There Was an Old Woman

Chapter Fifty-four


When Mina finally woke up, it was dark in her bedroom, but bright strips of sunlight bled from between the window shades and sills. Her clock ticked quietly, but she couldn’t see the time. She put her hand out, feeling for Ivory. But the spot where the cat liked to sleep was cool and empty.

She had no idea how long she’d been out. She struggled to turn over, but it was as if her muscles didn’t want to respond, and to make matters worse, the sheets were twisted around her legs. She reached down to free her legs and realized she wasn’t caught up in sheets but rather a long nightgown. Light cotton. She felt the neck. A lace collar. It had to be Annabelle’s. While she’d been asleep, Dora must have gotten her up and changed her clothes. Her face burned with shame at the very idea of it.

She had to get out of bed. Now. She couldn’t let herself fade the way Annabelle had, so rapidly once she was installed in that nursing home and no longer had to do for herself. All that lying in bed—meals being brought to her, a bedpan if she wanted and diapers if she didn’t—had quickly atrophied Annabelle’s muscles until her arms and legs were nothing more than twigs, and she couldn’t even stand on her own. Just a few weeks later, ghastly raw areas formed on her backside, bedsores that eventually oozed and wept infection. She’d been too weak to even cough, so when she’d gotten a cold, it had quickly turned into pneumonia, the illness that doctors called “the old person’s friend” because at least it pulled the plug. Now there was an expression Mina detested.

Even after all that, Mina hadn’t been ready for Annabelle to go. And she was tortured by the likelihood that Annabelle’s slide would have been more gradual had she been able to keep her at home. Kept her active. But there’d been no choice.

Mina pushed back the covers and sat up. She was stiff and achy, and her mouth tasted like old rubber tires. Her head felt like a big empty metal drum that was being hammered at from the inside. And she had to go to the bathroom.

She edged herself to the side of the bed, expecting the walker to be there waiting for her. But it wasn’t. She stretched out her toes and felt around for her slippers but she couldn’t find those, either. Never mind that. She pushed herself to her feet. Leaning against the wall, she felt her way to the door to the downstairs hall. The minute she opened it, Ivory slipped in, meowing and rubbing against her.

“Shoo,” Mina said. The last thing she needed was to trip over the cat.

She paused, listening. The house was quiet. No more construction going on upstairs. The hall was dark, and she shouldn’t have had any trouble navigating the few steps to the bathroom, but soon after she started inching her way along, she hit a roadblock. Stacks of bundled papers and bulging garbage bags lined the hallway.

What in heaven’s name was going on? “Brian!” she called. No answer. Was Brian even there? And what about Dora?

Mina squeezed past the debris. At least the bathroom door wasn’t blocked. It wasn’t until she was sitting that she noticed the smell. She gagged. Her bathroom had never smelled this bad before. Had Ivory’s litter box had been moved in here? Why hadn’t Dora taken care of it? Wasn’t that part of what Brian was paying her to do?

That’s when Mina heard scritch-scratch from behind the shower curtain. Sounded as if the litter box was not only there, but in use. How had Ivory managed to slip past her? She’d have to tell Dora that the bathtub was no place for the cat box. It didn’t take much cat litter to clog a drain. It solidified in there like cement.

She washed her hands, then pushed back the shower curtain. Sure enough, the litter box was a dark rectangle against the white of the tub. Ivory’s white fur looked like quicksilver as she did a figure eight and then settled. But—Mina squinted, not sure if she was imagining things without her glasses—was that another Ivory perched motionless in the corner? And could that quick movement be another alongside the litter box in the tub?

A knock on the bathroom door startled her. “Wilhelmina?” Mina actually felt relieved to hear Dora’s voice. “Are you in there? Are you all right? You were supposed to ring the bell I left for you.”

Bell? Mina opened the door. “Why are there so many cats?”

“Cats?”

“There are at least three of them in here.” Mina pointed to the tub.

“Of course there are.” Dora tugged the shower curtain closed before taking Mina’s arm and leading her from the bathroom. “And they’re all white just like Ivory, aren’t they?”

Mina knew all about that strategy—she’d seen it used plenty with Annabelle. Her caretakers called it entering into the delusion. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that I’m seeing double. And that all this junk stacked out here”—she jabbed a finger toward the piles as they sidled past—“is a figment of my imagination, too.”

“Certainly not. It’s just part of the construction work.” Mina was about to ask how stacks of newspapers constituted construction, but Dora was too quick for her. “They’ll have them out of there in a day or two, and you’ll be able to move upstairs to the new room. You’ll see. It’s so much nicer. And the new bathroom is lovely.”

Distraction, Mina recalled, was another strategy for dealing with a demented old woman.

“Upstairs,” Dora went on. “With plenty of space to move around in a wheelchair.”

“But I don’t have a—”

“You know, you slept right through lunch.” Lunch? How had it gotten to be lunchtime already? “I’m not surprised you’re feeling peckish. Come on. Back to bed and I’ll bring you a nice tray. There’s butterscotch pudding. You like butterscotch pudding, don’t you?”

Mina did like butterscotch pudding, but she’d be damned if she’d say so. “I want to go outside.”

“Come on now. Back to bed. I’ve made a lovely lunch for you.”

Mina was hungry. Very hungry, in fact. She let Dora shepherd her from the dark hall and back to the equally dark bedroom.

“Why are the shades drawn?”

“My, my. We do have a lot of issues today, don’t we?”

“And when will my glasses be here? I hate not being able to see.”

All she got for that were a few tut-tuts. Mina caught a whiff of ginger and tangerine as Dora bent over and tucked her firmly into bed and plumped pillows behind her. The familiar smell conjured an image of plastic forsythia. Now she remembered—the woman who’d showed her around Pelham Manor had been wearing that scent. But her name hadn’t been Dora, and she wasn’t a brunette, Mina thought when Dora returned with a bed tray. Tomato soup. Mina could tell by the smell.

“Mustn’t forget to take your pill,” Dora said. She handed Mina a pill and a glass. “Careful. The glass is full.”

Mina could feel the pill between her fingers. “What’s this?” she asked. Did Dora think she wouldn’t notice that the pill was twice the size of the ones she’d been taking for years?

“The doctor prescribed a new compound, Lipitor and Fosamax. To keep your bones strong.”

“Why didn’t he tell me about the change?”

“Don’t you remember? You saw him this morning.”

This morning? Mina thought it still was this morning.

“Poor dear. You don’t remember, do you? No wonder. You’re exhausted. You slept all day yesterday, too.”

Thoroughly rattled, Mina put the pill in her mouth and choked it down with a swallow of water. She was afraid to ask, but she did. “What day is it?”

“Why, it’s Friday, of course.”

But how could that be? Could she have lost two entire days?