The Lost Years

31

On Monday evening, Kathleen was lying in bed in a single room in the psychiatric section of Bergen Park Medical Center. Several times she had tried to get up and now light restraints on her arms and legs were preventing her from making another attempt.

Besides her usual medicine, she had been given a light sedative to calm her, and so she was content to lie quietly as conflicting thoughts and memories mixed together in her mind.

She smiled. Jonathan was there. They were in Venice on their honeymoon walking hand in hand in Saint Mark’s Square …

Jonathan was upstairs. Why didn’t he come down and talk to her?

So much noise… so much blood… Jonathan was bleeding.

Kathleen closed her eyes and stirred restlessly. She did not hear the door of the room open and close and was unaware of the nurse who was bending over her.

Kathleen was at the top of the stairs and the front door opened. Who was that? A shadow passed in the foyer. She couldn’t see a face—

Where was her scarf?

“So much noise… So much blood,” she whispered.

“Kathleen, you’re dreaming,” a soothing voice suggested.

“The gun,” Kathleen mumbled. “Rory put it in the flower bed. I saw her. Did it have dirt on it?”

“Kathleen, I can’t hear you. What did you say, dear?” the nurse asked.

“We’re going to have lunch at Cipriani’s,” Kathleen said.

Then she smiled as she drifted off to sleep. She was back in Venice with Jonathan.

The nurse tiptoed from the room. She had been instructed to write down anything her patient said. Carefully, word for word, she wrote on the chart, “So much noise. So much blood. And then she was going to Cipriani’s for lunch.”