The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(97)

“I’m! Not! Confused!” he shouted.

Patricia felt tangled in string, like every word she spoke only made things worse.

“Something very serious happened tonight,” she said. “And James Harris was involved and I do not believe for a minute that he was with you the entire time.”

Blue exhaled hard and turned to the front door. She grabbed his wrist.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to Jim’s!” he shouted, and grabbed her wrist in return. “He doesn’t scream at me all the time!”

He was stronger than she was and she could feel his fingers bearing down, pressing into her skin, against her bone, leaving a bruise on her forearm. She made herself unclench her fingers from his wrist, hoping he would do the same.

“I need you to tell me the truth,” she said.

He let go of her wrist and stared at her with utter contempt.

“You’re not going to believe anything I say anyway,” he said. “They should put you back in the hospital.”

His hatred radiated off his skin like heat. It made Patricia take a small step back. Blue stepped forward and she shrank from him. Then he turned and started up the stairs.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To finish my homework!” he yelled over his shoulder.

She heard his bedroom door slam. Carter still wasn’t home. She checked the time—almost eleven. She checked all the doors and made sure all the windows were locked. She turned on the yard lights. She tried to think of something else she could do, but there wasn’t anything. She looked in on Korey and Blue again, then she got into bed and tried to read November’s book club book.

Books can inspire you to love yourself more, it said. By listening to, writing out, or verbally expressing your feelings.

She realized she’d been reading for three pages without remembering a word she’d read. She missed reading books that were actually about something. She tried again.

Take a time-out to center yourself, it said. So that you can then come together again with greater understanding, acceptance, validation, and approval.

She threw the book across the room and found her copy of Helter Skelter. She turned to the back section about the trials, and read about Charles Manson getting sentenced to death over and over again as if it were a bedtime story. She needed to reassure herself that not all men got away with it, not every time. She read about Charles Manson’s sentencing until her eyes got grainy and she fell asleep.





MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS


   November 1996





CHAPTER 34


They took Slick to the Medical University on Tuesday. On Wednesday, they started making visitors wear paper gowns and masks.

“We don’t know precisely what’s going on,” her doctor said. “She’s got an autoimmune disease but it’s developing faster than we’d expect. Her immune system is attacking her white blood cells, and more red blood cells than we’d like are hemolytic. But we’re keeping her oxygenated and screening for everything. It’s too early to hit the panic button.”

The diagnosis simultaneously excited and horrified Patricia. It confirmed that whatever James Harris was, he wasn’t human. He’d put a part of himself inside Slick, and it was killing her. He was a monster. On the other hand, Slick wasn’t getting better.

Leland visited every day around six, but always seemed like he needed to leave the moment he arrived. When Patricia followed him out into the hall to ask how he was doing, he stepped in close.

“You haven’t told anyone her diagnosis?” he asked.

“She doesn’t have one as far as I know,” Patricia said.

He stepped in closer. Patricia wanted to back up but she was already standing against the wall.

“They say it’s an autoimmune disease,” he whispered. “You can’t repeat that. People are going to think she has AIDS.”

“No one’s going to think that, Leland,” Patricia said.

“They’re already saying it at church,” he said. “I don’t want it coming back on the kids.”

“I haven’t said anything to anyone,” Patricia said, unhappy to be forced to participate in something that felt wrong.

Friday morning, they taped a sign to Slick’s door that had been photocopied so many times it was covered with black dots saying that if you had a temperature, or been exposed to anyone with a cold, you were not allowed in the room.

Slick looked pale, her skin felt papery, and she didn’t want to be left alone, especially at night. The nurses brought blankets and Patricia slept in the chair by her bed. After Leland went home, Patricia held the phone so Slick could say bedtime prayers with her kids, but most of the time Slick lay still, the sheets pulled up almost to her chin, her doll-sized arms wrapped in white tape, pricked with IV needles and tubes. She sweated out fevers most of the afternoon. When she seemed lucid Patricia tried to read to her from Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, but after a paragraph she realized Slick was saying something.

“What’s that?” Patricia asked, leaning over.

“Anything…else…,” Slick said. “…anything…else.”

Patricia pulled the latest Ann Rule out of her purse.