"A regular window," Mary Nell said. "A regular window in the roof." The springs grumbled as if she had shifted or perhaps leaned up for a better look at her cousins. It was at this moment that Dulcie saw Mae Rose.
Mae Rose had abandoned her wheelchair and was creeping along the hall. Walking unsteadily, clutching at the wall, she was headed for the open door.
Dulcie had left Mae Rose near the front door, in the parlor. When Mae Rose stopped to wait for Eula, Dulcie had lost patience, leaped down, and streaked in through this door behind the nurses' feet. She thought that not even Dillon peering in through the glass had seen her as she slid beneath Mary Nell's bed.
She didn't know why Mae Rose had left her wheelchair; it frightened her to see the little woman walking so precariously. She did not see Eula, though she could see a good slice of hall from where she crouched; it was only close up that her view was limited to chair legs and feet. Mae Rose crept along to the door, clutching her little doll Lucinda and hanging on to the wall. Moving inside, she approached the bed, drew so close that Dulcie could see only her pale, bare legs and her bright pink slippers. The smell of air freshener was so strong she couldn't even catch Mae Rose's sweet, powdery scent. Just the chemical smell of fake pine.
Wanting to see more, she reared up behind the bed, shielded by Mary Nell's plumped pillows, and peered out through a tiny space beside Mary Nell's left ear. She watched Mae Rose lean over the bed, smiling eagerly at Mary Nell, holding out the doll. Mary Nell grunted, perhaps startled at the proximity of the doll. When she leaned up a few inches from the bed, Mae Rose pressed the doll toward her, as if by way of a loving gift.
The cousins, sitting beside the bed like two black crows, watched this exchange with blank stares. And Dulcie drew back imperceptibly, deeper into the shadows behind the bed.
She felt that if either cousin spotted her, escape would be imperative. And now suddenly Eula appeared in the hall, stumping along in her walker. Behind Eula came a scowling nurse, pushing Mae Rose's empty wheelchair.
Soon the nurse had forced Mae Rose away from the bed, back into her rolling chair, and started away with her, pushing determinedly. But then the nurse seemed to take pity. She turned back again, rolled the chair back into Mary Nell's room, and up to the bed.
Again Mae Rose held out the doll. "Mary Nell, do you remember Lucinda?"
"I remember her," Mary Nell said weakly.
"She's for you, to keep you company. She's your doll now." Mae Rose thrust the doll at Mary Nell. The bed creaked as Mary Nell reached. Dulcie watched intently through the tiny space between the two pillows. Mae Rose and Mary Nell looked silently at each other. Mae Rose said, "I've missed you, Mary Nell. And I miss Jane. Do you see Jane over in Nursing?"
"She's not well," Mary Nell told her. "She misses you. She said-she said, if I saw Mae Rose, to give her love." Her voice was weak and shaky. The effect on Mae Rose was to bring tears; Mae Rose's face crumpled. And at the same moment, Adelina appeared.
Adelina paid no attention to Mae Rose's weeping; she dispatched the tearful old lady back to her own wing, and Eula with her; sent them both away, escorted by two nurses.
The two cousins had sat scowling and silent through the little episode. Seated firmly, their feet planted, they gave each other a meaningful look, then rose as one. Moving slowly, with a measured precision, Roberta clutched her flowered handbag. Gustel turned away from her sister only long enough to deposit her vanilla pudding on the dresser beside the books.
As the two cousins made their good-byes to Mary Nell, Dulcie studied the hall and the glass door, weighing her chances. She could likely unlatch the glass door, but she didn't want Dillon to see her do that. She was assessing the traffic in the hall when she saw the foot.
The nurses had wheeled the empty gurney back into the room. Even as the cousins departed, clumping away, they prepared to lift Mary Nell onto the rolling cart. Wrapping Mary Nell's blanket around her, and one nurse lifting her shoulders while the other supported her hips, they set Mary Nell on the cart for her return to Nursing. But as they slid her acquiescent body off the bed and onto the gurney, her blanket caught and was pulled awry, pulling her off-balance. She kicked out against the bed, to right herself.
Dulcie, looking up from beneath the bed, saw Mary Nell's bare foot kick out beyond the edge of the cart. A slim, smooth foot, without the blue veins and knobby joints of an old woman. A lightly tanned foot that might easily run and dance.
She paused, frozen with amazement, then reared up beneath the blanket for a closer look. Staring at that healthy, slim foot, she was so fascinated that she forgot herself and let her whiskers brush Mary Nell's skin, catching a whiff of disinfectant from the blanket. At the tickle of her whiskers, Mary Nell grunted, startled, and reached to scratch her instep. Dulcie dropped down, crouching deep beneath the bed, in the far corner. Mary Nell scratched her foot vigorously with a white-gloved hand, drew her foot back beneath the covers, and pulled the blanket closer around herself. And she was wheeled away.
Dulcie remained hidden until they had gone, her mind fixed on that slim, smooth foot with its neat, professional pedicure of bright red toenails, and on the sudden, vigorous movements of that frail old lady.
24
It was getting dark in the grove. Susan knew she should head back, should turn her wheelchair around. She had only to speak to Lamb, and he would circle back toward Casa Capri. Bonnie would be wanting to leave; she had scheduled this afternoon an hour later than usual, having had to work later, and now it looked like rain, the clouds so dark and low overhead they seemed to cling in among the oak trees. Beyond the grove, the lights of the dining room and the long line of bedrooms shone brightly, the big squares of the glass doors marching along behind the wrought-iron fence. She could see, down at the end, a portion of Teddy's wheelchair behind his open drapery, saw movement as if perhaps he sat reading. He didn't stay long at the Pet-A-Pet sessions. Mae Rose thought the proximity of so many animals annoyed Teddy, irritated him.
The wind was picking up. Speaking to Lamb and stroking him, she gave him the command to turn back. Willingly he led her around, pulling her chair in a circle off the path and back again. It was at that moment, as they turned, that she saw Teddy rise from his wheelchair, stand tall, move away from it.
She spoke to Lamb, and he stopped in his tracks, stood still.
She watched Teddy walk across the room to the other side of the glass doors. No mistaking him, his hanging stomach forming a pear-shaped torso.
She watched him reach to pull the draperies, saw him pause a moment, looking out-then step back suddenly against the wall, out of sight.
Saw the draperies slide closed as if by an invisible hand, from where he had concealed himself.
He had seen her, despite the gathering dark. Had seen some glint, maybe her white blouse, seen her here in the grove. Seen her watching him.
She shivered deeply, unaccountably frightened.
Now the draperies obscured the room. Those drapes on the outside windows were not like the thinner casement curtains that faced into the patio. These window coverings, facing away from Casa Capri, were opaque, totally concealing.
She sat still, watching the obscured glass door, still shaken, chilled.
Teddy couldn't walk. Not at all. His spine had been crushed. He was completely incapacitated from his waist down, could use only his arms. Drove his car with special hand equipment.
That is what they had been told. That is what Adelina Prior told them.
Ice filled her.
And in her fear she made some movement, some little body language that made Lamb whine and nose at her. Stroking him, hugging the big poodle to her, she felt very alone suddenly, the two of them, too vulnerable alone here in the gathering night.