When the water has cooled down enough, he splashes some on his cheeks, rubs the tender spots under his eyes, then presses his face into the hand towel hanging from the rod, breathes in the smell of mildew. He’s been too busy with work the last few days for anything else, and the house is going to hell. He needs to do laundry, load the dishwasher. He pays the woman who comes to keep an eye on Joe enough, you’d think she might lift a finger to help out, but of course she doesn’t. But it’s not part of her job description, people don’t like doing more than the least of what’s expected, he gets it. Doesn’t mean he likes it.
He heads back into the bedroom and picks his cell phone up off the nightstand. It’s flashing silently, letting him know that at some point while he was asleep he got new messages. Two texts. The first is from Ted. It’s short, to the point, about the cases he was searching through.
NO VICS MISSING FGRS IN LAST 5 YRS, it says. SRY. ?
“Shit,” Hoskins says, deleting the message. He’d hoped he was on to something, that there’d be some missing link between old cases and this new one, but it was nothing but another dead end.
The second text is more interesting. It’s from Sammie; it could mean anything, or nothing at all. She’s called him a few times over the last few days, left messages, and he’s deleted them all. He isn’t going to help her with another story like he did the last time.
I NEED TO TALK TO YOU. IT’S IMPORTANT.
He sits on the edge of the bed, his phone in one hand, still running the towel over his face and breathing in that musky smell that’s both bitter and homey, considering Sammie’s text, and then he hears the scream; at first it sounds like a woman but then he realizes that it’s his father, something is wrong with Joe.
He grabs his gun from its spot in his nightstand and runs down the hall, a big man in pajama bottoms and a plain white undershirt, sprinting toward the sound of his father’s screams. I need to start exercising more, he thinks in the moment before he bursts into his father’s bedroom, or I’m going to have a heart attack.
Hoskins is sure that Joe is being hurt, that someone broke in, wanting to steal a TV or money and instead found the old man sleeping in his bed. He’s so convinced of this that it takes him a moment to understand Joe is alone in the room, he’s curled up in a corner and he’s terrified, he’s pointing at nothing, shrieking like an old woman.
“He’s here,” Joe was screaming, those were the only words Hoskins could make out through all the gibberish, and even when he took Joe by the shoulders and gave him a good hard shake it didn’t seem to matter, the old man kept on screaming, the whites of his eyes showing all the way around and the spittle gathering in the corners of his mouth in white chunks.
Hoskins doesn’t know what to do, the doctor had mentioned something about hallucinations but he hadn’t said anything about this, the screaming that won’t stop and the old man doesn’t seem to recognize him, only keeps his hands hooked into claws and won’t stop shrieking, pointing at things no one else can see, so he hits his father. Hard, across the face, thinking that it might snap him out of it, and there’s a satisfying crack when his fist connects, and then the screaming stops, as suddenly as if it’d been severed with a knife.
“That shut you up, didn’t it?” he mutters, and he immediately thinks that those words aren’t his, they’re Seever’s, and Joe is slumped back on his pillows, there’s blood coming from his mouth, some from his ear, and Hoskins realizes he did the wrong thing, he made the wrong choice but it’s too damn late now. He’s had moments like this before, those times he’d rewind his life ten seconds if he could, he’d make it right, he’d do something different.
His father is slumped back on the pillows, maybe he’s dead, but then the old man opens his eyes, suddenly, as if nothing had happened at all, and looks right at Hoskins.
“Who are you?” Joe says, and then starts screaming again, but this time Hoskins doesn’t hit him, he backs out of the room and stands outside the door and tries to slow the frightened thump of his heart in his chest.
*
Later, at the hospital, the doctor will tell him that this is common in people with his father’s diagnosis, that it may only get worse.
“Dementia is very serious,” the doctor said. “He could hurt himself the next time he has an episode. Or someone else.”
“I see.”
“Mr. Hoskins, I don’t think you can continue caring for your father on your own. An assisted-living facility would be best for him. I have some information you should take home and look over. I can answer any questions you might have.”
The doctor shoved a few brochures into his hand, shiny booklets with happy, smiling white-haired folks on their pages. You can’t take care of one old man, is what Hoskins hears. You’ve royally fucked it up this time.
“Thank you.”
“He’ll need to stay the rest of tonight, and possibly tomorrow night for observation. Do you happen to know how he hurt his head?”
Hoskins pauses. Slips his hand into his coat pocket so the doctor can’t see the bruises on his knuckles.
“I don’t.”
“Okay,” the doctor gives him a half-smile, and shrugs. He knows, Hoskins thinks. He knows exactly what happened. “It’s not a big deal, just thought I’d ask.”
“Okay.”