Blackout (13 page)

What did I do wrong?
Alice wondered.
I must have done something if Betty doesn’t want me working as an aide any more. Is it because I told her about Nancy? Or because I got so upset when Mrs. Lacy died? Maybe she doesn’t trust me anymore since she knows I can’t remember things.

“Betty hasn’t talked to me about it,” Alice managed to say. She looked around the room, noticing the tall shelves with their hodgepodge of games, crafts, and boxes. Two more residents entered the room and stood watching Yolanda and Alice.

Alice felt everyone’s eyes on her. A need to escape overcame her. She told Yolanda, “I should get back to my hall. I’ll see you later.”

“All right, dear,” Yolanda said, a worried expression on her face.

Alice tried to smile as she left the room. There didn’t seem to be any place in the building where she could be alone for a minute to collect her thoughts. Employees and residents greeted her as she went down the hall.

When she saw the ladies’ room, she ducked inside and entered a stall. After locking the door, she stood with her head resting against the gray metal and closed her eyes. She had thought she was doing well with the residents and getting used to the routine and the work. Apparently Betty thought otherwise. Why else would she get rid of her? It might be more fun to do activities with the residents, but still…

Alice felt like weeping.
I have got to teach myself to stop crying so much,
she chided herself. Taking deep breaths until she felt calmer, she repeated over and over,
You will not cry. You will not cry
.

Feeling stronger, she opened the stall door as Nancy entered the room. Before the other aide could react, Alice dashed around her and out the door. On the other side, she reminded herself to take deep breaths as she hurried back to the 300 hall.

Joyce wheeled a resident toward Activities. When she saw Alice, she said, “There you are! Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you. Oh, there goes Mrs. Cranston. Better see what she needs.”

“Nurse, Nurse,” Betty Senior called insistently.

Alice hurried to her bedside. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Cranston?”

“Alice, hello. Could you get me some water, please? I’m absolutely parched.”

“Of course,” Alice replied, pouring water from the pitcher into the glass, adjusting the straw and holding it to Betty Senior’s mouth. The old woman drank eagerly and asked for more when she finished.

Finally, she asked, “What’s wrong with you? You look frazzled.”

“Nothing. Really.”

“Don’t give me that. Sit down.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Alice protested.

“Yes, you can. You have to or I’ll report you to the director of nurses.” A smile lit up Betty Senior’s face.

Alice saw the kindness and sympathy there.

Surprised, she sat in the visitor’s chair and stared at Betty Senior.

“Now tell me what’s going on. I heard a commotion in the hall, and you look as careworn as some of the residents here. So, talk to me. I won’t bite—I can’t reach you. Ha!”

Alice smiled, sinking farther into the chair. She hesitated, then blurted out, “I saw them taking someone out with a sheet over her. It was the third time I knew of someone dying here, and I haven’t been here that long.”

“That bothered you,” Betty Senior said.

Alice stared sightlessly out the window. “I remember…other deaths,” she whispered. “Other old people lying dead in a kitchen. With the smell of gunpowder…” She stopped talking, wondering why she had told first Betty and now Betty Senior about her past. What little past she could remember.

The need to talk welled up inside her like an actual physical force, pushing the words out of her mouth, the sounds gushing and tumbling over themselves. “I remember so little, but almost everything I do remember is frightening, scary. I see a truck hitting a tree, two old people dead. I’m sure one was my grandmother, my nana. Someone shot her. Why? I want to remember, but I’m scared. Something way back in my mind is trying to warn me. If I remember, it’ll hurt. But if I don’t let the memories come back, something else awful might happen. To me, or to someone I love. I don’t know what to do.”

“You are carrying a heavy load,” Betty Senior told her. “I think if you talk about it, you’ll recall events better. And it’s probably hurting you more not to remember than remembering actually would, however painful. You don’t mention a mother or father.”

“Father,” Alice murmured. Drawing the word out on her tongue, she said, “Innocent.”

At that moment, Alice saw Brenda enter the room, notepad in hand, her high heels soundless on the carpeted floor.

“Innocent of what?” the old woman asked. Then she saw Brenda.

Alice noticed Brenda’s inquisitive stare. Catching her bottom lip between her teeth, Alice stood up, embarrassed the social services director had found her sitting down in a resident’s room. Noticing Brenda’s erect posture, Alice stood a little straighter herself.

“Hello, Brenda,” Betty Senior said.

“Mrs. Cranston,” Brenda replied, still looking at Alice. “I came by to let you know your optometrist appointment will be tomorrow at three o’clock. I checked your records, and it’s been a little over a year since your last checkup, so I’ll bring Dr. Allen by tomorrow.”

“Good,” Betty Senior said. “It’s damned annoying when things are fuzzy. Thank you, Brenda.”

It sounded like a dismissal. Brenda nodded and turned to leave, saying, “Alice, I need to see you a moment.”

“All right.” She glanced at Betty Senior, but the woman appeared to have dozed off. Alice followed Brenda out of the room.

In the tiny social services office, they sat down. Alice’s knees bumped up against the desk, forcing her to move them sideways. Brenda made a note in her notebook, then looked up at Alice and smiled.

“I spoke to Betty about Nancy, and she told me what happened when you fell down. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Really.”
Brenda seemed so nice
.

“I want you to feel free to come to me with any problems you’re having. I’ve been trained to help people, you know.”

“Thank you,” Alice said. For some reason Brenda made her curious. They were both of similar height and build, and Alice admired the way Brenda dressed and did her makeup. If she could be like Brenda, so self-assured… “What type of training do you have to have to do your job?” Alice asked. “It sounds interesting.”

Brenda smiled. “I have a bachelor’s degree in social work, then I went for my master’s in the same major.”

“Oh,” Alice said. “How long did all that take?”

Brenda seemed surprised by the question, but she answered, “Four years for the bachelor’s, two for the master’s.”

“Oh,” Alice said again, defeated. She’d never be able to do that.

Brenda seemed to pick up on her disappointment. “If you’re really interested, there are all kinds of scholarships and you can always go to school part time and work. Lots of people do that. Let me give you the name of the head of the Department of Social Work at Sacramento State. She’d be able to tell you about scholarships and loans and get you going.”

Alice shook her head. She didn’t even know if she’d graduated from high school. “I really couldn’t right now. I just started here, and I don’t have a car yet.”

Impatiently, Brenda said, “Things like that can be worked out. If you want something, you have to go after it.”

Alice stood up, banging a knee on the desk. “You don’t understand.” Panic made breathing suddenly difficult.
If I don’t start remembering more soon, I’ll never get anywhere. Can’t go around without papers, without knowing who my folks were. How old am I? Who am I?

Brenda stood up, too. In a soft voice, she said, “I didn’t mean to upset you. Really, if I can help you with anything, anything at all, please come see me.”

Alice managed to smile weakly. “Thank you.” She hoped she didn’t appear to rush as she left Brenda’s cramped office.

In the hall ahead of her, she saw Lettie. Mr. Black wasn’t with her. As usual, Lettie did not walk near the wall with the railing. Instead, she made her way down the center. Alice realized the elderly woman was not walking as straight as she usually did. Every third step or so, she weaved, off-balance. Alice rushed to catch up.

Suddenly, Lettie stumbled to the floor, a sprawl of two slippers, printed housedress and white hair tumbling out of its bun.

Alice gasped, “Oh, no.” The scene in front of her dissolved into a kitchen with two bodies on the floor. Wildly, Alice looked around. As she turned to her right, a gaunt man appeared, a shotgun in his hand. Alice clamped her hand over her mouth to prevent a scream. The gun wasn’t pointed at her, though. The man held it loosely at his side. His face slack, his eyes stared at Alice, but didn’t see her. The sharp odor of gunpowder and lye teased her nose. She almost sneezed, but moved her hand to cover her nose and prevent it.

Voices faintly called to her, and the scene dissolved slowly until only the man’s gray, shocked eyes remained in her field of vision. Then they, too, disappeared.

Lettie still lay on the floor, surrounded by several people, and Betty had Alice’s arm, trying to lead her away.

“Are you all right?” Betty asked. “Come with me. The others will help Lettie. You’re pale as a ghost. You don’t feel faint, do you?”

Alice couldn’t speak. She tried to say something, anything, but no words would come out of her mouth. Her tongue felt like a piece of wood.

They were in Betty Senior’s room. The old lady lay peacefully stretched out on her bed, her eyes staring straight ahead.

“Ma,” Betty said.

Betty Senior turned her eyes and silently watched her daughter and Alice approach. When they got closer, she said, “What’s wrong? What happened? Alice?”

Betty gently helped Alice sit in the wing-back chair. “Tell us,” she said softly in Alice’s ear.

In a monotone, Alice recounted the vision she’d had. Finished, she blinked and finally focused on where she was. The two women stared at her, concern wrinkling their brows in identical frowns. She’d done the right thing by confiding in them. She knew she had. They cared. She could see it in their eyes. Betty would do something. Alice knew she would.

She heard a roaring in her ears. She smiled at them right before she fainted.

“Do something,” Betty Senior said, her tone impatient.

Betty went to the bathroom and came back with a wet washcloth to apply to Alice’s forehead. “She fainted, that’s all,” she told her mother. “She should come around in a minute.”

As if Alice heard her, she stirred, moving her head from side to side and sighing.

Betty said her name softly, and the girl opened her eyes.

“What happened?”

“It’s all right,” Betty reassured her. “You fainted. Nothing to worry about. I want you to stay here with Ma. I’m going to find Donald so he can take you home. You need a break.”

And I need to find out what happened to Lettie
, Betty thought.
I feel like a mother hen with too many chicks
.

“Are you sure she’s all right?” Betty Senior said. “Not much I can do except holler if she passes out again.”

Betty gave her mother a warning look while taking the girl’s pulse. A little slower than normal, but not bad.

“She’ll be fine,” Betty said to reassure both Alice and Betty Senior. “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

In the hall, two male aides lifted Lettie onto a stretcher under Rita’s watchful eye. “How is she?” Betty asked. When one aide folded Lettie’s arms across her chest, Betty gasped. Maybe what had happened to Lettie wasn’t an accident. Alice had been nearby, and that aide has so casually positioned her arms… As he strapped Lettie in, Betty told herself not to be ridiculous. They always crossed the arms that way when a resident was on a stretcher.

“She appears to be all right,” Rita said. “Just weak. Nothing broken. We’ll get her to bed and check every fifteen minutes for a while.”

Betty nodded and patted Rita on the shoulder.

“Hold for a minute, guys,” she said to the aides. Quickly, she checked Lettie herself, raising her eyelids, feeling for broken bones, inspecting her head for bumps.

“Be sure to call Dr. Henderson, too, Rita. He needs to be informed, and I want him out here to see her and reevaluate the dosage of the tranquilizer.”

“Will do,” Rita said.

A faint voice came from the stretcher. “Do you know me?”

Everyone smiled with relief. The aides murmured reassurance as they rolled Lettie away.

Betty headed toward the maintenance office, stopping people along the way to ask them if they’d seen Donald. No one had.

Donald’s office was tucked away near one of the back exits, right next to the heating-and-air-conditioning unit. On the other side was a door to the kitchen, and across the hall a small employee break room for the smokers.

This section of the building stayed quiet most of the time. Occasionally a wanderer would come down this far, but usually it felt like a different building entirely.

The door to Donald’s office stood open partway, so Betty peeked in. Donald sat at the metal desk, head bent over an open Bible, his finger tracing words across the page.

Betty hesitated, but he looked up with a smile, his finger holding his place. Betty felt as if she’d intruded on a private act. She smiled uncertainly back at him but did not venture into the office.

“Hi.” Donald closed the book and stood up, all in one smooth motion. He moved the Bible to the side of the desk. “Come in. What’s going on?”

Betty entered, glancing around. She hardly ever came down here. The office was small and neat with a pegboard hung with tools along one wall. Bookshelves behind the desk held the company maintenance manual and other instruction books for machinery in the nursing home. A battered black file cabinet graced a third wall, a large cabinet next to it, also of banged-up metal. Beside the door hung another narrow pegboard filled with keys, all neatly labeled.

“Could you take Alice home? Lettie fell down.” She saw the worried expression on his face and said hastily, “She’s all right, but Alice saw it happen, and she…” She realized she didn’t know how to describe what had happened to Alice. “Alice is a bit upset,” she equivocated. “I’d like you to take her home.”