In Polite Company by Gervais Hagerty

Author:Gervais Hagerty [Hagerty, Gervais]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2021-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

25.

Prescriptions

The kitchen is as cool as a vault. The wall clock ticks. The dishwasher hums. The second-floor hallway is warmer, quieter. Normally, sunlight pools onto an ivory hall rug speckled with pastel roses. As children, we would jump from flower to flower, pretending we were fairies while Laudie practiced her arabesques a few feet away at the barre. Now, there are scars on the wall where the barre was attached. With the curtains drawn and the wall sconces dimmed, the playful atmosphere has vanished.

“Hello?” I knock tentatively on the bedroom door. No answer. I gingerly open the wide door and enter the tomblike stillness of Laudie’s room. Dust particles hover, unmoving, in the weak light that escapes the heavy draperies. The room smells of rubbing alcohol and ammonia.

A bouquet of zinnias sits on her vanity; the blooms are doubled by the mirror—a trick my mother taught me, one that I’m sure Laudie taught her. A few flowers—those with cherry-red and marigold centers—are still perky. Most are dead.

Laudie sleeps. Her body looks as though she’s fallen from the sky and landed in the mechanized hospital bed. She arrived home by ambulance this morning. Three days after the second stroke, the doctors agreed it’s best now to keep her home. Keep her comfortable. It’s time for hospice.

Laudie’s hairline has retreated to the very crown of her head. Her temples sink into her skull, craters as big and round as eggs. Her skin is nearly translucent, like a jellyfish’s. Her movie-star lips have twisted into an involuntary snarl. My dear, sweet, beautiful grandmother. I’m so sorry.

The antique wingback chair, the one she draped her evening dresses over while she did her her makeup for a night out, is next to her bed, ready to receive visitors. I take a seat; my foot knocks an empty bedpan. Seven prescription pill bottles and several tubes of ointment clutter the bedside table.

“I’ll give you some time.”

I jump at the sound of a woman’s voice. She emerges from a dim corner of the giant bedroom. She wears pink scrubs and white sneakers.

“What’s your name?”

“Shaniece.”

“I’m Simons. I’m the granddaughter.”

“Simons?” Laudie turns her head in my direction. After a moment her milky eyes, which had seemed drifty and unfocused, alight on me. “They wanted me,” she says, or at least I think that’s what she says.

“Who? Who wanted you?” I lean close, turn my ear to her mouth.

She emits a high wheezing noise and struggles to sit up. “The letter.”

“The letter, Laudie? What letter?” I try to spin the Rubik’s Cube of clues my grandmother left for me. Who wanted her? What letter? A love letter . . . from John?

Laudie tries to speak, her mouth opening and closing like that of a fish out of water. She kicks at her coverlet and arches her back. It just might kill her to say another word. If she dies now—because I’m pressing her to tell me something—how could my family ever forgive me?

Shaniece comes to my side. “It’s okay, Mrs. Middleton.

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