As she contemplated, a terrible noise from the second floor yanked her out of her chair and she shot to her feet.
More crying. But not Lily.
The door to Bobby’s room was wide open. Ramona stood at the side of his bed, still in her nightclothes, her mouth sunken looking and different and Grace realized she hadn’t put in her teeth. Ramona’s feet were bare. Reading glasses dangled from a chain across her flat chest. Moaning and tearing at her hair, she kept staring at Bobby, eyes wild and frightened.
Bobby lay on his back, mouth open wider than ever, his eyes half shut and filmed as if a snail had slithered across them. Shiny stuff streaked his chin. His face was a strange color, gray with green around the edges. Like mossy rock, not human skin.
Ramona moaned and said, “Oh, no,” and pointed at Bobby. As if Grace needed direction.
Bobby’s pajama top had been ripped open, revealing a sliver of gray skin. No movement from breathing. From anything.
The tube that fed him air at night was on the floor at the side of the bed, still hissing. Lately, Bobby had taken to struggling in his sleep, calling out, making noises that could scare you if you didn’t know about him. He’d never dislodged the tube but Ramona worried he might so she’d begun taping the yellowish rubber to his pajama top. Taping it tight, Grace knew, because sometimes she was the one to untape in the morning and that took effort.
The tape was still attached to the tube as it hissed on the floor, a yellowish snake.
Grace stood there. Ramona ran past her, down the stairs. Grace heard the kitchen door slam.
She stayed up there with Bobby for no reason. Looking at him. Looking at death. She’d seen it before but he looked different than the strangers in the red room. No blood, no frenzied twisting of the body, nothing gross, at all.
Just the opposite, really. He looked... peaceful.
Except for the weird skin color that seemed to be getting greener and greener.
She went back downstairs, passed the room where the three new fosters slept and heard more shushing.
Then: laughter.
Ramona wasn’t in the house and it took a while to find her but Grace did: outside, standing at the far end of the green pool, still tearing at her hair, pacing back and forth.
Grace approached her slowly. When people got their nerves all excited you never knew what could happen.
When Ramona saw her, she began shaking her head. Violently, as if trying to dislodge something painful that had stuck itself in her brain.
Grace stopped.
Ramona barked, “Go!”
Grace didn’t move.
Ramona screamed, “Didn’t you hear me? Go inside!”
Grace turned to leave. Before she completed the arc, movement caught her eye and she swiveled quickly.
Just in time to see Ramona’s face scrunched up in pain, now her color was bad, really pale, and she was clutching her chest and her toothless mouth was an O of pain and fear as she lost balance and stumbled forward.
Eyes rolling back, she fell into the green, murky water.
Grace hurtled toward her.
Ramona was sinking fast but Grace managed to get hold of one of her hands and started pulling. Slime coated both of them and she lost her grip and Ramona began to sink. Throwing herself belly-down on the cement pool deck, Grace regained her hold, added her other hand, yanked hard. Sharp pain cut through her back and her shoulders and her neck.
No matter what, she would not let go.
Panting and growling, she managed to pull Ramona up high enough to draw the old woman’s face out of the water.
The moment she saw Ramona, algae-streaked, mouth wide open, eyes unseeing, just like Bobby’s, she knew she was wasting her time, this was her second look at death in one morning. But she held on to Ramona and managed to raise herself to a crouch and draw Ramona a few more inches out of the pool. After that, things got easier because the parts of Ramona still in the water were floating, her lifeless body cooperating as Grace, still crouching, scuttling awkwardly like a crab, dragged her all the way around the pool to the shallow end where her body floated above the steps and Grace was able to pull her out completely.
Grace stood there, soaked, out of breath. Ramona’s death looked worse than Bobby’s. Her face was twisted, like she’d died upset about something.
But still not as bad as the red room...
Touching Ramona’s chest, then making sure by touching Ramona’s green-slimed neck, Grace knew for sure.
Gone.
Leaving Ramona on the pool deck, an old, tired dead thing soaking up bright morning desert sun, Grace ran to the house and got on the phone.
The 911 operator asked her to stay on the line. While she was waiting, the three new fosters came down the stairs, this time Ty first, then Lily, Sam backing them up.
Ty’s eyes met Grace’s. He shook his head and frowned, as if terribly disappointed. Lily knuckled her eyes and cried silently. Sam had no expression on his face.
But when he turned away to look out the kitchen window, with a clear view of Ramona’s body, Grace saw the beginnings of a smile curving his too-pretty lips.
An ambulance came first and Grace directed the fire department men to Ramona. Moments later, three police cars arrived, then a green car like the one that had been there when the new fosters arrived. Followed by a blue car and a black car. Four men and two women, all wearing badges, looked at Ramona, talked to the fire department men, finally headed for Grace.
She told them, “There’s another dead person, upstairs.”
All four fosters were corralled in the kitchen, under the eye of one of the uniformed policewomen, who stood with her arms folded across her chest.
Soon after, the two woman detectives and two male detectives came in and divided up the children. One detective to a kid.
Grace got a small, thin man who introduced himself as Ray but his badge said R. G. Ballance. He took her to the small butler’s pantry off the kitchen. He was the oldest of the four detectives, with white hair and wrinkles. Grace’s clothes were still damp with spots and shreds of green slime attached.
He pointed to a chair and said, “Sit down, dear,” but remained on his feet. When Grace complied, he went on: “Can I get you some water” — checking his notepad — “Grace?”
“No, thank you.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Need a sweater? You know, maybe you should change into dry clothes first.”
“I’m okay, sir.”
“You’re sure?”
“It’s drying fast.”
“Hmm... all right, then, I don’t want to ask you to do anything that’s hard for you, Grace. But if you could tell me what you saw — if you saw anything — that would be helpful.”
Grace told him.
About Bobby in his bed, the air tube on the floor, Ramona standing there, really upset, then fleeing downstairs.
About Grace waiting, wanting to give her time to calm down. Finally looking for her.
Ramona yelling at her to go inside, which wasn’t like her, she never yelled.
About Grace starting to obey but then Ramona touched her chest and fell.
When she got to the part about grabbing Ramona’s hand and holding on and finally managing to draw her to the shallow end, she told R. G. Ballance a short version.
He said, “Wow, you’re to be commended — that means you did something good.”
“It didn’t work.”
“It... yeah, I guess so, afraid not. But still, you tried your best. How old are you?”