The Curious Case of Emily Lickenson by CeeCee James

Author:CeeCee James [James, CeeCee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

We headed back to Aunt Mattie's room. She wanted to get into bed, which meant I had to fold all the clothing I’d tossed on there earlier. It baffled me how quickly my aunt had made the place her own. Then I helped her make the transfer into her bed.

“Scoot up,” I said, patting her knee.

She sat forward, and I fluffed a few pillows to make her comfy. After that I tidied up the rest of the room, stacked papers, moved the books to the window sill, and found the pieces of a scattered puzzle that had somehow been knocked to the floor.

It was just as I was finishing that I realized my aunt had fallen silent. I glanced over. Aunt Mattie was snoring softly. Smiling, I tucked the blankets around the older woman. As tough as she was, she was still injured. I had wondered how long that stubborn streak could prevail when the woman needed her rest, and now I had my answer. I placed a quick kiss on top of her head and then grabbed the leftover pizza to take to the refrigerator in the kitchen.

I remembered how awful the kitchen had looked earlier, before the cook's demise, and I wasn't surprised to see that new staff had been tackling it with a vengeance. No more rotten food, busted packages, loose noodles, or any other mess.

One of the orderlies was filling small paper cups with water in preparation for the afternoon medications. Only a few residents seemed to need meds at this time, because there were a lot less on the trays than I had seen going around in the mornings and at night.

"This is for Mattie Lickenson." I pointed to the pizza box.

The orderly, whose name tag read “John," handed over a marker sitting next to the empty cups. “No problem. Just write her name on it and I’ll put it in the fridge.” He gestured to the middle steel box against the back wall. “That one there is for resident’s personal food items."

"Wow, you guys are whipping this place into shape. I was pretty worried a few days ago when I saw how bad it was." I wrote my aunt's name on the top and then placed it on an empty shelf before giving the orderly his marker back.

"Yeah, I don’t know what happened with Hilda. She used to be obsessed over keeping this place clean. Kind of stressed all of us out not to make her mad.” He shook his head. "She had everything precisely in its place and was always on top of ordering food in and keeping things beyond what code even expected of us."

"What do you think happened?" I kept my smile locked inside. It wasn’t a good time for that expression, but I knew Aunt Mattie would be proud of me for following a lead.

"I don't know really. For some reason, she started acting weird, kind of erratic. We had supper one evening that was just bowls of noodles, no veggies or even broth or sauce or anything.

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