Turn of Mind - Alice LaPlante [20]
We’ve been over and over that. If it happened, I didn’t know about it. She wasn’t missing for any extended length of time. Sometimes I do laundry in the basement. Make some soup. If she went over to Amanda’s, she was back before I noticed.
Doesn’t that worry you?
It does, it does. Honestly, I do my best. We’ve had locks installed on all the outside doors, but that upsets her and does more harm than good. It’s best to leave them unlocked and watch her carefully. Usually a neighbor notices. It’s that kind of street. Everyone looks out for everyone else. We always get her back. We had a bracelet made, but she won’t wear it.
What about at night?
Oh, nights are no problem. I’ve been told there are cases where you have to strap them in at night or you wouldn’t know what they’d get up to. Not her. She goes down quietly at nine and doesn’t make a peep until six in the morning. You could set a clock by her.
The brown-haired woman isn’t listening. She is frowning. She holds the book closer, places her index finger in between two of the pages, draws it back, and looks at me.
A page has been removed, she says. And not torn out. Sliced out. With a razor or something like that. She looks at me, moves her chair closer to the blond woman, and speaks more softly. She was a doctor, right? A surgeon?
That’s right.
Does she still have any of her equipment? Her scalpels?
I wouldn’t think so. Don’t those belong to the hospital? I’ve never seen anything like that around here. I would have, too. There isn’t anything about this house I don’t know. I have to keep an eye on things. Otherwise, you don’t know what she’ll do.
The blond woman pauses for a breath.
Last week, she threw all her jewelry in the trash. We only caught it by accident—her daughter found a diamond pendant lying outside in the snow next to the garbage. We dug down and found her wedding ring. Then some family keepsakes—some quite valuable, others just sentimental. We retrieved it all, and at that point we went through everything and I mean everything. Definitely no knives. Her daughter took a couple of trinkets that she wanted home with her—a special necklace that belonged to her mother and her father’s college ring—then locked everything away in the safe-deposit box.
I make a noise. It’s not until both women look at me that I understand it is laughter.
I stand up. I go into the living room. I go to the piano. To the bench. I open it up. It’s full of what looks like junk. It is James’s and my don’t-but-can’t place. As in I don’t-know-what-to-do-with-it-but-can’t-throw-it-away-yet. Receipts for purchases we might want to return someday. Knobs that fell off things. Unmatched socks.
I dig down. Past old prescription reading glasses, batteries that may or may not have charges, New Yorker magazines. Until I hit bottom. And pull it out, loosely wrapped in a linen napkin.
My special scalpel handle. Shiny. Alluring. Begging to be used. My name engraved on it, along with the date I finished my surgical residency. What do they say about me at the hospital? Get a second opinion. She’s the best there is, but she’s a hammer looking for a nail. She’ll operate on a torn cuticle if you let her.
Some plastic packages fall out of the napkin. Each one holding a glinting sharp blade, ready to be inserted into my scalpel handle. Ready to slice. Both women are standing nearby, watching me closely. The blond one closes her eyes. The brown-haired one reaches out her hand. I’ll have to take those, ma’am, she says. And I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me.
We are in a car. I am sitting in the back, behind a driver with short brown hair. I cannot tell if it is a man or a woman. The hands on the wheel are strong, coarse even. Androgynous.
Magdalena is next to me. She is on her phone. Speaking urgently to one person, then hanging up, dialing another. It is cold. Snow is in the air. Yet the trees are budding. I roll down the window to feel the wind in my face. A typical Chicago spring.
I like being able to use that word, typical. Usually is another good one.