The Lost Years

69

At six P.M. Thursday, Mariah stepped off the elevator on the psychiatric floor of Bergen Park Medical Center. A guard was sitting at a desk at the end of the corridor. She walked over to him, aware that her heels were making a clicking sound on the polished floor.

He looked up, his expression neither pleasant nor hostile. She gave her name, as she had to the receptionist in the lobby, and showed him the pass that she had been given. Then, with rising concern, she watched as he made a phone call. Don’t let them tell me at the last minute that for some reason I can’t see Mom, she thought nervously. Don’t let that happen.

The guard put down the phone. “A nurse will be right out to escort you to your mother’s room,” he said, his voice hinting at a degree of compassion.

Do I look as upset as I feel? Mariah asked herself. After Lloyd’s call earlier confirming that she could visit, she had realized that there was enough time to shower and change her clothes. After lugging the dresser drawers and the contents of her closet from one room to the other, she had felt hot and rumpled.

Now she was dressed in a red linen jacket and white slacks. She had twisted her long hair up and fastened it with a clip. Remembering how her mother had never left the house in the old days without putting on makeup, she’d gone to the dressing table and reached for the mascara and eye shadow. Maybe it will please Mom if she realizes I spruced up for her, she had thought. It’s the sort of thing that she just might notice. She had debated for a minute, then opened the small wall safe in the walk-in closet and took out the strand of pearls her father had given her for her birthday two years ago.

“Your mother believes that old superstition that pearls are tears,” he had said, smiling. “My mother always loved them.”

Thank you, Dad, Mariah thought as she clasped them around her neck.

She was glad she had taken the time to change, because Greg had called while she was driving to the hospital. He’d insisted that he would meet her back at the house around eight thirty. “I’m taking you to dinner,” he said protectively. “I know the way you’ve been eating, or, more accurately, not eating. I’m not going to let you get to the point where you don’t even cast a shadow.”

“I hope I’ll be getting my appetite back by tomorrow night,” she had told him as she pulled into the hospital parking lot. “I have a feeling that by then Charles Michaelson will be under arrest.”

Then, before he could speak, she’d added, “Greg, I can’t talk now. I’m at the hospital. I’ll see you later.”

As she waited at the security desk, she remembered that Lloyd Scott had warned her not to talk about the potential witness to anyone. Well, I didn’t say much, she thought as the door behind the guard’s desk opened. A petite Asian woman in a white jacket and slacks, with an identification tag on a cord around her neck, smiled and said, “Ms. Lyons, I’m Nurse Emily Lee. I’ll take you to your mother.”

Swallowing over a lump in her throat and a sudden stinging in her eyes, Mariah followed her past a row of closed doors. At the last one, the nurse tapped on it lightly, then opened it.

As she followed her into the room, Mariah was not sure what she expected to see, but it was certainly not the small figure in a hospital gown and robe sitting at the window in semidarkness.

“She doesn’t want the light any brighter,” the nurse whispered. Then in a cheery tone, she said, “Kathleen, Mariah is here to see you.”

There was no response.

“Is she heavily medicated?” Mariah asked angrily.

“She has been given some very light sedation, which helps to calm her when she’s been angry or frightened.”

As Mariah walked toward her, Kathleen Lyons slowly turned her head. The nurse turned up the lights, making Mariah clearly visible, but there was no sign of recognition in her expression.

Mariah knelt down and took her mother’s hands in hers. “Mom, Kathleen, it’s me.”

She watched as her mother’s face became puzzled.

“You’re so pretty,” Kathleen said. “I used to be pretty too.” Then she closed her eyes and leaned back. She did not open them, nor did she speak again.

Mariah sat on the floor, her arms around her mother’s legs, slow tears streaming from her eyes, until ten minutes of eight, when a voice on the intercom requested that visitors leave by eight o’clock.

Then she got up, kissed her mother gently on her cheek, and embraced her. She smoothed back the gray hair that had once been a stunning shade of golden blond. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she whispered. “And maybe by then we’ll be able to clear your name. There isn’t much else I can do for you except that.”

At the nurses’ station, she stopped to speak to Emily Lee. “The report to the judge said that my mother was angry and aggressive,” she said accusingly. “I certainly don’t see any evidence of that kind of behavior.”

“It will happen again,” Lee said quietly. “Anything may set her off. But there have been several times when she thought she was at home with you and your father. She was so animated and happy then. Until this disease set in, I imagine her life was pretty wonderful. Trust me, that’s a lot to be grateful for.”

“I guess so. Thank you.” With an attempt at a smile, Mariah turned and left the secured patient area, passed by the guard, and waited at the bank of elevators. A few minutes later, she was in her car on the way home. She was sure Greg would already be there waiting for her.

She also knew that no matter what happened when Wally Gruber sat down to do that sketch, she had to make some painful decisions about the future.