“Right this way,” the older woman says. She’s wearing a white nurse’s uniform. Sorta old-fashioned, since most doctors and nurses wear those colorful scrubs these days. It adds to the horror vibe this gloomy institution already has going for it. “Right this way. She’s waiting for you in the common room. But I have to warn you, Miss Masters, she hasn’t been communicative for years. I’m not sure if you know that, since you never come to visit.”
Geez. Way to lay on the guilt trip, lady. I ignore her dig and just follow silently behind her as we make our way through the dingy hallway until I find myself in a large open room filled with psychiatric inmates. Everyone is wearing a bathrobe and most of them are parked in wheelchairs in front of the small television screen mounted high up in one corner of a room. They look drugged out of their minds.
“Here she is,” the nurse says brightly as she pats my mother on the shoulder. “Martha? Your daughter’s come to see you. Can you turn to say hi?”
My mother is… no one I recognize. Her hair is so gray, it’s almost white. Her body is thin and frail, and her bathrobe is a dirty light blue.
I lean down to see her face. “Mom?”
“She doesn’t talk, Miss Masters. She won’t recognize you, either. I’m not sure why you came today, but it’s too late.”
My face crumples into sadness. “Thank you,” I force myself to say back. “But I’d like some time alone with her.”
The nurse lifts her chin up and walks off, peeved at me for being a bad daughter. I can see her point, but she has no idea why I’ve stayed away.
I take a seat next to my mother and let out a deep sigh. I’m glad she’s not communicative. Because this will be a lot easier if she doesn’t talk back.
“I’m sorry,” I say first. “I’m truly sorry this is how it ended up. But you killed my father and I will never forgive you for that. I will never forgive you for going crazy and ruining our family. Will got into racing, did you know that? Do you even know he’s dead?”
She does not even blink. I lean over to look into her gray eyes and wonder just what is going on in that mind. Anything?
“You told Dad to do that trick. You said we needed the money to pay a debt. You told him he was the invincible Crazy Bill who could do anything. You said he could pull it off and he believed you. But you were wrong.”
Laughter from the TV show bursts through the room, and I look up at it briefly, all the years of anger and sadness washing over me.
“It’s not her fault,” a voice says from behind me.
I whirl around to find Atticus, dressed in the same light blue robe, albeit a much cleaner version.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Why were you coming to see her?”
“It wasn’t her fault, Molly. My father made her do those things. And I come to see her because she’s my mother.”
“Mr. Montgomery?” a nurse calls from the desk. “Mr. Montgomery! You’re not supposed—”
“The Old Man is the one responsible, Molly,” Atticus whispers. His eyes are blazing with fear. “But I won’t let him get her again. I’m here now, and I won’t let him. So go. Get out before he comes to get you too and you never leave here again. I’ll take care of this.”
“Wait, you’re saying—”
“He’s your father too, Molly.”
A burly security guard grabs Atticus by the shoulder and twirls him around. “You have a talent for escape, friend.” He laughs. “Well, that won’t get you far here, Blue Boy. We like our inmates to play by the rules.”
“Inmates?” I ask, flashing my badge. “Is that what you call your patients? I want my mother released immediately. I’m taking her home.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Miss Masters,” the nurse who walked me in says as she walks up to us. “I just got off the phone with Mr. Montgomery and he’s asked for you to be escorted off the premises.”
“I don’t give a shit what that creep says. I’m her daughter and I say she’s leaving here with me.”
“Mr. Montgomery is her husband, Miss Masters. They’ve been married for thirty-one years. He’s her next of kin and legal guardian.”
“Thirty…” But my words drop off. What the fuck…
“Get out of here, Molly. Now,” Atticus yells as another security guard grabs him. They drag him way, but he screams it over and over. “Get out of here!”
Chapter Forty-Two - Lincoln
“Yes,” I say, answering Sheila’s call through my phone. Case is still playing his game in the corner. The sound effects are about to drive me insane and if I have to listen to one more Social Distortion song on the fucking jukebox, I might kill someone.
“We have a problem.”
“Hold on. Case!” I yell. And then I turn to Mac who is washing dishes nearby. “Turn that shit off. Case! Come here and listen, Sheila’s on the phone.”
Normally I’d just have her tell me, but I need to snap Case out of this shit. He can’t dwell. It’s not good. The past can’t be undone. All we can do is move forward.
Case pounds his fist on the arcade game glass as a sound announces the death of a pixelated life, then turns towards me. “What?”
I put the phone on the bar and press speaker. “Go ahead, Sheila.”
“Molly went to the asylum.”
“What?” Case and I both say together.