once had. Six months ago I wouldn’t have stood for this high-handed treatment.
Ihaven’t seen anything of your friends, Mae, though I have watched the doors where the charts are posted. I don’t think any of them are here. Their names are not on the doors, and I’ve looked carefully.
If your fears continue, maybe you should talk to the police. But I wouldn’t ask these nurses questions, they get terribly cross.
I heard the supervisor scolding one of the nurses when she thought I was asleep. Though I don’t know much Spanish, just a few words, I’m sure she was saying something about a phone call and your friend Mary Nell Hook. I think she told the nurse not to answer questions from anyone, told her to tend to her own job unless she wanted-something “guardia,” something about the police. Though I didn’t understand much of it, the conversation frightened me. The supervisor mentioned Ms. Prior, too, in a threatening way. I think Adelina Prior can be very cold, I would not want to cross her.
I don’t know if there’s any connection, but twice late in the night I’ve awakened to see a man standing across the hall inside a darkened room, just a shadow in the blackness, looking out. And once when I woke around midnight I thought someone had been standing beside my bed watching me. Not one of the nurses but someone studying me intently, and I felt chilled and afraid-but maybe it was only my overactive imagination, or maybe the medication is affecting my nerves.
I’m putting this note inside Mollie, and I mean to ask Lupe to bring her back to you. I’ll tell her that I don’t want her anymore, that the doll makes me sad. I know you’ll make Mollie a new dress. When you do, you’ll find my stitching hidden under her skirt and slip-Ijust hopeLupe doesn’t find it. I’ll use green thread so you won’t miss it-but you wouldn’t miss it, my hands are no better for sewing than for writing.
I know I seem very depressed. I suppose that’s natural, given my illness. Though I do wonder if the medicine doesn’t make me feel worse.
I long to see you, Mae, but I’m so very tired, too tired to argue. I miss you. And I long for my friend Dillon, too. Since I came here, she hasn’t written, though I have written to her several times. How strange the world has become. I feel very disoriented and sad.
With all my love,
J.
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Joe pushed in through his cat door and headed for the kitchen, toward the cacophony of good-natured male voices and the click of poker chips. He heard someone pop a beer, heard cards being shuffled. When he heard Clyde belch and politely excuse himself, he knew there were ladies present. And that meant a better-than-usual spread from Jolly’s Deli. He could already smell the corned beef, and wished he hadn’t eaten so much of that big cottontail rabbit.
As he quickly shouldered into the kitchen, the good smells wrapped him round, the thick miasma of smoked salmon and spiced meats and crab salad, this gourmetic bouquet overlaid with the malty smell of beer, and, of course, with a fog of cigarette smoke that he could do without. His first view of the group as he pushed in through the kitchen door was ankles and feet among the table legs: two pairs of men’s loafers below neatly creased slacks; a pair of well-turned, silk-clad legs in red high heels; and Charlie Getz’s bare feet in her favorite, handmade sandals. Clyde, as usual, was attired in ancient baggy jogging pants and worn, frayed sneakers. On beyond the table, Rube lay sprawled listlessly across the linoleum, the big Labrador’s eyes seeking Joe’s in a plea of lonely grieving.
Slipping between the tangle of feet, Joe lay down beside Rube, against the dog’s chest. He tried to purr, to comfort the old fellow, but there was really no way he could help. He could only be there, another four-legged soul to share Rube’s loneliness for Barney. Rube licked his face and laid his head across Joe, sighing.
Clyde had buried Barney in the backyard, but he had let Rube and the cats see him first. Dr. Firetti said that was the kindest way, so they would know that Barney was dead and would not be waiting for him to return. He said they would grieve less that way. But, all the same, Rube was pining. He and Barney had been together since they were pups.
Joe endured the weight of Rube’s big head across his ribs until the old dog dozed off, falling into the deep sleep of tired old age, then he carefully slipped out from under the Labrador. Rube didn’t stop snoring. Joe was crouched to leap to the table when he glanced toward the back door and saw the latest architectural addition to the cottage: Clyde had installed a dog door. He regarded it with amazement. The big plastic panel took up nearly half the solid-core back door, was big enough to welcome any number of interested housebreakers. Clyde had evidently reasoned that Rube would need something to distract him from grieving. Surely this new freedom, this sudden unlimited access to the fenced backyard, couldn’t hurt. Too bad Barney wasn’t here to enjoy it.
The other three cats would certainly find the arrangement opening new worlds. They had, heretofore, been subject to strict supervision. They were kept shut away from the living room so they couldn’t go out Joe’s cat door, and Clyde let them into the yard only when he was with them. In the mornings and evenings he let them have a long ramble, but strictly inside the yard. With the aid of a water pistol, he discouraged them from climbing the back fence. Two of the cats were elderly, and disadvantaged in any neighborhood fight, and the little white cat was so shy and skittish she was better off confined. Joe wondered what they’d make of their new liberty. Clyde must have been really worried about Rube to instigate this drastic change in routine.
As for himself, he had never been confined, not from the very beginning of their relationship, when he was six months old and Clyde rescued him from the San Francisco alleys. For the first week he’d been too sick to go out, too sick to care, but when he was himself again and wanted access to the outer world, and Clyde refused, he’d pitched one hell of a fit. A real beauty, a first-class, state-of-the-art berserker of snarling and biting and raking claws.
Clyde had let him out. And from that moment, they’d had a strict understanding. They were buddies, but Clyde would not under any circumstances dictate his personal life.
Leaving Rube sleeping, Joe leaped to the poker table, gave Clyde a friendly nudge with his head, and watched Clyde deal a down card. This group seldom played anything but stud. If the ladies didn’t like stud, they could stay home. Max Harper glanced at his hole card, his expression unchanging. Harper had the perfect poker face, lean, drawn into dry, sour lines as if he held the worst poker hand in history.
Harper had gone to high school with Clyde-that would make him thirty-eight-but his leathery face, dried out from the sun and from too many cigarettes, added another ten, fifteen years.