Twisted Creek

Chapter 44

I awoke to an afternoon of rain tapping on the window. Glancing at the clock, I counted down two hours before I could go back into ICU and check on Nana.

Suddenly, I smiled. I’d always thought of Nana as being alone, even when Henry was still alive, but now-now that I knew about Jefferson-she didn’t seem so alone. The thousand times she’d brushed the wind chime in her kitchen window she must have been thinking of him. Maybe even living a parallel life in her mind with the boy she’d met the first summer after Pearl Harbor. A boy who’d taken her to a fair and won two wind chimes so they’d have the same music in both their worlds.

I straightened, stretching. The feel of the man next to me was all too real. I shifted so that I could see his sleeping face. I had a hundred questions I wanted to ask him about what had happened last night, but I couldn’t bring myself to wake him. Deep down I knew I’d sleep with this man and make wild, passionate love to him for years to come, so right now it was enough just to know he was near.

I cuddled closer. He laid his arm over me, keeping me safe even while he slept.

A tapping sounded from below. I didn’t move, hoping whoever it was would go away.

The tapping came again.

Luke groaned. “Tell them to go away,” he muttered.

I giggled when the tapping turned to a rap.

“I’m not moving,” he said, sounding more awake even though his body hadn’t shifted an inch.

I slipped away. “Good, you stay here. I’ll see who it is and be right back.”

He tried to snag me with his arm, but I jumped out of bed and hurried downstairs. I knew if I looked back I’d forget about who kept rapping.

When I opened the door, Mrs. Deals stood before me. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” I said as I ushered her in. “I forgot today is your cookie day.”

She folded up her umbrella. “I didn’t come to shop. You got a call from the hospital and I came to deliver the message.”

I held my breath and waited.

She took a moment to snap the strap around the umbrella, then continued, “I’m to tell you that your grandmother is being moved to a private room and you can bring up a few of her things if you like.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Deals, for coming all this way to tell me.”

“You’re welcome,” she said without a smile. Then she added in a yell as if I’d gone suddenly deaf, “I also have a message to deliver to Luke if you see him. Tell him they have Sheriff Fletcher in custody.”

I turned to see Luke at the top of the stairs. His hair stuck up on one side and his shirt was unbuttoned. He looked exactly like what he was-a man who’d just crawled out of bed. My bed.

“I can hear you just fine, Mrs. Deals. You don’t have to yell.”

She crossed her hands over her chest and looked quite satisfied.

“How’d you know he was here?” I asked without thinking.

“I just guessed.” Mrs. Deals smiled. “I knew if he had any sense he’d be here. And if there is one thing Luke Morgan has always had it’s sense.”

Luke walked down the stairs. “Thanks.” He nodded once. “Is that all you know about Fletcher?”

Mrs. Deals shrugged. “Willie told me you and he guessed the sheriff might be behind the drug trafficking on the lake after you found out he always made personal deliveries of Jefferson’s medicine. You didn’t know it for a fact until he showed up at the jail demanding to talk to the three snakes you caught last night.”

“The sheriff was connected with the drugs?” No one seemed to hear me. “He delivered Jefferson’s medicine?”

Mrs. Deals’s gaze never left Luke. “He picked up the medicine, but didn’t bother delivering it until after Jefferson was dead. Everyone knew the old man was forgetful about taking it, but if it wasn’t there to remind him, Jefferson probably didn’t notice the months passing without it.”

Luke shrugged. “We’ll never be able to prove that the sheriff hung on to Jefferson’s medicine, but I bet he knew the old man sometimes lost his balance when he didn’t take it. I don’t guess it matters now. We’ve got enough to put Fletcher away for the rest of his life. Two of the three guys we rounded up last night have already turned on him.”

Mrs. Deals stared at Luke. “Good work, Agent Morgan.”

“Thank you,” Luke said. “I was trained by the best.”

She smiled. “That you were.”

Something silent and deep passed between them. An understanding. A forgiveness.

Finally, she turned to me and said, “Since I’m here, I think I’d like a box of Milano cookies, if you have any?”

“It just happens I do.” I grinned.

She walked out without another word. Willie and the Landry brothers rushed in before the door closed. While they drank coffee and talked about every detail that had happened the night before, I walked around the store trying to think what I could take to the hospital to make Nana feel more at home.

In the end, I packed two things.

An hour later I sat on the edge of her bed and used a razor to cut out the sketches in my ledger.

Luke hung the wind chime by the window, then we taped up each picture. The lake at night. The clouds reflecting over the water. Luke by the fire. The Landrys waiting for their breakfast by the end of the dock. Timothy sitting all alone in the middle of his boat. Mary Lynn and Paul having tea. Nana making bread. Willie and Nana snapping peas on the porch. The first night’s dinner with the tables set for one. The Nesters circling Dillon as he huddled near the stove.

Our life on the lake covered her walls.

About the time the doctor asked me if he could talk to me in the hallway, the Nesters started pouring in. Nana told them all she was fine, but they fussed over her anyway. They all brought gifts. Mary Lynn and Paul brought flowers. Mrs. Deals brought a book of poetry. Timothy brought a CD player for her and the Landry brothers brought rocks from the shoreline so she could still feel close to the water.

I stepped out and listened to the doctor tell me the details of patching her up in words I didn’t understand. In the end, he added, “We’ll need more tests, but I think you know that your grandmother is slipping into dementia.”

I’d known. As slow as one grain of sand falling at a time in an hourglass, her memory had been slipping. “How long?”

The doctor shook his head. “I can prescribe medicine that will slow the progression, but it will still come. What would you like to do? I can suggest some care facilities.”

I smiled. “I’d like to take her home. We’ll care for her there for as long as we can.”

He nodded as if he felt sorry for me. We talked on until his pager went off and he had to go. I went back into Nana’s room and sat on the bed next to her, listening to everyone talk about all the excitement on the lake.

When visiting hours were over, Luke stepped out to walk everyone to their cars and suddenly I was alone with Nana.

I hugged her. “I have to go, too. Will you be all right here tonight?”

She smiled at the drawings. “You’re a great artist, Allie. I’ll feel right at home.”

I kissed her cheek as she curled down into the covers. “Good night,” I whispered thinking I’d never have a more important showing of my work than right here.

“Good night, Flo,” she answered, and I knew she was slipping again into another time and another place.

I smiled down at her, brushing her hair lightly with my fingers. “I’m here, Nana. You’re home. We’re all home.”

It crossed my mind that maybe all of life isn’t lived in the present. Maybe a tiny part of it is lived in the heart.