My legs weaken. I sink down onto the bed.
It’s another catastrophic lie. We didn’t have to leave my friends, my school, my Charlie. It seems like my mother wanted to wrench me away from anyone I felt close to—other than her.
One by one, I’m tearing down the layers of deception she built around us. What will I find when I get to the last one?
“You still there?”
I clear my throat to buy time while I try to remember what else I needed to get out of this call.
“I would appreciate it if you could forward any information you might have on Ruth to assist us in tracking her down.”
“Um … I can look in her file. Probably nothing in there but that old paycheck and the application she filled out before she started here.”
I feel my eyes widen.
“Her application?” My voice sounds a little strangled.
“Yeah, it should still be there.”
“What’s on it?”
“Where she worked before, her address, that kind of thing.”
“Please fax it to me. Or you can scan it, whichever is easier.”
“We’ve got a fax, but I’m not sure I can get to it tonight. We’re fully booked for dinner, and honestly, the files aren’t all that organized. That okay? Seeing as you’re in such a rush.”
“Tomorrow is better than never,” I tell him.
I recite the fax number for Sunrise, grateful we still use one to send medical records back and forth to doctor’s offices and insurance companies.
Then I hang up and fall back onto the bed.
I didn’t locate just one stepping-stone. If that old work application comes through, I may be able to trace my mother back through all of them—perhaps even to the first place she landed after leaving her family’s home.
I may finally be able to find out who she really is.
* * *
I’m still lying on the bed, stunned, when a man yells, “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
I leap up and run out of the room.
Mr. Damon is crouched by a window in the hallway, staring out intently, gesturing for everyone to keep back. Outside the panes of glass, the brilliant greens and blues of the trees and sky have been gray-washed. The night gloom is drawing up around us.
Sundowning is when Mr. Damon’s muddled mind tricks him into believing it is 1971, and he is a young army draftee again.
“Do you see them?” Mr. Damon tilts his head at me. “They’re sneaking in. Tell the men!”
Right now, Mr. Damon is back in Vietnam, and the enemy is just outside the window.
I move to his side, keeping down low.
“We’re safe,” I promise. “The men know.”
Hurry, Tin, I think.
Mr. Damon is surprisingly strong for his age. He is preparing to fight.
His watery blue eyes narrow as he turns to look at me. “Who are you?”
I tell him the truth, keeping my words malleable enough to serve both his present and past worlds: “I’m a nurse.”
“I don’t know you. We don’t have any nurses in our unit.”
“My name is Catherine. I’m here to help you.”
Mr. Damon leans closer to me, still keeping his head ducked beneath the window. “Are you trying to trick me?”
I shake my head. “I’m on your side.”
He puts a finger to his lips. “They’re getting closer,” he whispers. “Can you see them? They found us.”
At that moment, music fills the air. Tin found the CD.
The metamorphosis is astonishing. Music exerts such a powerful pull over Mr. Damon that it blots out his terrifying hallucination.
Mr. Damon’s hands rise, as if pulled up by strings. His fingers perform a complex dance, in perfect time to Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.”
He stands up and begins to walk, still playing the graceful, gentle notes, drawn toward the source of the music.
I straighten up, too, and exhale a slow breath.
I need to talk to Tin about having the doctor do a meds check for Mr. Damon tomorrow. His hallucinations are getting worse. Someone could get hurt if the music ever loses its power.
I walk to the recreation room, following Mr. Damon’s footsteps. The scene is peaceful. Several residents are reclining in chairs or on couches, listening to the music. Mrs. Jacobson is tenderly tucking in her baby dolls for the night. Mr. Damon is completely lost in the composition, his fingers sweeping up and down piano keys.
I’m watching him, but my mind is elsewhere. I’m wondering how long it will take for the fax to arrive.
My mother turned off her location on her phone last night, and I know it was deliberate. I have no idea where she went, but I’m certain it wasn’t merely for a walk.
The words Mr. Damon whispered to me moments ago echo in my brain.
I don’t know you.
CHAPTER TWENTY
RUTH
I peer out the window into the inky night, wrapping my arms around myself as I search the shadows.
I scan the parking lot four stories down as if I might actually see an old Corvette there, engine rumbling, James behind the wheel.
There’s nothing amiss I can put my finger on, yet I feel deeply restless. It’s the fourth time I’ve looked out the living room window in the past hour.
James isn’t coming for us, I tell myself. Catherine and I are safe.
I draw the blinds closed and tell myself I’ll keep them that way until morning.
I walk into the kitchen, the tiled floor cool against the soles of my bare feet, and fill the teakettle. I take my favorite chunky mug out of the cabinet—the one Catherine made for me in junior high school art class—and drop in a bag of chamomile.
The shriek of the kettle a couple of minutes later causes me to flinch, even though I’ve been anticipating the noise. I fill up my mug and inhale the fragrant steam, then carry it into the living room and set it down on a coaster on the coffee table.
I check the location of Catherine’s phone, and once I confirm she is still at work, I walk over to the front door and engage the chain lock. No one else has a key to our place, other than the landlord, who isn’t permitted to enter without advance notice. But I can’t allow even a minuscule risk of anyone surprising me during the next hour.
I’m about to do the thing I’ve been dreading not just all night but for the past four years.
The one streaming channel we subscribe to offers reruns of a true-crime program. I watch a lot of those kinds of shows because you never know when something you learn might come in handy.
But there was one episode I couldn’t bear to watch.
It’s the segment about Coach’s murder. It first aired four years ago, on the twentieth anniversary of the crime.
I can’t afford to ignore it any longer.
I got rid of Coach Franklin’s watch many years ago, but I swear I still hear it sometimes, like when I catch the clacking of a train moving down the tracks or notice someone rhythmically tapping their foot: tick-tock, tick-tock.
It’s a warning. My time is almost up.
I use the remote control to bring up the program. I’m too agitated to sit, so I stand in front of the TV.
The first minute or so is an introduction. Eerie music plays while credits appear on the screen, along with sepia photographs. There’s one I’ve never seen of James at around the age I knew him—nineteen. The background is blurred, so I can’t identify where the picture was taken. Then my school picture from junior year slowly appears next to James’s. In it, I’m smiling, and my waist-length hair is draped over one shoulder. Our photos drop off the screen and are replaced by several of Coach, including one of him standing in front of the Poms team while our squad posed in pyramid formation. I’m at the end of the middle row, and a red circle is drawn around my head so viewers can identify me.