When I enter Laura’s room, Dr. Powell is packing up his bag, stuffing a stethoscope inside. Laura smiles as she sits watching him. The new nurse, who I’ve not yet met, bustles about the bed, and pauses to toss the blue pad into the trash.
“Ah, look who’s here, Laura. Your babysitter has arrived!”
“Companion. And she isn’t terrible. I suppose.” She seems to have her wits about her more today. Perhaps the doctor’s presence has this effect? Or maybe the new nurse is a welcomed change.
“I’ve altered her dosing a bit, so she should be less …” Dr. Powell circles his finger next to his ear, his words confirming my observations of her. “Cuckoo.”
“Stop it.” Laura slaps his arm and gives a lighthearted chuckle. “I’m not losing my mind just yet.”
“You were for a bit, there.” I tuck the blanket around her legs, and smooth down a flyaway hair.
“Well, I certainly haven’t forgotten in that time what a nuisance you are.”
“She’s warming up to you nicely, I see.” Brows lowered, the doctor jerks his head. “May I have a word with you? It’ll only be a moment.”
“A word? Alone? Is it about me?” Running her fingers over her necklace, Laura smiles up at Dr. Powell.
Bending slightly forward, he takes Laura’s hand and leaves a kiss to her knuckles. “Of course not, darling. I’m sure it’ll come as a surprise to know not every topic is about you. I’m off to my next appointment, so you stay out of trouble.”
“You don’t know me very well, then.”
A sly grin crinkles his face, but once outside the room, it sobers to something more serious, as he closes the door behind him. “I, um … thought, rather than have you find out through Laura, I should tell you that Nell was found dead very early this morning.”
The air deflates inside my chest as I stare back at him, confusion and shock waging war inside my head. “Dead?”
“Yes. It seems she overdosed.”
“Overdosed? That … that doesn’t sound right.”
“She’s been skimming pills off Laura for quite some time. I never said anything because, well … I didn’t exactly have proof. Just scripts running out faster than they should’ve. But as far as I know, it was heroin. The housekeeper at the motel found her.”
I know heroin abusers. Nell certainly gave off the addict vibe, but there’s no way she was actively abusing it all this time. This has to be a relapse.
I lift my gaze back to his. “Motel? What was she doing at a motel?”
“One of those pay-by-week things.”
Unless I got bits of the story wrong, I was certain Nell had her own place. “What about her son?”
“Son? I wasn’t aware she had a son.”
Maybe she didn’t talk about him much, or didn’t divulge anything personal like that. “Was it in town? On the island?”
“The motel? Yes, it’s, ah …” He taps his finger to his chin, contemplative for a moment. “Crow’s Nest Motel.”
I know that one. About a mile and a half from where Aunt Midge works. They not only rent by the week, but by the hour, as I understand. “I can’t believe she’d throw everything away.”
And yet, I absolutely can, because that’s how junkies work. There is nothing more valuable than the drug. Not even a child. I know that from firsthand experience, which is how I got dumped on my aunt’s doorstep.
“Well, she was always a little shady. Used to hang out at some skeevy bar. She liked picking up the locals to take back to the motel and shoot up.”
“The Shoal?”
“Pretty sure that’s the one.”
Sure, there are some interesting characters that end up at The Shoal, but I’ve grown up with a lot of those guys. Worked summers with some of them. They’re not the most upstanding citizens on the island, but I can’t imagine any of the regulars taking a young girl back to a motel to shoot up drugs. I’ve seen much skeevier places than that bar.
Then again, maybe I don’t know any of them any more than I thought I knew Nell.
“Anyway, I need to go, or I’ll be late. I just wanted to let you know.”
“I appreciate it. Thanks.”
I head back into Laura’s bedroom, where she sits with one eyebrow quirked, and I shake my head. “Just giving me some info on your new meds.”
“So, it was about me. That man is such a liar,” she says with a smile.
I want to ask her if that’s true, and to what extent would he lie. “It’s beautiful outside. I was thinking maybe we could sit in the garden and read.”
“What garden? You mean the cemetery of vines and shrubbery in the yard?”
“Yes. Unless you’re up for a game of basketball, or something.”
Her face scrunches to a frown. “Reading, it is.”
I wheel her down to the first level, and out into the ruins, as I call them. The sun is bright today, but the news of Nell somehow dulls its warmth. Taking a seat on a stone bench half covered in bird crap, I flip the book open to where we last left off, the picture of young Lucian and his friend acting as the bookmark.
“I think I’d prefer to hear your story, instead, today.”
Peeling my attention from the new chapter, I frown. “Mine?”
“Yes. Have you always lived on the island?”
I don’t know why I hesitate to answer her at first. “No. My mother and I moved around a lot when I was little. Every month, it felt like.”
“Was she in the military? Or business? Engineers move around quite a bit, don’t they?”
Engineer. The only thing my mother managed to engineer was a shit life for both of us. “She was neither of those.”
“Well, what did she do to keep moving you around so much?”
“Drugs. She was a junkie, and … we ran quite a bit.”
The sidelong glance she shoots back at me is overflowing with judgement, but I don’t care. Hiding my past has become an exhausting exercise as of late. “That doesn’t sound like a healthy environment for a young girl.”
“Not at all.”
“And your father?”
“He died before I had the chance to meet him.”
“So, how did you manage to avoid following your mother footsteps in life?”
“My Aunt Midge raised me from the time I was ten.”
“It took ten years for your mother to decide she couldn’t manage? Or did something precipitate the decision.”
In the pause that follows her question, a flickering image flashes through my head.
A child holding a glowing heart. Darkness all around. But the child’s face practically glows. It’s sad eyes. Gentle hands. A red heart. Deep breaths. Red. Everywhere, it’s red.
I blink out of the thoughts, the book in my lap coming back into focus.
“Well?” The expectant tone in Laura’s voice carries an air of annoyance. “Why ten years?”
“I don’t know. I guess she just gave up.”
“That’s not how mothers operate, darling. My guess is, you’ll never know. Women do what they have to do, sometimes. Even at the risk of unimaginable pain.”