walker.
“Where are you going, Nell?”
Nell didn’t reply. She moved the walker toward the sink, and got herself a drink of water.
“I’m afraid my mother may not be well,” Anna said softly. “She was just telling me that the man across the hall murdered her sister, and she’s afraid that he’s after her.”
“Mr. Krupp? I wouldn’t think so. He’s been bedridden since he came here.”
“Maybe you should say something.” Anna stopped speaking as Nell turned around. Nell made her way back to the armchair. The nurse took her arm as she sat down.
“Nell, I understand the man across the hall frightens you.”
Nell looked up at the nurse’s round face, trying to remember her name without glancing at the name tag. “No. Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Your daughter was saying that he made you nervous.”
The name tag said DANA, L.P.N. “I haven’t even seen him and he’s very quiet. Why would that make me nervous?”
The nurse smiled and picked up the tray. “I was just checking, Nell.”
Anna waited until the nurse left before speaking. “Why did you lie to her, Mother?”
“I don’t know why you come visit me,” Nell said.
Anna slid her chair back and stood up. “I don’t know either sometimes. But I’m sure I’ll be back.” She picked up her coat and slung it around her shoulder. “And, Mother, it’s better for you to socialize, you know, than to stay locked up in your room. Talking to other people will give you something to think about, so that your mind won’t wander.”
She walked out. Nell waited until she could no longer hear the click of Anna’s high heels on the tile floor. “My mind doesn’t wander,” she murmured. But the nurse had said that Karl was bedridden, and he had looked so healthy to her. Nell sighed and then frowned. What would he be doing in Household 5 if he couldn’t get out of bed?
Nell picks up the bat and takes a practice swing. Her dress sways with her, but she won’t wear the knickers Karl gave her. Bess has been dead for a week, and Nell is lonely.
“What are you doing here?” Chucky asks. They are alone. The other boys haven’t arrived yet.
“Wanna play,” she says.
He frowns. “In a dress? Where are your knickers?”
“Threw them out.” She hits the bat against the dirt like she’s seen Pete do.
“You can’t run in a dress.”
“I can try.” Her anger is sharp and quick. She hasn’t been able to control her moods since Bess died. “I’m sorry.”
Chucky ducks his head and looks away. “It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry,” she says again, and looks at the playing field. The grass has been ruined near the bases. Sometimes she thinks baseball is the only dream she has left. Now, with Bess dead and Karl gone, even that seems impossible. “I’ll just go home.”
“No,” Chucky says. “I mean, you can play.”
She smiles a little and shakes her head. “Not in a dress. You were right.”
“Wait.” He touches her arm and then runs to his house, letting the porch door slam behind him. She goes to home base and swings the bat again, pretending that she has hit a home run. It is a good feeling, to send the ball whistling across the creek. She loves nothing more. If only she were a little boy, she could play baseball forever.
Karl once told her that she could turn into a boy when she kissed her elbow. She tried for weeks before she realized that kissing her own elbow was impossible. She will never be a boy, but she will be good at baseball.
Chucky comes back. He thrusts some cloth into her hand. “Here,” he says.
She unfolds it. He’s given her a pair of frayed and poorly mended knickers. “Chucky?”
“They don’t fit me no more. Maybe they’ll fit you.”
“But isn’t your brother supposed to get them?”
“Nah,” he says, but doesn’t meet her eyes.
“I don’t want to take them if it’ll get you in trouble.”
“It won’t.” He studies her, sees that she’s unconvinced. “Look, you’re the best hitter on the team. I don’t want to lose you.”
She smiles, a real smile this time, one that she feels. “Thanks, Chucky.”
Nell resumed her walks again, making sure that she took them around medication time.
Karl’s door remained closed for days, but she finally caught him in the hallway, switching Dixie cups on the trays.
“You’re switching my medication,” she said. She stood straight, leaning on her walker, knowing that he couldn’t touch her in the halls.
“Yes, I am,” he replied.
She swallowed heavily. She hadn’t expected him to admit it.
“Why?”
“I guess I kinda feel like I owe you, Nell.”
“For killing Bess?”
He set the cup down on the tray marked with her room number.
His hand was trembling. “I didn’t kill Bess,” he said quietly. “I killed Edmund.”
“You’re lying.”
He shook his head. “I was going to meet Bess that morning in the orchard. We were going to run away together. Edmund got there first, and he killed her. So I went and I killed him.”
Nell could feel the power of that morning, the sunlight against her skin, his bloody fingers across her lips. “Why — didn’t you tell somebody?”
“I still committed a murder, Nelly.”
That’s why he had told her to get her father. That’s why he had never come back to kill her, too. “Why—” She shook her head in an attempt to clear it. “Why did you come back here?”
“Wisconsin is my home, Nell.” He was leaning on the cart for support. “I wanted to die at home.”
“But your experiment?”
He smiled. “I’ve outlived most of my siblings for a good twenty years. And the formula wasn’t quite right for me at first. We’ve changed it, so yours is better from the start.”
“Mine?”
“Nelly.” He bowed his head slightly and ran his fingers through his thick, silver hair. The gesture made her think of the old Karl, the one who had taught her how to laugh and how to hit home runs.
“What did you think? That I was poisoning you?”
She nodded.
“I’m not. I’m trying the drug on you. I know I should have asked, but you didn’t trust me, and it was just easier to do it this way.”
“Why me?” she asked.
“Lots of reasons.” The cart slid forward slightly and he had to catch himself to keep from falling. “I don’t know many people who still play baseball when they’re seventy years old. Or learn to walk again when the doctors say they can’t. You’re strong, Nelly. The power of your mind is amazing.”
“But what if I don’t want to live any longer?”
“You do or you wouldn’t be out here, trying to catch me.”
“I have caught you.” The hallway was empty. Usually it was full of people walking back and forth.
“I know,” Karl said. “What are you going to do? Call a nurse, tell them to arrest me? There’s no statute of limitations on murder, you know.”
Nell studied him for a moment. He was thin and his skin was pale. He was ninety-five. How much longer could he live?
“I don’t want any more of your medication,” she said.
He stood motionlessly, waiting for her to say something else.
