support beam here in the laundry room where her mother had hanged herself nine years before. The girl had found her there at the end of a rope, dressed in a black skirt and her favorite blouse-white with pictures of gold pocket watches and chains on it. One of her slippers had come off, probably when she’d kicked the stool out from under her. It would have been a horrific discovery for almost any child. But by that time, the four-year-old girl had become quite accustomed to death and suffering.
The girl still watered her mother’s plants when she did the laundry twice a week, like some people tended to flowers on a grave.
She continued on to the furnace room, where the muffled cries didn’t seem so far away anymore. She could make out parts of what Tracy was screaming: “Please, please…can somebody hear me? Help me! My parents have money! They’ll pay you…please! God, somebody…”
She knew the woman’s name, because she’d looked at her driver’s license: Tracy Eileen Atkinson. Born: 2-20 -1975; Ht: 5-06; Wt: 119; Eyes: Brn.
She reached up and pulled the string attached to the furnace room light that dangled from the ceiling. She stared at the big, heavy metal door to the bomb shelter. He’d lodged a crowbar in the door handle, so no matter how hard Tracy pulled and tugged at the door, it wouldn’t budge.
“Can anyone hear me? Please! Help me!”
If Tracy was like the others before her, she’d grow tired and stop screaming for help in a day or two. And a day or two after that, he’d grow tired of Tracy and slit her throat.
But until then, Tracy would learn that if she cooperated with him, he would give her some food scraps, maybe even an orange or an apple. If she put up a fight, she wouldn’t get anything, except maybe cat food.
Neely meowed, and the girl continued to pet her head as she approached the bomb shelter door. “There now, Neely,” she said.
“Is someone out there? Hello?”
She leaned close to the thick metal door. “I can hear you,” she called softly. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes. Oh, thank God! You have to help me…”
“Listen,” she said. “I just want you to know. I didn’t touch your car. He’s the one who scratched it up.”
“What? I don’t care…you’ve got to let me out of here…. Are you still there?”
Tracy started screaming and pounding on the metal door. But the sound was so muffled outside the bomb shelter, it was quite easy to ignore.
Stroking Neely and pressing her cheek against the tabby’s fur, she turned away from the door. She pulled the string to the single overhead light, and the furnace room went dark once again. She switched off the light in the laundry room, then ascended the basement stairs.
She could hardly hear Tracy anymore-unless she tried. And even then, it was just a faint, distant moaning.
“Your father always loved my fried chicken.”
Jessie seemed so flattered by the way Frank gorged on her chicken, Karen didn’t have the heart to tell her that he’d attacked his serving of shepherd’s pie with the same relish last week-and that was the most revolting dish the rest home cafeteria served. “Well, Dad obviously misses your cooking,” she said.
Frank sat in a hardback chair with Jessie’s home-cooked dinner on a hospital table in front of him. He was dressed in a plaid shirt, yellow pants, a white belt, and slippers. He had a towel in his lap in lieu of a napkin. He’d turned into a very messy eater in the last few years.
Sitting with Jessie on the foot of his hospital bed, Karen was dressed in a black skirt and a dark blue tailored shirt. Sometimes, watching her father gnaw away at a meal-especially finger foods-was pure torture for her. Corn on the cob and spareribs were the worst, but fried chicken ranked high up there, too. Forcing a smile, she could only glance at her father momentarily before turning away.
Karen looked out his window, and the smile vanished from her face.
There it was again-the old black Cadillac with the bent antenna. She’d seen the car several times the last few days. She’d started noticing it after that Saturday Amelia had come to her about the deaths of her parents and aunt. Twice the banged-up Cadillac was parked on her block; another time it cruised along the drive at Volunteer Park while she’d been running laps around the reservoir. She’d spotted the same vehicle in her rearview mirror on her way to pick up Jessie this afternoon. And now it was in the parking lot at the convalescent home.
Karen got to her feet and moved to the window. From this distance, she couldn’t tell if anyone was in the car.
“Frank, slow down,” Jessie was saying. “The chicken’s all yours. It’s not going anywhere. Take your sweet time.”
“Jessie, come here and look at this,” Karen said, gazing out the window. Jessie waddled up beside her. “See that Cadillac out there, the one with the broken antenna? Does it look familiar? I think someone in that car has been following me.”
Rubbing her chin, Jessie squinted out the window. “You know, I’m not sure. These old peepers aren’t what they used to be. I-”
Karen heard the chair legs scrape against the tiled floor. She swiveled around to see her father with his mouth open and eyes bulging. He pounded at his chest. “Oh, my God, he’s choking!” she cried.
“I got him!” Jessie pushed her aside and rushed behind the chair where Karen’s father sat, writhing. Within a moment, the big woman scooped him up out of the chair and locked her chubby arms around his stomach. Jessie jerked her forearms under his ribs-lifting him off his feet with every squeeze. Once, twice, three times, four times. Then a piece of food shot out of his mouth.
Karen’s father let out a cry, and then he gasped for air. He seemed to sag in Jessie’s arms. She lowered him back into the chair, and patted his shoulder. Karen hovered over him. “Just sit there and get your breath back, Poppy,” she said. He seemed okay, just a bit shaken.
But Jessie wasn’t so well off. Karen gazed at her. She staggered toward the bed and plopped down on the edge. Wincing, she put a hand over her heart. The color had drained from her face, and she started wheezing.
Karen hurried to her side. “Jessie, are you okay?
She didn’t respond. She just sat there, struggling for her breath.
Karen snatched up the phone and called for the doctor on staff. “There’s a woman here with breathing problems. Could you come to room 204, quickly please?”
As she hung up the phone, she heard Jessie say, “Aren’t you-aren’t you supposed to say ‘stat’?”
Karen sat down on the bed, and gently patted her back. “I’d feel like an idiot saying ‘stat;’ that’s for the nurses and doctors. How are you?”
Jessie nodded. “I just overdid it a bit. I’ll be peachy in another minute or two.” She glanced over at Karen’s father and started to chuckle. “Well, I’m glad he didn’t let my having a coronary slow him down.”
Frank was sitting up and gorging on his fried chicken once again.
Karen managed to laugh, but she noticed Jessie wincing again. She stayed at her side until the doctor arrived with a nurse. Dr. Chang felt Jessie’s throat, then put a stethoscope to her chest. He asked if she could walk with him to his office down the hall. Jessie nodded. But she seemed a bit unsteady on her feet as Dr. Chang and the nurse led her out of the room.
Karen hated to see her looking so feeble. Jessie was her rock. She couldn’t have managed without her these last four years.
Now that she’d moved her dad into Sandpoint View, Karen was getting pressured by her older brother and sister to sell the house. But she didn’t want to sell it yet. She kept Jessie on three days a week. They often took these trips to the convalescent home together.
Her father’s face and hands were a greasy mess. Karen got him cleaned up. Then she washed off the plate and utensils in his bathroom sink, along with Jessie’s Tupperware containers. All the while, she thought about Jessie, down the hall, being examined by Dr. Chang. The reality of it was, Jessie wasn’t much younger than Dr. Chang’s regular patients here.
One good thing, at least she hadn’t heard an ambulance yet. Whenever there was a severe medical emergency, they sent for an ambulance and rushed the patient to University Hospital. Many of the ones from this place died on the way.
Karen finished drying off Jessie’s Tupperware, and then checked on her father again. He’d moved into the
