One to Tell the Grandkids (13 page)

Funny. Taryn could have sworn Caleb had said his sister was older.

“I’m sorry.” Caleb’s words were gritted out between clenched teeth. “I’m so sorry. I wish this could wait, but it can’t.”

“Do what you have to do. It’s fine. Slate will understand.”

Caleb was already edging his car to the right hand lane. They got off the freeway at the next exit, then back on going the opposite direction. Going against traffic, it didn’t take long to get back to Orange County. The whole way, Caleb was on the phone arguing with different people. His father most notably, but then his voice took on an air of forced politeness. He was speaking to a professional.

“You must be new. I know my father pays the bills, but he’s not who you want to speak to. Believe me, he’s useless to you, and he’s useless to Ann. Just ask the others.”

Taryn’s confusion was at least doubled when they pulled into the parking lot of a convalescent home. Time seemed to warp. Since he’d picked up the phone, there’d been urgency to the atmosphere that stilled then. He stayed with his hands gripped around the steering wheel, staring ahead sightlessly. For a second, he looked at least a decade older than he was. “I’m sorry for this. Really. I wish I had time to take you home.”

He didn’t wait for her to answer but got out of the car, heading in the direction of an older man who had to be his father. They had the same facial structure, the same hair color, and he watched Caleb intently as he approached. Everything about his posture screamed his irritation.

“The nurses said she’s been screaming all morning,” the man was saying as Taryn stepped warily closer.

“Have you seen her?” From his tone, Taryn could tell Caleb knew exactly what the answer would be.

Shame flitted briefly across his father’s features before annoyance set in again. “Are we really going to have this argument again?”

“Of course not.”

“Look, I have to go—”

“Do you even know what’s wrong? Did the nurses tell you?”

His father fixed him with a hard stare. “They said they thought she was upset because they moved her to a room without a window, and she’s been having tantrums ever since.” He made a move to walk away, but Caleb stepped in front of him. “I don’t have time for this, Ca—”

“She is still your daughter. You don’t have time for your daughter?”

“I don’t have time for this bullshit. She’s been screaming for hours because of a damn window?”

“That window is all she has. It’s her only connection to the outside world she can’t be a part of. She’s still in there, trapped in that fucking body, and you seem to think it’s childish that she’s throwing fits—the only way she has left to express herself, by the way—at losing her goddamn window?”

His father huffed, staring daggers at his son. “So what do you want me to do about it? They moved her to a different room. That’s life.”

“Ask them to move her back.” Caleb rose up onto the balls of his feet, as if he was trying to tower over his father, but he backed off quickly, closing his eyes as he did. He huffed. “Okay, fine. Just go. I got this.” He turned to walk into the building, and Taryn stumbled after him.

“Hey,” his father called after him.

Caleb stopped and turned around again. “What?”

His father’s eyes darted to Taryn and back. “New girlfriend?”

Taryn was shocked by the question, surprised to be noticed. Caleb just sighed tiredly. “Do you actually care?”

“You don’t have to get smart, Caleb.” He gave Taryn a small smile. “I’m John, Caleb’s father.”

“T-Taryn.” She found her voice was caught around the lump in her throat.

“You’re a lot prettier than the last one.”

“Goodbye, Dad.” Caleb took Taryn’s hand, pulling her away from his father into the building. He let go once they were inside and exhaled noisily, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m sorry. He brings out the worst in me.”

“I can’t really say I understand what’s going on, but it sounds like he deserves a lot worse.”

Caleb cast her an appreciative glance before he reached a nurses station. “Oh, good. Ellie, can you tell me where they moved Ann?”

The nurse gave him a kind, apologetic smile. “Yeah, of course. Just follow me.”

“And who can I talk to about this? They can’t keep her in a windowless room.”

“I know. I tried to tell them it was a bad idea, but they didn’t listen. Dr. Tam is actually waiting for you.”

Taryn tuned out the sounds of their voices as she tried to understand what was happening.

She had never been in a convalescent home, and the experience was jarring. The hallways and rooms were full of the elderly, as could be expected. They weren’t the lively types like advertisements for retirement homes and communities boasted, enjoying the free time their golden years allowed for. No, there was something just a little off about the people they passed as they hurried down the hallway. There was a man with a plastic grin and blank eyes, a woman slumped in her wheelchair with an exhausted, vacant stare. Despite the brightly colored walls with paintings of flowers, the vibe the place exuded was far from comfortable. Taryn’s sense of smell picked up on too many scents at once: hospital quality food, antiseptic, sweat, urine, and who knew what else.

To top it all off, there was a noise emanating from somewhere nearby that chilled Taryn to the bone. It was a hoarse wail, barely identifiable as human. Everything in her wanted to cringe away from the sound, run in the opposite direction, but they were only getting closer.

Taryn eyed the residents who seemed more cognizant, talking, interacting with the nurses and other visitors as they went by. They all seemed to be ignoring the screaming.

“If you moved her once, you can move her again.” Caleb pointed at a room as he spoke. The room the wailing was coming from. Dread curled in Taryn’s stomach.

“We can’t get her in a new room until this afternoon. Do you think you can help us calm her down, Mr. Ryder? She’s been crying off and on like that for hours now.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He made a disgruntled sounding noise, looking across at the nurses. “Just do me a favor and make sure your staff doesn’t call my dad again. It’s a waste of time.”

“Of course.”

Caleb gave a short nod and strode into the room at a brisk pace. Taryn lingered for a handful of moments longer, terrified for reasons she didn’t really understand, before she followed him.

Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.

The room had a single occupant, a single bed, but it wasn’t a normal bed at all. It was a hospital bed, but one that been covered from mattress to ceiling in some kind of netting. It was as though the bed had been turned into a tiny ball pit, except Taryn was fairly sure she wasn’t going to find anything fun in that cage. Caleb was standing by it, his voice turned soothing. “Ann. Ann, it’s me. Shh. Hey, listen. It’s me. It’s your little brother.”

The vaguely human cries quieted ever so slightly but didn’t settle completely. Taryn was beginning to hear an extremely garbled speech pattern—noises that were shaped like words but weren’t quite making it.

Caleb reached up. His fingers found the zipper of the netting and began to pull it down. For one irrational moment, Taryn wanted to yell for him to stop. All her life she’d been taught that things in cages, especially things making those frightening noises, shouldn’t be let out.

“I’m going to move you back or you’re going to fall, okay?” Caleb said, leaning into the bed. Taryn watched as he got his arms around a writhing figure, scooting her forward so she was more securely on the bed. “There.” He sat down in the chair, reaching in, stroking her face. “There, I got you. I’m here now.”

Slowly, Taryn shuffled forward.

There was an actual human being in the bed, a female human being. She was dressed plainly in a shirt and sweatpants, both of which fell shapelessly over gaunt features. Her hair was cropped short. Most disconcerting and disturbing of all was the way her body moved in unnatural jerks and jolts. It never stopped. She never settled.

Her eyes, if not focused, were at least concentrated in the general vicinity of Caleb’s face. She spoke, if it could truly be called speaking, in a guttural language. It sounded like her throat was full of phlegm, a wet rasp that made Taryn’s stomach churn. She made little whimpering and whining noises in between words.

She wasn’t old. She wasn’t old enough at all to be in a place like this.

“Tell me, Annie. Are you upset because of the window?” Caleb stroked his sister’s hair as he spoke.

“Yeth.”

Caleb didn’t acknowledge Taryn’s presence as she crept closer, taking in more. The tip of Anne’s nose was rubbed raw, and Taryn saw a corresponding bloom of blood on the white mesh of the netting. The jerky movements, the way Caleb had found her more in the netting than on the bed, must have been why she needed it in the first place. Watching her, Taryn could see how easy it would have been for her to fall out of a bed.

“You don’t have to stay, you know.” Caleb’s voice had a harsh edge to it, like he was barely containing his anger. Even though he wasn’t looking at Taryn, she knew the words were directed at her. He fished his keys out of his pocket and thrust them in her direction. “Take my car.”

“How will you—”

“I’ll figure it out,” he snapped. He shook his hand so the keys jiggled.

Taryn didn’t move right away. She wasn’t sure what she should be thinking or feeling. Her throat was painfully tight, but after a few swallows, she managed to find her voice. “It’s nice to meet you, Ann.”

Ann’s eyes jerked to hers, and Taryn instantly understood what Caleb had said to his father.
She’s still in there, trapped in that fucking body.

There was intelligence in the depth of her teary eyes. There was something wary and worn and ever so slightly curious. The skin around her eyes twitched like the rest of her, with no rhyme or reason, but her irises spoke volumes in a crystal-clear language that Taryn did not comprehend.

Taryn swallowed again. “Your brother is a good friend of mine.”

Ann made a series of noises, bleats and whimpers which Taryn took to be an acknowledgement. She nodded. “I’m, um, I’m going to butt out now. But it’s nice to meet Caleb’s big sister.”

She did retreat then, without taking the keys, both overwhelmed and certain she was intruding in a place she had no business being. She was also dangerously close to losing it. Her vision was already blurring.

“Excuse me?” Her voice trembled as she went to the nurse’s station. “Do you have a public bathroom or someplace quiet I can . . . ?” She gasped, trying to forestall her sobs long enough to get her point across.

“The restroom is down the hall and to your right, but if you’re just looking for someplace to be alone, there’s a chapel to the left of the front door.” There was sympathy in the nurse’s voice. Taryn could imagine how many tears the woman saw in a place like this.

“Thank you.”

She found the chapel easily enough. It was difficult to get the door open with her hands shaking the way they were, but somehow Taryn managed. She slipped inside the tiny room and sank down onto a bench, leaning her forehead on the pew in front of her. There, she could hold back no longer. She broke down in a torrent of tears.

For long minutes she grappled with the reality of this place. In many ways, she had no context for a place like this, especially for the incongruity of Caleb’s sister being a resident here. At the same time, she was having flashbacks to visiting Bailey in the hospital. There were similarities there she couldn’t deny—the taint and oppression of illness to begin with.

One thing was for certain, though, and the knowledge resonated in the marrow of her bones, a sickening, stifling weight that left Taryn gasping for breath. Ann wasn’t here to get better. There was no coming back from whatever had happened, was happening to her.

Caleb’s sister was dying. She was dying a slow, maddening, dehumanizing death.

Taryn couldn’t sit up straight as her thoughts spun. She found herself drooping lower and lower with each memory. The way Ann looked so alien, her face slack in some places, tensed in others. The unnatural movement of her body. Her non-speech. Her inhuman wails, full of despair and frustration. She sank until she was on her knees on the ground, her head cradled in her arms as she cried.

She knew firsthand how disease could ravage a body. She’d thought there couldn’t be anything worse than watching her sister, a baby, a toddler, and finally a tiny child, go through what she had. This was worse. Or at least just as bad. Horrible in ways Taryn had never even considered.

It was a long time before Taryn calmed. It was ages before she could breathe again, and even then the pain was too great. She couldn’t fill her lungs. She rubbed at her chest as though she could massage away the tight knot where her heart used to be. She cried until her head pounded and her throat ached.

By the time Caleb came in, her tears had stopped. Her mind was a blank space. She couldn’t stand to think anymore.

“You didn’t have to stay,” Caleb said, standing beside her.