The Caller

NINETEEN

Magda was sitting at the edge of Mary’s bed when her eyes opened.

‘Hello, sleepyhead,’ she said. ‘How are you feeling?’

Tears streamed down Mary’s face.

‘Can you remember anything?’ said Magda.

‘David’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘He is, honey.’ Magda sat on the bed beside her and stroked her forehead. ‘I’m so sorry. Can you remember anything about your seizure?’

Mary shook her head. ‘No.’

‘That’s OK. Don’t worry. You might remember again, you might not.’

‘What happened?’

‘You were here alone. And you had a seizure… I came to the door and you were lying on the floor. I called the doctor.’

Mary smiled. ‘What was I doing?’

‘You were just distressed, swallowing a lot… nothing too crazy.’

‘Weird. Was I saying anything?’

‘Not a word.’ She paused. ‘But this was on your desk when I got here.’ She handed Mary a piece of plain white paper. Mary frowned. She saw her own handwriting – lecture-hall writing, the rush to absorb and preserve at the same time. In clotted black ink, the words were scattered down the page: Shadow. Absence. Loss. Can’t move. Loss. Alone. Can’t move. Red. Cold.

She stared up at Magda to ease her rising panic. ‘Did you read this?’

Magda nodded.

‘Freaky,’ said Mary, ‘what’s it supposed to mean?’ She read it again.

‘It’s just a bad dream, sweetheart. You probably wrote it just before you went under.’

‘ Shadow. Can’t move. Alone. That’s weird. It feels wrong.’ She started gulping for air.

‘It was just a bad dream,’ said Magda. ‘That’s all that was.’

‘I need to know what it all means,’ said Mary. Her voice was rising.

‘Nothing. Just a few scary thoughts before your seizure you must have written down. Cooties of the mind. Don’t let it get to you.’

She turned as another sheet of paper caught her eye. Mary got to it first. It had three words across the centre: All. My. Fault. And in the bottom, David’s name exactly as she always used to write it, with the small d curving over to meet the capital one.

She started shaking. Magda reached out her hand for the paper.

‘No,’ said Mary, clinging on to it. ‘No.’

Julia Embry looked around the room at the nineteen residents of the Colt-Embry Homes.

‘Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for coming. I wish I wasn’t, but I’m afraid I’m here with some bad news. Mary Burig has lost her brother, David. He died on Monday. Some of you may have seen the newspapers. He was… murdered.’

Most of them seemed to have already known. ‘The reason I’m telling you this is, well, some of you know David and also, it’s very important that we’re all here for Mary. She’s very upset. She’s not feeling very well. She’s in her room this morning. We need to give her the space to grieve.’

She looked around at everyone. They nodded. Some were crying.

‘I know what it’s like to lose someone,’ said Julia. ‘Ten years ago, my son, Robin died.’ She looked down. ‘I loved Robin very much. He was only seventeen years old. I thought I could not go on after that. But I did and I’m still here. And you’re all still here too. Some of you lost people in the same accident that brought you here. Some of you, sadly, have lost your fiances, husbands and wives or family members to… well, to lack of understanding. I know that’s very hard for you to have to deal with. One minute your life is one way, the next it has completely changed. Maybe some man or woman who had one extra beer and got behind the wheel of their car is the reason why you’re here. We can’t control everything. But every one of us is here because we care. I know you’ve all got a lot going on, but we need to look out for Mary. Because she’s in pain right now.

‘It’s important to remember, though, that we do not have to be defined by the things that happen to us. And certainly not the negative things. You don’t want people looking at you as just people who have suffered a brain injury. I don’t want people looking at me as poor Robin’s mom. There is a lot more to all of us. Losing Robin was devastating, but it made me want to set up this Clinic. So some good came of it.

‘Anyway, I just wanted to say please be there for Mary, you can help her through this and do nice things to make her feel better as soon as she lets you know she’s up to it.’

Joe and Danny were waiting outside the door when Julia came out.

‘Hi,’ said Joe. ‘Is it OK if we have a word with Mary?’

She paused. ‘What’s it about? She had a seizure this morning, she’s resting.’

‘It won’t take long,’ said Joe. ‘It’s just about David and some of his financial records.’

‘OK,’ said Julia. ‘What about them exactly?’

‘Why don’t we go talk to her?’ said Joe.

‘OK. No problem,’ said Julia. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

Joe’s cell phone rang. ‘Pardon me,’ he said, falling back as they walked the hallway.

‘Detective Lucchesi? It’s Scott Dolan again, Philly PD. You’re not going to believe this – one of Curtis Walston’s buddies in Trahorne Refining has put aside a nice bloodstained black top for us from another Valtry Lab package.’

‘Another one?’ said Joe.

‘Yeah, it came in shortly after the first.’

‘You’re shitting me.’

‘I got it right here in an evidence bag. This guy rescued it from the furnace. He hates the boss too, thinks it was total bullshit that Walston was fired.’

‘Great news,’ said Joe.

‘Yeah, I’m sending it your way right now.’

Mary lay curled on her bed staring at the photo of David on her bedside table. She couldn’t believe he was dead. She had no-one left. No family. Then she saw the photo of herself and Julia and Magda beside it and she knew she had some people who cared about her. This was her home now. Within a week of arriving at Colt-Embry, she had felt that way. She didn’t want anyone to know anything that would make it have to be any other way. She heard a knock on her door and went to open it.

‘Hello, Mary,’ said Joe. ‘Detectives Lucchesi and Markey again.’

She nodded. ‘Come in.’

‘How are you holding up?’ said Joe.

She shrugged.

‘Well we won’t stay long,’ he said, ‘we just have something we’d like to clear up. We were going through your brother’s financial records. We know that he pays for your care here, but before your attack, he was writing cheques for some large sums of money directly to you. Can you recall why?’

Mary frowned. ‘Well, he was my big brother, he always helped me out…’

‘These cheques were for 5000 dollars a month.’

‘Wow,’ said Mary. ‘That’s a lot of money.’

‘It is,’ said Joe. ‘Maybe you could think about that and see if anything comes to mind or if you recall how you might have spent that money.’

‘Sure,’ said Mary. ‘But, I don’t know. I really don’t. I mean, I’d remember that.’

Magda Oleszak walked into the library. Stan Frayte stood in the corner staring at a large framed photo hanging on the wall. It was a blond teenage boy smiling patiently at the camera. A wooden sign that said ‘gallery’ was mounted high above it.

Six months earlier, Magda had cleared a space where residents could hang framed photos of their friends and family. It was more than just about decoration, it was part of their treatment – to bring familiar faces and memories out from their dark hiding places. Everyone was encouraged to bring in photos. Mary had brought one of David.

Magda nodded to the photo in front of Stan.

‘That was the first photo we hung,’ she said. ‘It’s Robin Embry, Julia’s son.’

‘Really?’ said Stan.

‘Yes,’ said Magda. ‘Poor boy. Killed in a car wreck.’

‘How is Mary?’ said Stan.

‘She’s OK,’ said Magda. ‘It’s all very hard for her. Not just the loss, but David is linked to so many of her memories of when she was well and now he’s gone, I think she feels there’s no-one left in the world who knew her when she was stronger, no-one who knew the real Mary.’