Not Perfect(76)

“He’s gone,” Nora said when she saw Tabitha. “He left me.”

Oh, Tabitha thought, this is what I read about that first day in the file. She knew exactly what was going on here.

“Oh, Nora, I’m so sorry,” Tabitha said, joining her on the floor. “Are you alone?”

“We were having a lovely picnic,” Nora said. “He wasn’t acting right. He wasn’t as, I don’t know, attentive as usual. I had a terrible feeling in my stomach. I couldn’t eat the sandwiches I made.”

“Oh, Nora,” Tabitha said again. She reached out and patted her hand. As soon as she felt Nora’s dry, cracked skin she pulled away. It felt like her mother’s hand, at least how her hand had felt at the end. She had thought many times since then that she should have rubbed lotion into her mother’s hands. Why didn’t she do that? She knew why. She’d barely touched her—hand lotion wasn’t even a consideration. The only reason she knew what her hands felt like was because they kept flopping off the bed and hanging, and the nurse asked her over and over to move them back onto the bed, so they wouldn’t strain her arms. What was Tabitha going to say—No, you do it? But now she wondered what the big deal was. She always could have washed her hands after. She looked around for lotion, maybe she could rub some into Nora’s hands.

“I’ll be right back,” Tabitha said, taking her bag with her. She moved toward the hall bathroom. As she got closer, she heard someone snoring. It was so quiet at first and then louder. She peeked in the bedroom next to Nora’s, and there was a woman sitting in a chair, fast asleep. She was wearing scrubs, so Tabitha assumed she was the home-health aide. A lot of good she was doing. She tiptoed into Nora’s room, where the bed was messed up: clearly it was slept in. Nora must have gotten herself up and dressed after the aide thought she was fast asleep. Nora could be in New Jersey by now! Tabitha went into the bathroom and closed the door quietly. The jar was still there, but, to make herself feel better, she looked for lotion first. There wasn’t any, not on the counter, not in the medicine cabinet. Maybe she would have to buy some and bring it next time.

The money jar was like a magnet, she was so drawn to it. She grabbed and grabbed—taking what she hoped would end up being thousands of dollars. She had to pay for all the medical bills; she kept telling herself, she needed this. She made sure to leave enough that when she spread it out, the jar almost looked full—well, not quite, if you looked closely, but almost. She stuffed it all into her bag and went back to the living room. Nora was still on the floor. She hadn’t moved an inch. No wonder she got stiff and couldn’t get up after one of these episodes. Tabitha intended to just keep walking, right past Nora and out of the apartment, but Nora was weeping now.

“Miss,” she called to Tabitha. “Miss, have you seen a very handsome boy? Tall? He was just here. Oh, I hope he’s coming back.”

“I’m sure he’ll be back, Nora,” Tabitha said, still on her feet.

“Miss,” Nora said again. “Have you ever been in love?”

Tabitha didn’t know the answer to that, so she didn’t say anything.

“Miss,” Nora said. “Have you ever done anything bad?”

Now she wondered if Nora was playing with her. Could that possibly be the case?

“Because I did something bad,” Nora continued, and Tabitha relaxed a little. “I did something very bad.”

“Nora,” Tabitha said, coming closer, sitting on the floor and putting her now stuffed bag behind her. “You didn’t do anything bad. You’re good. You’re just confused. I did so many bad things. Do you want to hear them?”

“Sure,” Nora said, and she sounded like a teenager who was ready for some good gossip.

“Well, I wasn’t very nice to my mother when she was dying. She had been sick, and I got used to not touching her, and I never really got back into the habit. But the worst thing is, I think I killed her. I think I gave her too much morphine and cut her life short, not by much, maybe a few days, a week, unless of course she was going to rally and get better, which she had done before. Maybe I cost her months, who knows? I will never know.”

Nora nodded but didn’t seem to comprehend what Tabitha was saying, which only served to fuel her confession.

“Also, I worry I killed a man. I didn’t mean to, but I didn’t properly follow my food-allergy protocol one night when I was cooking—I used to have my own business—and his girlfriend called after the meal. She said he couldn’t breathe, were there peanuts in the dish? I said no, because I truly believed there weren’t. As soon as I hung up, I realized there had been, I had sautéed the beef in peanut oil, and I had fried the spring rolls in it. Some peanut oil can be okay and not cause a reaction, even in very allergic people, but some can, and I would never normally take that chance. I wasn’t sure what kind of oil I had used, I think possibly the bad kind. I . . . I could have done more research about that, but I threw it out—we threw it out, my husband and I. I tried to call back, I tried to tell them. But I couldn’t reach them, and then my husband discouraged me from it, and eventually I stopped trying.”

Nora nodded again.

“And I’ve been stealing,” Tabitha said. Now she was crying, and she was too loud; she could wake the aide in the other room. She lowered her voice a little. “I’ve been stealing from people all over the city, and I’ve been stealing your money. You make it so easy. Why do you have so much money here? In the Monopoly game and in that jar in the bathroom?”