Now & Again (12 page)

Kendall moved quickly down the stairs. “Josh? Let’s go.”

The McCaslin front doorbell rang twice. Kendall walked in from the kitchen and passed the staircase on his way to the front door. “Josh,” he called upstairs, “we need to leave right away, okay? I’ll get the door.”

Behind him, Leah stopped in the kitchen doorway to watch. She was finishing a last cup of coffee and already wore a denim jacket with her purse over her shoulder. She was all set to ride along with Josh to the airport; ready to be sad again when she waved him goodbye. She used to think that mothering ended somewhere after high school or college, but that was before she became a mother. Now she knew that moms didn’t have expiration dates.

Kendall opened the door to a trio of large men on his porch. Taylor Nsamba stood nearest to the door and smiled warmly at him. “Good day. How are you, Mr. McCaslin?”

The imposing African was impeccably dressed. He had his hands clasped loosely in front of him. A half step back on either side, Aaron Benton and another thick-shouldered security agent nonchalantly looked on.

Kendall was puzzled as he studied the men. “Fine. I’m fine. Have we met?”

Nsamba tried to put him at ease. “No, no, not at all. I’m sorry if I confused you. I’ll be brief, I promise. I just need to ask you and your son, Josh, a few questions. Would that be possible?”

Leah drifted in from the kitchen doorway to the foyer to get a better look. “Kendall, who’s at the door?”

Kendall sensed something wasn’t right. “Sorry, but we’re just heading for the airport. My son’s been home on leave from the army and…we’re kind of in a hurry.” He put on a pleasant expression as he reached to shut the door. “Maybe some other time?”

Josh, in military fatigues, appeared at the head of the stairs with a huge duffel bag and started down.

Nsamba briefly noticed Josh in the background and nodded at Kendall, “I understand, but it’s important. And it will take but a moment, I assure you. If we could just step inside.”

“Not now,” Kendall replied firmly. “We really need to leave. Sorry.” He started to close the door. Nsamba put a firm hand against it.

“Please?”

Kendall pondered the hand and the two silent men watching him. He thought he saw their bodies tense, and he noticed something metallic glisten in their hands. “Get the hell off my porch! All of you!”

Nsamba stepped back. The two agents promptly closed ranks, and aimed pistol-shaped electroshock stunners.

Benton spoke in a peaceful, everyday voice. “Let’s do this the easy way, shall we?”

Kendall tried to slam the door but the men were already moving through it. There was a sudden blue spark accompanied by an electronic snarl. Kendall dropped like a stone and had a massive seizure on the welcome mat. Leah screamed. Her coffee cup shattered on the tile. She reached out to help her husband but was violently shoved aside as the men invaded the front hall.

Benton spotted Josh. “There’s the other one, on the stairs!”

Josh saw his father convulsing on the floor and his mother crawling to reach him.
What the hell!
Two men charged up the stairs brandishing weapons and shouting. His eyes narrowed.
Oh no you don’t! I’m not that easy!
For Josh, everything suddenly slowed down as he flashed into a serene, adrenaline powered zone, and his combat training took over.

He effortlessly hurled his heavy bag onto the startled men and nimbly vaulted the banister. The agents fell in a painful tangle. Benton tumbled backwards down the stairs, striking his head on a riser, and dropped his stunner.

Josh sprinted for the front door but saw more agents rushing in. Two of them already restrained his mom. He changed directions and raced for the kitchen, hoping the back door was still clear. Benton, at the bottom of the stairs, grabbed at his legs to slow him. Josh viciously kicked his face and swept up the fallen stunner in two smooth movements as he dashed by.

He bolted through the kitchen. Two more agents burst in the back door. He stabbed at the first one with the stolen gun and pulled the trigger. The stunner snarled and flashed; the agent shuddered in full body spasms, scattering kitchen chairs as he fell. The other lunged at Josh, but he was off balance and narrowly missed. Josh used the man’s forward motion to yank him down into his up thrust knee. The man collapsed with a grunt. Josh danced out the open door and rushed headlong into the backyard.

Pausing to pick a direction, Josh darted left across the stone patio. He intended to leap the neighbor’s fence. Always a fast runner, his long strides quickly ate up the distance to the barrier. His mind raced with plans to get a phone, steal a car, call out to a neighbor, find some way to get help. Suddenly, a white hot jolt of pain erased it all. He fought the thrashing convulsions with every fiber of his adrenaline saturated body but he finally collapsed face down in the dirt, twitching. A dart with a tiny antenna protruded from a muscle near his shoulder.

Nsamba and a couple of security agents crossed the patio. They looked down at him. Other agents, some limping, joined them. Aaron Benton walked up to the group with a bloody handkerchief pressed tightly against one side of his face.

Nsamba shook his head as he looked around. “That was messy. Okay, clean it up before the neighbors get curious. Pull the van in the garage and load everybody there.”

The agents worked smoothly together. One knelt on Josh’s spine and zip-tied his hands behind his back. Another jerked a black cloth bag over his head. The agent who was limping zip-tied his ankles and gave Josh a parting kick in the kidneys before he was dragged off.

Benton ran his tongue around the inside of his bleeding mouth, exploring the damage that Josh’s foot had made. “We’re gonna hafta take the wife too, right?”

Nsamba shrugged irritably. “We are now, yes. We have no choice.”

Benton nodded as the two of them headed back into the house. They waited at the outside kitchen door while agents exited with an injured partner slung between them. “Kid put up quite a fight, didn’t he? Still, when I was younger and smarter, he would never have had a chance.”

Nsamba raised his eyebrows and glanced Benton’s way. “Too bad we are neither now.”

In midday traffic on a Maryland freeway, a compact rental car sped by with its blinker on. It crossed a lane and took exit 29-B to the right.

Inside the cramped car, Kendall and Josh leaned forward, straining to see the street sign at the end of the ramp. Josh clutched a crumpled printout and nervously looked back and forth from the paper to the road ahead. Kendall spotted the sign first. “That’s Buckingham. Okay, left.”

He turned left onto a tree-lined road that passed through an old, stately neighborhood. Each house had its own character and the yards were large. Kendall vainly checked each intersection. “I thought you used to have a street-by-street thingy on your phone.”

“Yeah, I did…once,” Josh shot back, annoyed. “And I used to have a girlfriend, too.”

“Oh, yeah.” Kendall’s jaw clenched. “Sorry. Never mind.” He sniffed, wishing he’d never brought it up. “What’s next?”

Josh took a breath. He consulted his printout. “Make a right on Weaver, and then we should see it on the left side.”

Kendall made an exasperated sound. Josh looked up. “What now?”

“Nothing…it’s stupid.
We’re
stupid!”

Josh was upset. “It’s not stupid to try to figure out what happened to us.”

“It’s not that; it’s just that the closer I get to this guy, the dumber this feels. According to him we just made a buncha
worlds
everywhere we didn’t make those wrong turns. And we made more where we coulda gone straight but didn’t – doesn’t that sound stupid to you?”

Josh looked out the window. “There’s Weaver. Take a right.”

The rental car turned right. Soon it passed a thick wooden sign with carved flowers and raised letters that read,
Welcome to Althea Woodland Nursing Home
. Kendall pulled into the small designated parking lot just beyond the sign and stopped. Josh got out first. He slowly looked around.

The nursing home was a well maintained single level structure with large windows and a pleasant rustic feel. A wide and gently curved sidewalk led from the parking lot to the main entrance. There was a relaxed atmosphere about the place that hid the highly efficient and medically astute underpinnings. The main building was split into two wings – one side dedicated to self sufficient seniors, the other to less ambulatory residents. All of the rooms had generous sized windows that faced the gardens and trees that were the hallmark of the facility.

Josh bent over and peered into the car at his father. “You gettin’ out?”

Kendall pulled the key and opened his door. “I don’t like places like this.” He came around the front of the car and doggedly headed up the sidewalk toward the front doors. “I don’t wanna end up in one, and I don’t wanna visit the inmates who did.”

Josh stood by the car watching him walk away. Kendall looked back. “What are you waiting for? This was your idea.”

* * *

A husky, middle-aged nurse’s aide, with a softened New York dialect, happily guided Kendall and Josh down a wide carpeted hallway in the home. The décor was cheerful and there were numerous residents out and about. Kendall was jumpy and Josh was subdued, but the chatty nurse’s aide was in her zone.

“See, nursing homes, they’re like their own little towns – friendly, but everybody’s nose is stuck right up everybody else’s business. I mean, you know how it is, if you sneeze, the other gal wipes her nose, you know?”

She patted the shoulder of a slender woman with wispy hair pushing a walker. “Hey Louise, you’re really toolin’. I hear they got snacks in the sun room. First one gets the pick of the litter.”

As they moved on she noticed that Kendall was keeping to the center of the hall. “First time?”

Kendall reluctantly raised his eyes. “Been other places. Not here.”

“Yeah, it can get to you when you’re not used to it. Me? I love it here, I really do, honest, but I’ll give you a tip, you can’t judge a book by its cover, you know? Some of the best lookin’ residents we got here, ain’t all here. Take Mr. Montgomery over there.”

She waved at a dapper man with an empty look gliding along the wall railing. “Hey Monty, how’s it goin’? Nice threads.” The good looking man’s face brightened briefly at the words. Just as quickly, his eyes slipped back out of focus again.

The aide leaned in to them and lowered her voice as they continued by. “Spiffy, huh? Always in a different suit, cuff links even. He was a buyer for Nordstrom’s, got clothes to die for, but nothin’ upstairs to match. And he doesn’t talk. I only heard him say one word, once; and then it wasn’t really a word, word, you know? He was rubbin’ the sleeve on his suit and he looks at me and says, ‘129,’ just like that.”

She crossed to the other side of the hall to brush the hand of a wheelchair-bound woman rolling herself along using her feet. “Bernice, nice to see you outta that room. What happened? TV on the fritz?”

They made their way across the connecting hallway through large opened doors from the more ambulatory wing to the more disabled side. The number of aides working in the hall and in the rooms markedly increased. Josh noticed that the smells had intensified as well. He heard the unnerving sounds of dementia from behind a few of the closed doors.

“Feels different here, don’t it?” The nurse’s aide motioned around them. “The residents call it
crossing to the other side
, like
hasta la vista
, you know? We call it
going to the far side
‘cause things can get pretty curious over here.”

She pointed forward at a room with the door nearly shut. “That’s his room, ahead on the left. Dr. Everett - now he’s a special case. He’s not a real doctor; he’s one of those other kinds, you know, some numbers guy. He was here before I got here, and he’s still here. Guys don’t usually hang on that long. Anyway, he’s a real special case. He don’t look like much but he’s there. You know?” She tapped stubby fingers against her forehead. “He’s really all there. Nothin’ typical about him.”

She pushed open the door. “Well, here you are.” When they hesitated to move, she smirked at them. “Go on. He ain’t gonna bite ya. He can’t even get outta the bed.”

Kendall and Josh timidly entered a narrow, darkened room. A silent TV dangled on an empty wall. The blinds were closed tightly over the huge windows, denying any knowledge of the day outside. A bedside tray held a plastic cup with an articulated straw poking through the lid. Nearby, making a crumpled tent under the sheets, in the center of a high-sided hospital bed, was Hugh Everett III. He was a twisted and wizened old man, and his shallow breathing carried a rattle in it.

Josh realized that he was walking bent over, on tiptoes. Feeling foolish, he stood up straight and cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”

There was no response from the bed.

Josh went closer, put his hands on the side rails, and looked down at him. “Mr. Everett? Can you hear me? Are you Hugh Everett?”

Old Everett opened surprisingly bright eyes, blinked wetly, and studied Josh. His voice, when it came, was thin and small. “Heard ya the first time.”

Josh just stood there. “…okay.”

“I’m Everett. Have we talked before?”

“What? No.”

Everett stared at Josh’s face. “You from here?”

“Ah, no…not from the nursing home.”

“I know that much.” Hugh’s irritated voice seemed to be warming up. He tried again. “You from here?”

“Okay. I…think so. Why?”

Old Everett grunted. The answer didn’t suit him. “No. Not a
why
question. A position question.” His tongue studiously explored a cheek. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”

“No.”

“Good, ‘cause I was having this dream that…where did you two come from?”

Kendall stood awkwardly in the center of the room and decided to pitch in. “Ohio? We took a plane from Ohio.”

Everett exhaled noisily in annoyance. Gnarled fingers appeared from beneath the sheets to scratch his nose. He blinked repeatedly. He motioned
no
at Kendall with a finger. “Bracket that. Restart everything. My fault. Different question.”