The Night Sister

“Here’s the thing,” she said. “The thing I haven’t told anyone, not even Mark.” She sighed mightily, clearly steeling herself for what she was about to say. “I’m starting to think maybe my mother isn’t crazy. That maybe…maybe…she was right.”


Jason stubbed out his own cigarette. “Right about what, exactly?” He kept his voice low and level, the way he was trained to do when talking to the emotionally disturbed. But surely she couldn’t be serious? She wasn’t about to tell him that monsters were real?

She reached across the table and took his hand. “There’s no one else I can tell all this to, Jay Jay,” she said quietly. Her eyes were brimming with tears. “Maybe I’m crazy, too, but I really don’t think—”

“Mama?” a voice chirped from behind him.

Amy jerked her hand away, wiped at her eyes. “Lou? What are you doing home?”

Jason turned and saw a little girl in the doorway to the kitchen, shouldering a heavy-looking pink backpack. Jason guessed she was eight or nine. She was an exact replica of her mother in miniature, only brighter, more sparkling, dressed in pink and purple glittering clothes and sneakers.

“We got out early ’cause of a teachers’ meeting. I brought home a letter about it last week, remember?” She sounded vaguely irritated, like maybe Amy forgot such things all the time.

“I guess not,” Amy said, sighing. “Sorry, love.”

Lou regarded Jason. “Who’s this?”

Amy stood up. “This is my friend Jason. But you can call him Jay Jay. Jay Jay, this is my daughter, Lou.”

“I didn’t know you had a friend who was a policeman,” Lou said.

“And I didn’t know your mother had such a pretty little girl,” Jason said, smiling at Lou.

Lou looked at Jason. “I’m not little. I’m ten. That’s double digits.”

Jason nodded. “You’re right. Ten is big.”

“Are you a friend of my dad’s, too?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said. He looked at his watch. “I’ve gotta get back to the station. It was great to meet you, Lou. Thanks for the coffee, Amy. I can see myself out.”

“Thanks for stopping by,” Amy called. “We’ll talk again soon. Give my love to Margot.”

—

“I know who you are,” Rose said, peering at him with dark eyes. “And I know why you’ve come.”

Her silver hair was pulled back in a tight braid. Her skin was porcelain white and remarkably free of wrinkles—just the vaguest hint of crow’s-feet. She was sitting up in bed; across the room was a TV, tuned to a shopping channel. The room smelled like talcum powder and bleach, but underneath there was something else—musty and fetid.

Jason couldn’t wait to get the hell out of the Foxcroft Health and Rehabilitation Center. He was thinking it was a mistake to have come at all. The nurse at the desk had told him that Rose had her good days and bad days, that she’d been confused and agitated. They’d caught her wandering the halls at night, not knowing where she was, so they’d put an alarm on her bed for her own safety. They’d also upped all her medications, in an attempt to keep her calm and comfortable.

“Why have I come, then?” he asked, sounding too much like an annoyed little boy. He was wasting his time. The woman was demented—even the nurse said so. Years of hard-core drinking and whatever else she’d been into had pickled her brain, interrupted the firing of synapses.

But didn’t he owe it to Amy to check?

He kept replaying what Amy had said that afternoon: “I’m starting to think maybe my mother isn’t crazy. That maybe…maybe…she was right.”

Rose sat up in her metal hospital bed, drew in a breath, and let it out slowly. “You’re here because you want to know what I know.”

“Great,” Jason said, spreading his hands, palms upturned. “So enlighten me. What is it you know?” Jason asked.

She looked him up and down. “I’d like to tell you, Jason. Really, I would. But I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it.”