Doctor Sleep (The Shining #2)(84)
When she began to scream again, Lucy had gotten both arms under her and lifted her onto her bed in a clumsy clean-and-jerk that she knew she’d feel in her shoulders and lower back for days, if not weeks. Stopping her ears to Momo’s cries of put me down, you’re killing me. Then Lucy sat against the wall, gasping, her hair plastered to her cheeks in strings while Momo wept and cradled her hideously deformed arm and asked why Lucia would hurt her like that and why this was happening to her.
At last the ambulance had come, and a man—Lucy didn’t know his name but blessed him in her incoherent prayers—had given Momes a shot that put her out. Could you tell your husband you wished the shot had killed her?
“It was pretty awful,” was all she said. “I’m so glad Abra didn’t want to come down this weekend.”
“She did, but she had lots of homework, and said she had to go to the library yesterday. It must have been a big deal, because you know how she usually pesters me about going to the football game.” Babbling. Stupid. But what else was there? “Luce, I’m so goddamned sorry you had to go through that alone.”
“It’s just . . . if you could have heard her screaming. Then you might understand. I never want to hear anyone scream like that again. She’s always been so great at staying calm . . . keeping her head when all about her are losing theirs . . .”
“I know—”
“And then to be reduced to what she was last night. The only words she could remember were cunt and shit and piss and f**k and meretrice and—”
“Let it go, honey.” Upstairs, the shower had quit. It would only take Abra a few minutes to dry off and jump into her Sunday grubs; she’d be down soon enough, shirttail flying and sneaker laces flapping.
But Lucy wasn’t quite ready to let it go. “I remember a poem she wrote once. I can’t quote it word for word, but it started something like this: ‘God’s a connoisseur of fragile things, and decorates His cloudy outlook with ornaments of finest glass.’ I used to think that was a rather conventionally pretty idea for a Concetta Reynolds poem, almost twee.”
And here was his Abba-Doo—their Abba-Doo—with her skin flushed from the shower. “Everything all right, Daddy?”
David held up a hand: Wait a minute.
“Now I know what she really meant, and I’ll never be able to read that poem again.”
“Abby’s here, hon,” he said in a falsely jolly voice.
“Good. I’ll need to talk to her. I’m not going to bawl anymore, so don’t worry, but we can’t protect her from this.”
“Maybe from the worst of it?” he asked gently. Abra was standing by the table, her wet hair pulled into a couple of horsetails that made her look ten again. Her expression was grave.
“Maybe,” she agreed, “but I can’t do this anymore, Davey. Not even with day help. I thought I could, but I can’t. There’s a hospice in Frazier, just a little way down the road. The intake nurse told me about it. I think hospitals must keep a list for just this type of situation. Anyway, the place is called Helen Rivington House. I called them before I called you, and they have a vacancy as of today. I guess God pushed another of His ornaments off the mantelpiece last night.”
“Is Chetta awake? Have you discussed this—”
“She came around a couple of hours ago, but she was muddy. Had the past and present all mixed together in a kind of salad.”
While I was still fast asleep, David thought guiltily. Dreaming about my book, no doubt.
“When she clears up—I’m assuming she will—I’ll tell her, as gently as I can, that the decision isn’t hers to make. It’s time for hospice care.”
“All right.” When Lucy decided something—really decided—the best thing was to stand clear and let her work her will.
“Dad? Is Mom okay? Is Momo?”
Abra knew her mother was and her great-grandmother wasn’t. Most of what Lucy had told her husband had come to her while she was still in the shower, standing there with shampoo and tears running down her cheeks. But she had gotten good at putting on happy faces until someone told her out loud that it was time to put on a sad one. She wondered if her new friend Dan had learned about the happy-face thing as a kid. She bet he had.
“Chia, I think Abby wants to talk to you.”
Lucy sighed and said, “Put her on.”
David held out the phone to his daughter.
2
At 2 p.m. on that Sunday, Rose the Hat hung a sign reading DO NOT DISTURB ME UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY on the door of her plus-size RV. The coming hours had been carefully scheduled. She would eat no food today, and drink only water. Instead of mid-morning coffee, she had taken an emetic. When the time came to go after the girl’s mind, she would be as clear as an empty glass.
With no bodily functions to distract her, Rose would be able to find out everything she needed: the girl’s name, her exact location, how much she knew, and—this was very important—who she might have talked to. Rose would lie still on her double bed in the EarthCruiser from four in the afternoon until ten in the evening, looking up at the ceiling and meditating. When her mind was as clear as her body, she would take steam from one of the canisters in the hidden compartment—just a whiff would be enough—and once again turn the world until she was in the girl and the girl was in her. At one in the morning Eastern Time, her quarry would be dead asleep and Rose could pick through the contents of her mind at will. It might even be possible to plant a suggestion: Some men will come. They will help you. Go with them.