“No, he’s a doll. And you know it.”
“I’m afraid not.” The smile stayed on her face, but Rose couldn’t tell whether she was kidding. “You best go to the breakfast room. Maybe you can get him up and out of there. If not, we’re gonna have to call in the big guys.”
Her father sat at a table near the window and stared out across the water. She recognized the bushy eyebrows and handsome profile at once, but the rest of his body seemed to belong to a stranger. She had a sudden memory of him pushing himself away from the dinner table after a big meal, balancing on the back two legs of his chair and patting his round belly. All the extra padding had disappeared over the past five years, as his mental state had become less agile. The high school math and science teacher who scribbled out calculations on napkins during dinner had slowly faded away. He didn’t even remember how to hold a pencil.
She put a hand on his bony shoulder. “Dad?”
He dropped his head to his chest and puffed out his cheeks.
“I came by to say hello. Do you want to take a walk?”
“I want breakfast.”
She looked up. The staff was clearing tables. “Did Mr. Lewin get breakfast this morning?”
One of the aides nodded. “Ate it all. He want more?”
“Dad, do you want more?”
“No.”
His doctors had said he was depressed, a common side effect of the medication that kept him calm.
She waited, hoping he’d show some animation. He turned his face up to her and she caught her breath. A bruise covered his right temple, purple and blue hues vivid beneath the thin skin. “Stay here. I’m going to talk to Dr. Mehra, all right?”
The nurses paged the doctor, who trotted briskly down the hall. Rose had liked Dr. Mehra, as he had a gentle manner but didn’t dance around the truth.
“What happened to his head? He’s hurt.”
Dr. Mehra blinked. “Didn’t they call you?”
“No.”
“He became belligerent last night, wanted to go outside. He slipped as they were getting him back to bed and hit his head on the safety rail. Not hard, he didn’t lose consciousness.”
“But hard enough that it’s badly bruised.”
“I examined him last night and again this morning. We see no signs of concussion.”
“How could you tell? He’s not responding to anything I say.”
“Actually, we should sit and talk; do you have time?”
The pit in Rose’s stomach grew bigger. She didn’t have time. Tyler would be asking where she was by now, but he’d have to wait.
The doctor led her into his office. “We need to talk about the possibility of placing your father in the dementia unit.”
“Why? He needs to be looked after, but he’s not that bad. He can walk and feed himself still.”
“He knocked down another patient last night as he was trying to get out.”
Rose sat back and gripped her hands together. “Was the other patient hurt?”
“Fine, nothing broken. But he’s a danger to others.”
Rose mulled over the possibilities. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to someone else because of him. I’m just wondering if this is a one-time thing. He’s been so docile.”
“You may need to reframe your thinking. He’s in a decline, and it’s only going to get worse. We ought to move him sooner rather than later, for everyone’s sake.”
“I see. And how much more does that cost a month?” The question was crass, but pertinent. Before, Griff’s money would have provided a cushion for emergencies like this. No longer.
“You’ll have to talk to the billing department. They’ll be able to answer all of your questions.”
She shook his hand. “I will. Thank you.”
By the time she got back to her father, he was dozing in the big armchair in his room. She touched the bruise lightly with her finger and straightened a lock of his gray hair that had fallen over his forehead. She imagined him waking up and chatting with her, suggesting they head to their favorite diner for a cheeseburger.
But she knew the truth: That was the past, a little girl’s wishful thinking. He was lost to her more every week.
The fourth-floor hallway at the Barbizon was eerily quiet.
Rose tried Miss McLaughlin’s door again but didn’t get an answer or even a yap from Bird. She was probably out walking the dog. Several other residents opened their doors a crack, before shaking their heads and declining to speak further after she’d told them she was a journalist. Another, a large woman in her seventies, had a coughing fit and said she was too ill to speak.
Strange. Rose had figured these women would be bored and lonely, eager to speak about the minutia of their lives. In fact, they treated her like a pain in the ass.
A wreath of ivy encircled the peephole of the farthest door. Rose knocked and waited.
“Who is it?” cried a hoarse voice.
“My name is Rose Lewin. I live on the fifth floor. I’m a journalist, working on a piece about the Barbizon Hotel for Women.”
The door opened and a strong-featured woman peered out. “You live here?”
“Yes, just one floor up. I moved in a few months ago.” She didn’t add that she’d be moving out shortly.
The woman looked her up and down. “You want to talk to us crones?”
The harsh term took her by surprise. “I’d like to talk to you, if you have a moment.”
The woman shook her head. She had dyed red hair cut in a flattering pixie. “No, thank you. Read The Bell Jar, read her poems. I’ve got nothing to add.”
“I take it you’ve been approached by the media before?”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Please. Everyone wants to know about Sylvia Plath, the guest editors, the drama. I don’t know why. That was years ago, over and done with. But every few years, we get another gal like you, wanting to know the ‘real story’ of what happened to her here.”
No wonder the other women of the fourth floor weren’t willing to talk to her.
“I’m not interested in Sylvia Plath,” Rose said. “I want to know more about the place, from your perspective. What rules you had to abide by, what your life was like, that kind of thing.”
“Huh.” The redhead made a face. “I can’t tell you how often we get notes passed to us from the doorman—from journalists, from tourists, from lonely teenagers—asking if we knew Sylvia the Great and Greatly Wounded.”
“Even though she lived here only a month, I guess the tragedy outshines the facts.”
“Exactly. Who do you work for?”
“I work for a media company called WordMerge.”
The woman gave a throaty laugh. “That’s a terrible name for a business.”
“Trust me, I know.”
“I’ll talk with you, but I only have twenty minutes before I have to go see my doctor. You can come in and have some tea if you like. I just boiled the water.”
Rose followed her inside, surprised at the stark contrast to the renovated units. The apartment was small and dark and needed another coat of paint. Or rather, several layers of paint needed to be scraped off first. The moldings that ran along the ceiling and around the windows were shellacked with latex. Deep grooves marred the dark wood flooring. The kitchen featured a shiny avocado-green refrigerator and matching oven, left over from the seventies.
Rose tried not to stare at the outdated decor as the woman poured out two cups of tea. “My hope is to talk with each of the fourth-floor residents, compile an oral history. I think we take for granted so much that happened between then and now.”
“You mean ‘we’ as in women?”
“Exactly.”
“No one cares. Trust me. Everyone moves on, there’s nothing new to write about; it’s all been covered. Move on to something more interesting.”
“Like what?”
She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “How do I know? You’re the journalist, sweetheart.”
A wild yapping erupted from another room, and Bird tore down the hallway toward them.
“Damn dog. I thought I’d closed that door.”
“Is that Bird?”
The woman studied Rose closely. “You know Bird?”