Swim Deep - Page 123

“She believed she was tainted. Cancerous. I was the light from her darkness. I think she thought of me that way, a light somehow safely distant from her. Something to wish on, like that game you and she used to play when you were kids, when you used to wish on the stars. I was that part of her that she sent away, clean and innocent. I was able to see the world the way it was meant to be seen.”

His hand moved on my back, soothing me in that way I’d always loved. Ever since Noah Madaster had died thirteen days ago, and Wes Ryder had confessed to the police about assisting Noah on the night of Elizabeth’s murder, I’d occasionally let Evan comfort me in small ways like that. He was my weakness. I suspected he always would be.

We’d returned to Les Jumeaux for some uncertain period of time. I’d told the police about the location of Elizabeth’s body and Noah’s confession of killing her. Wes had held firm in his promise to me, and corroborated my story about Noah’s confession of murder before he’d died. He’d been charged with being an accessory to the crime, but Evan was fairly confident that his lawyer could get him a minimal sentence.

Evan and I had been operating on automatic pilot since then, ticking off some imaginary checklist: the recovery of Elizabeth’s body, caring for Lorraine Madaster, waiting for the results from the forensic coroner following his examination of Elizabeth’s remains.

Ima, Madaster’s nurse, had fled Les Jumeaux some time after Noah had been declared dead. The police had so far been unsuccessful in locating her for questioning.

Evan and I had moved Lorraine into the North Twin with us. Much to my relief, she came willingly, allowing me to help her pack up the sadly meager belongings she had squirreled away in a small, first floor bedroom at the South Twin.

I’d insisted that Lorraine get a full checkup at the doctor, as I was no longer convinced that Wes Ryder had been giving her quality care. I was certain Madaster and Ima had been neglecting her. I was relieved to hear from the physician that aside from some dehydration, and the fact that she was very thin and malnourished, Lorraine was surprisingly healthy. She did receive a diagnosis of dementia. But the specialists had hesitated in specifying Alzheimer’s type dementia. I began to suspect that Evan had been right in saying that Lorraine’s madness had been more a result of living with Noah Madaster, her guilt over her inability to care for her daughter, and her grief over losing Elizabeth. It had led her down a spiraling, inward path of fantasy and delusion. With Noah gone, some of that external pressure for escape seemed to dissipate a little. I increasingly witnessed periods of lucidity and recognition on her part.

Given her relative good health, Evan suggested that it might help Lorraine if we hired a non-traditional health care provider for her, someone with a mental health background versus a strictly medical one. I agreed. But until someone qualified could be found, I said I would see to her, try to assess her strengths and vulnerabilities, get a better idea of how to care for her… of how to make her happy. Of course at the heart of things, I simply wanted to spend time with Lorraine. She was my grandmother, after all.

I suppose there was another reason I found it comforting to spend those difficult days with Lorraine after Noah died. She was a quiet, undemanding companion. And although Evan and I spoke and planned together regularly, I struggled at being with him in any intimate sense… with relating to him like a wife would a husband.

Evan had been a rock since he’d been informed of Noah’s heart attack. He’d arrived in record time at the hospital. I’d told him everything on the drive back to the North Twin. I was honest with him about the voices, about believing I’d seen Elizabeth on more than one occasion. He never judged me, although I sensed he didn’t entirely believe me, either. I knew he wanted to be whatever I needed of him.

But I didn’t know what I needed. Everything had become scrambled up inside me. I functioned on a day by day, hour by hour basis. In trying to regain my bearings, Lorraine had been my unlikely strength. Maybe I understood on some level that we were co-conspirators, after all. Lorraine and I shared the same mission: to destroy Noah Madaster. And the two of us together had succeeded.

I was to learn that Lorraine was a creature of nature, rising with the first glint of sunlight behind the mountains and burrowing under her bedclothes after her evening meal. In following her cycles, I somehow seemed to find my own rhythm again. I had no appetite during that time, but I was forced to partake in meals regularly. Given Lorraine’s malnourishment, I had to set a healthy example and share three square meals a day with her.

Lorraine barely tolerated the breakfasts that I pushed on her, anxious as she was to be outside on the beach and in the forest. I followed her on her rambling walks, usually panting behind her, freshly amazed by her stamina. We ate the lunches I stored in my backpack while perched on the high rocks overlooking the lake. These meals she ate like a ravenous wolf, so I learned to pack double the amount. I found myself getting hungry for those lunches, too, if not with as much single-minded greed as Lorraine, at least with a healthy appetite.

She went with me to the overlook several times while I painted. Or while I attempted to paint, I should add. Although she never showed any particular interest in my painting, she seemed content enough during our excursions, foraging for the leaves that were falling from the aspens and maples, her manner endearingly somber and deliberate. She’d acquired quite a collection.

Eventually, I put away my paints and tried to help her. But when I tried to add my leaves to her pile, she frowned fiercely and pushed my hands away.

“What’s wrong?” I wondered.

She merely pointed at her leaves. I dropped the ones I’d collected, and knelt on the ground. For the first time, I carefully collected her pile. I picked up a golden, still soft aspen leaf. It was perfectly shaped, with no mottl

ing. All the others were just as lovely. I understood. She hadn’t wanted me to contaminate her carefully chosen leaves with my random ones. So I joined her on a more meticulous search.

If anyone had seen us, they would have thought we were both mad. Lorraine and I knew differently. I found a strange measure of peace in our mutual, silent search up there on the overlook.

There was no one else to arrange funeral services for Noah Madaster, so the task had fallen to Evan and me. Lorraine had refused to attend her husband’s memorial service at a local church. Evan had wondered out loud if Lorraine had really understood that Noah was dead, let alone the details of his burial. But I had disagreed with him. I was beginning to recognize the stubborn tilt of Lorraine’s chin, even when her gaze appeared vacant and unfocused. I remembered the moment when I’d known for a fact that she’d pushed Noah Madaster down the stairs.

I would never underestimate Lorraine again.

The only reason I would have gone to Noah’s service was to take Lorraine, if she’d desired it. Since she refused, he had no mourners. For all the power and control Noah had claimed during his lifetime, he’d been buried without a soul in attendance.

Evan and I slept separately. A gulf had opened between us. I sensed he knew that, as we stared down together at Elizabeth’s casket that day. He worried he had no way of crossing that chasm. And I certainly didn’t know how.

“Anna,” Evan said presently as we stood side by side at Elizabeth’s grave. “Do you still… does Elizabeth still… ”

“Does she still speak to me?” I asked him bluntly.

He nodded.

“No,” I said, looking at the submerged coffin. “I don’t think she ever will again. Not in that way. She’s where she wanted to be. She’s resting, now. It’s all right, that she’ll never speak to me again. I think she’ll always be with me.”

I studied his somber profile through the dark sunglasses I wore.

“It’s all right, Evan. I know you don’t believe me about it all… about hearing her voice. Seeing her, even. You think it was all part of some nervous breakdown, an overload of stress, with everything that happened. Part of me doesn’t want to believe it, either. One, because I know how crazy it sounds, and two, because it seems to validate all of Madaster’s sick claims about communication with the ancestors.”

“I never said I didn’t believe you.”

Tags: Beth Kery Romance
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