Page 82 of Gone Tonight
But it isn’t from her. The message comes from Tin:Please let me know ASAP.
I scroll up and see she texted me a little earlier this morning, writing that another aide called in sick today and the shift is mine if I want it.
I consider it for a moment, weighing the pros and cons. My motherdoesn’t expect me to be at work right now. No one does. There’s a decent chance she might show up looking for me, but there’s no way she’d be able to get into the Memory Wing. It’s one of the most secure places I know.
On my way,I text Tin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTRUTH
Five minutes.
That’s how long I allot myself to collect whatever I can carry. I need to be prepared to never see this apartment again.
I’ve planned for this moment for so long. I’ve even conducted drills through the years, tearing through our small rooms, rapidly considering and discarding different items, whittling down the seconds to lower my time.
I wish Catherine hadn’t taken the car, but at least some of our supplies are already in it.
I reach up and grab my gray duffle bag from my closet shelf, leaving it splayed open on my bed. Moving fast, I pull two hats off the hook in my closet, then collect a few sets of clean clothes. I toss everything into the duffle and hurry to Catherine’s dresser. I scoop up two changes of clothes and a sweatshirt for her. I take the photo from her nightstand, both for sentimental value and to keep us from being identified, and then grab our toothbrushes from the bathroom.
In the kitchen I take a flashlight, an extra pack of batteries, and a pair of scissors to cut Catherine’s hair. All of these items are lined up, side by side, in one of the drawers I reorganized last night.
I drag a chair over the floor and climb on it to reach the top shelf of our food cabinet. I take down the box of stale Rice Krispies.
Catherine’s laptop and the legal pad I’d put on top of it are gone from our dining table, and Catherine also has her phone and purse, so I don’t need to bring those items. My topaz ring is on my finger, and my sunglasses are in my purse, along with my journal. I grab the folder of our important documents, including our birth certificates and Social Security cards, and remove the two framed pictures of her from the bookshelf in our living room. There’s no photographic evidence of either of us left in the apartment now.
The last thing I take is a large knife in a protective sheath, one I’ve owned for many years.
By the time I step outside onto the sidewalk, I’ve got thirty seconds to spare and I’ve already called for an Uber.
I know exactly where I’m going.
Catherine may have turned off her location sharing, but for as long as she’s carried a cell phone, I’ve always had a backup app tracking my daughter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINECATHERINE
By the time I reach Sunrise, I’ve arrived at a hard-fought decision. I’m going to confide in Tin. There’s almost nothing she hasn’t seen when it comes to a family crisis, and although we don’t have a close relationship, I trust her.
I’ve got an ulterior motive, too. Tin lives alone in a small house she bought last year, and I hope that once she hears my story, she’ll let me stay in her guest room for a few nights. I plan to pull her aside this afternoon when the residents are doing arts and crafts in the community room since we usually have a lull then. There’s a fringe benefit in confiding in Tin. She won’t think I’m completely nuts when I tell her I’ve decided to take the job in Baltimore, after all.
Coming to this decision lifts a weight off me. My mother’s apparent deep mental illness, combined with all the disturbing questions I’m unearthing about her, is too much for me to carry alone. Tin is a helper. She’ll do what she can.
I back the Bonneville into a parking spot at the far edge of the lot, where a row of trees will shield it from the main road. I lock up and hurry inside the building, going directly to the employees’ locker room. I change into my salmon-colored scrubs and begin rounds on the Memory Wing, making sure everyone has taken their morningmeds. I help Mrs. Abraham get dressed because she had a rough night and slept late. Then I reheat her breakfast and sit with her while she eats a little oatmeal. Mrs. Abraham rarely talks anymore, but just as I start to remove her bowl, she blinks and asks in a voice that is hoarse from disuse, “Are you one of my students?”
It’s a glimmer of lucidity. Mrs. Abraham used to be a high school math teacher. When I ask what class she’s teaching, clouds roll back across her eyes. Her fleeting reversion to her past self is already gone.
As the morning hours pass, the familiar, contained setting of my workplace and the interactions I have with my coworkers and our residents almost lull me into feeling as if part of the world makes sense again. Which is peculiar because on the Memory Wing people are locked in battles with their own minds, and the lines between past and present oscillate and blur.
The surreal has become the grounding force in my life.
At lunchtime, Tin lets us know that Mrs. Jacobson’s family has sent a delivery of pizzas for the Memory Wing staff to thank us for the extra care we provided when Mrs. Jacobson came down with pneumonia last month.
I’m suddenly ravenous. It’s been more than twenty-four hours since I’ve eaten.
I have to help one of our residents use the restroom and then wash her hands and mine afterward, so it takes me a few minutes to get to the little staff kitchenette on our floor.
Several of my coworkers are already there, standing around and gobbling down the warm, delicious-smelling pies. I walk into the middle of a friendly debate about pizza-eating styles. Tin is using a fork and knife to cut bites. Reggie, who was raised in the Bronx, has the edges of his piece bent up like a taco, New York style. Another of my colleagues is holding hers flat and biting off the tip of the triangle.
“C’mon, Catherine, tell us who’s doing it right,” Reggie jokes.
