South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [56]
Gladys sagged.
“How long would she be here?” Madeline asked.
“I can’t say. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Arbutus was sleeping, sedated, but only when visiting hours ended did Gladys and Madeline leave, and then Gladys dawdled, making Up excuses to linger. Madeline didn’t hurry her. They spoke very little, either at Butte’s bedside or in the car. Madeline felt as if she’d been hit by a semi. After miles and miles had rolled by she said, “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. I should have been there. This is my fault.”
After a long silence Gladys said, staring out the window, “No it isn’t.”
“I should have been there, I told her I’d be back—”
“She didn’t want to be watched every minute.”
“It was my job to look after her.”
“Which you have been doing.”
Madeline shook her head, began to argue, but Gladys cut her off.
“It’s just life. Things happen, we don’t always like them. It’s as much my fault as yours.” She said this flatly, exhaustedly. Not trying to comfort. Not trying to comfort or blame, which was very hard to take. It was as if Madeline didn’t really exist.
More miles rolled past. Then Gladys said, “I have something to tell you. I should’ve done it sooner. I didn’t know you at first, is all. But the fact is, you have a great-uncle living. He’s named Walter, and he’s—special. He’s a very sweet man, but he’s simple. He always has been that way, ever since he was born. He lives in the Adult Foster Care home there in Crosscut.”
Madeline clenched the steering wheel and stared at the long road ahead.
“I should have told you right away. But I—I’m protective of Walter. I didn’t want him to get hurt. Your mother, Jackie—she always teased him, plagued him. Joe told me she scared him to death one time. Shut him Up in a closet. It wasn’t locked, he could’ve got out, but he didn’t know that.”
Tears filled Madeline’s eyes, to think of someone, especially someone helpless, being frightened that way.
“Looking back on it, I think maybe she was jealous. It was easy for Joe to dote on Walter. It wasn’t so easy with her.”
Gladys fell silent and more miles rolled Under the wheels. Eventually she said, in that same tired voice, “So, that’s why. I didn’t know you. I told myself, what if she’s like her mother? And you weren’t. But after a while it seemed too late. Arbutus told me not to wait, and she was right.”
Madeline thought of Mary Feather in her grubby sweater standing in her yard that morning—a million years ago—looking Uncertain. Maybe no one ever got to a point where they really knew what they were doing. Maybe it was always a crapshoot. She sighed. “I know about Walter,” she said. “Mary told me.”
Madeline couldn’t sleep that night. She kept seeing Arbutus helpless on the floor while she was driving around, indulging her fury like a spoiled child. She tossed and turned. She had a great-uncle living. No, couldn’t think about that. The Hotel Leppinen. There was something to dwell on. That beautiful old building. It was a crime, a sacrilege to tear it down. She hated that idea.
After a while she tiptoed down the stairs with a flashlight. She crept out the back door and then went to the Buick and lifted the hotel key from the ashtray.
She just needed somewhere to go. She had to get out of 26 Bessel, away from her guilt, away from the huge emptiness Arbutus’s absence left in the house.
14
One night late in June, Paul Garceau collapsed onto his bed in the back of the pizzeria. The hours were getting to him. Soon July would be here and he’d get a second wind, but not tonight. Tonight he just felt beat. He dreaded the thought of getting Up in the morning and driving to Crosscut, dreaded the smell of the food and the chemicals they cleaned with, dreaded facing the lineup of guys. They were a bunch of dead-enders, waiting out their time so they could get back into trouble again. He told people the prisoners needed him, needed someone who could really cook, but that wasn’t true. The food was prepackaged and portion-controlled. It came out