Her

Vickie Riggan

1332 words

Her

She was just about to reach into the back of the fridge for the orange juice carton when she heard it. A deep, throaty, almost indecipherable growl: “H-h-her.” Grabbing the carton quickly and passing the kitchen island on the way to the hall, she scooped up what at a glance appeared to be a clean glass. Before reaching the bedroom at the back of the house she heard it again, “Her!” This time with more urgency.

The stark, clean whiteness of the room was a shock after the cool darkness of the hallway and kitchen. The old four poster had long since been dismantled and replaced by a bright chrome ultramodern hospital bed fitted out in layers of stiff white sheets and pillows. Near her head lay a white, lace-edged pillow embroidered with a design and “lilies of the valley” that had been rescued from the four poster before it was carted away. And somewhere lost in the middle of it all was the bony, bleached white body of Her.

She sat the glass down by the chair and moved over to her bedside. “I’m sorry I left you alone, Darling. I thought you were sleeping. What do you need?”

Silently she answered with her eyes as they locked on the OJ carton still in hand. Taking a visual cue she deftly reached for the small cup on the bedside table and carefully poured a very small amount into the cup, set the carton aside, and reached for a fresh sippy straw. Almost by reflex now, she pressed the button by the rails that would raise the head of the bed slightly and pressed the straw tip to her parched lips. With great effort the old lady took only a few short sips and then letting the straw slip back into the cup, melted back into her ghostly linen shell quiet once again.

She set the cup aside and fell back into the bedside chair forgetting now how parched she had thought she was only a few minutes earlier. 

The curtains were drawn aside on the large window looking out into the back garden that had been the old woman’s pride and joy for as many years as she could remember. The ground was covered with the last of the autumn leaves forming a damp red-orange-yellow-gold carpet lined deeply with now useless veining. In the corner the bare branches of a Japanese maple tree bent over awkwardly like a stoop-shouldered old lady in the winter cold.

She turned to look at her silent roommate once again and followed her eyes to where they rested on the bright red foliage of the Boston ivy climbing over the far wall of the garden. In front of the wall large clumps of ornamental grasses waved and rustled their brown heads in the early winter wind – a faint sound through the closed window like the rattling of old chains. Her face gave no clue to what might be going on inside, but her eyes seemed to register approval over the garden scene before Her. Suddenly the wind outside the window began to pick up and rattle against the glass echoing the sound of the breath that rasped and rattled up from somewhere deep inside Her chest.

The old lady’s eyes closed and she settled back in the chair taking a smooth, deeply-veined hand and studying the lines and spots looking for some kind of clue. A fitful sleep overtook the younger woman and the dreams came back again. First a small child giggling and hiding beneath the white-laden Viburnum branches as the old lady walked by unaware of the child’s presence calling out for “Her.” Then a young girl prowling through the honeysuckle vines sampling the sweet nectar of the tiny trumpets all the while the old lady tugging with a strong hand and insistently calling, “Her, Her.” Next the young woman standing beneath a vine-covered garden arbor in a long white gown as the old lady placed a bouquet of rosebuds and baby’s breath in her hand. Tears rolled down her cheek as she gently whispered “Her, Her.” Finally, there’s the young mother holding a new baby to her breast as the old woman set a vase of freshly picked tulips on the bedside table. “Her,” she cried out, and the baby cried out too. Over and over the drama played through the woman’s head like a fast-moving montage accompanied by the repetitious echoes of “Her, Her, Her!”

Twisting uneasily in the bedside chair, body fidgeting to either find a more comfortable upright sleeping position or give up and suffer through yet another sleepless night. Finally, fatigue won out and she dropped into the sleep of the exhausted.  Gradually muscles slackened and slowly the old woman’s hand slid back down on the bed. It fell gently on top of the sterile, white linen framing the blue veins of Her hand.

Outside the ground was quickly covering in the pure, clean white of the first snow of winter. The deeply veined carpet of old leaves stood out in stark contrast to the snow fighting to stay visible. Gradually the wind died down to a whisper as the outside world gave in to the natural progression of the seasons. Inside the room only one soft wind of breath could now be heard as the young woman’s hand fell softly to the white bedclothes and quietly covered the deeply veined hand of the now silent old woman.

The bright morning light pouring in through the window made the scene seem even more unreal. Inspector James took out a small notepad writing the date and address across the top of the first clean page. “So, who reported the bodies, Doc?” he asked the coroner while turning away so as not to see him jamming the thermometer into the younger woman’s body. Even after 10 years in homicide it was not a sight he was comfortable with. 

“When the Meals on Wheels volunteer arrived, the front door was unlocked and partially open. She came in calling for Alice,” he explained while expertly pulling the thermometer from the younger woman’s body and noting the reading. James flinched and gritted his teeth tasting bile in the back of his throat. 

“She claims she walked to the back of the house and found them like this. Fortunately the volunteers are trained to touch nothing and call the authorities right away should they encounter a situation of this nature, so nothing has been disturbed. And before you ask, her story corresponds with my findings on time of death,” he finished while packing away his tools. 

“OK, so I can see the old lady was pretty sick, but other than a bad complexion the nurse looks healthy to me. Any idea what killed her?” James asked.

“That bad complexion is called methemoglobinemia. An autopsy will no doubt confirm the presence of sodium nitroprusside. It’s typically a medication to lower blood pressure in cases of extreme hypertension. It’s also a reliable method of suicide,” the doctor offered very matter-of-factly. “And by the way, she wasn’t just a nurse. The cancer patient she was caring for was also her mother, Louise Sullivan, well known in the local gardening club.”

Something clicked in the back of Inspector James’ brain. He began flipping through pages in his small notebook. “You said nurse Alice Sullivan, Doc?” James remarked while reading through his notes. “Yeah, there it is. I thought the name was familiar. I’ve been trying to find a nurse Alice Sullivan to question her about some suspicious deaths in the cancer ward at the county hospital. According to the Captain, we might be looking at one of those Angel of Mercy cases.”

The coroner tiredly snapped his tool kit shut and grabbed up his raincoat. He walked to the door then turned to the inspector with a sly grin. “Well, you’ve found your nurse, but I suspect she’s more angel than mercy killer now.”