Dead is the New Black (5 page)

“Who’s going to go live with a vampire?” She
blinked at me several times, and then narrowed her once-clever
brown eyes in thought. Those eyes had kept me on the straight and
narrow all my life, but in the last few years, they’d dimmed, milky
with confusion.

Scanning the room again, she growled, “What
have you done with my grandchildren?” then redirected her gaze at
me. “You know what you need? A
man
. You’re
no spring chicken, you know.” Mumbling under her breath, she turned
away from me once more to look out the window.

She sat hunched over in her wheelchair like a
she-wolf guarding its kill. The persimmon polyester pantsuit she
wore needed to be laundered, but it was her favorite outfit and I’d
had a tough time trying to get it away from her long enough to wash
it. Her head bowed, she muttered, “I need a cigarette.”

“You quit smoking thirty years ago, Mom.”

Her gray brows lifted. “I did?” which was
quickly followed by an angry, “What in the hell are you doing with
my bottles? Those are my bottles. They’re
special
. Don’t you hurt my bottles, Lady.”

My mom always calls me Lady when she can’t
remember who I am. At first, it hurt. Now, years in, the pain has
sharpened to anguish.

“I won’t, Mom,” I said gently. “There are a
couple of men with a van coming soon who will help move us to our
new, uh, place. I want to make sure we don’t forget any of your
prescriptions.”

“A van? What van? Why am I getting in a van?
Where in the hell is this van gonna take me?” Peering up at me like
a little girl trying to fathom why she was being punished, she
whimpered, “Lady? Do I like to ride in a van?”

My heart squeezed.

“Just our belongings will go in the van.” I
spoke slowly, hoping she would understand, all the while knowing
she would not. “I’ll drive you in my car.” I tried very hard to
smile and said cheerily, “You’ll have fun today. A new place, new
room, new friends. It’ll be great and I’ll be there with you all
the time.”

She crossed her arms and turned her attention
out the window again, watching as two sparrows hopped and splashed
about in the garden birdbath. A ray of noontime sun pierced the
treetops to cast dappled shadows across the thin layer of snow
blanketing the lawn. The maple tree in the corner by the fence
blazed reds and golds. Autumn, glorious with its dazzling,
ever-changing display.

Abruptly, my mom uncrossed her arms and
slapped her knees with open palms. “Where in the hell is my
daughter? Where’s Sally?” Lifting her brows, she glared at me.
“Well? Speak up, Lady.”

My name’s Stephanie,
Mom.

Not Sally. There is no
Sally; never has been.

Dear God, I’m
tired.

Before I could form some kind of response,
the doorbell chimed. I’d always liked it because it was soft and
melodious, like wind chimes. I hadn’t anticipated my mother’s
reaction to its notes.

Her brow furrowed. “What was that? A harp?
Have the angels come to take me away?” Her thin fingers wrapped
around my forearm in a tight grip. “Don’t let the angels take me,
Lady. Please, please—”

“Mom, Mom, shh, it’s okay, it’s okay.” My
reassurances seemed to calm her a little. “That was just the front
door. I’m going to answer it. Will you be okay for a minute?”

The vacant look in her eyes told me she was
lost at sea, adrift on an ocean of uncertainty and fear. I patted
her hand, then slowly loosened myself from her stranglehold. “I’ll
be right back.”

Tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them away
as I hurried to the door, opening it to two men clad in blue jeans
and purple tie-dyed T-shirts. The taller of the two was very
skinny. His completely bald head and shaven face appeared somewhat
chaffed from the cold weather. His light blue eyes bulged a little
as though someone were choking him by the neck.

The other man was quite hairy, so much so, I
wasn’t sure whether he was human or a test tube poodle gone
terribly wrong. Since he stood upright and wore a wristwatch, I’d
have to assume him to be a man, but I’m sure I couldn’t swear to it
under oath. Masses of dark hair sprang from his head as though he
stood before a wind machine. His beard grew to his shoulders and
was so thick, all but his long nose and brown eyes were
obscured.

Figuring I was facing Igor and Wolf, I
offered a friendly smile. “Hi.”

The skinny one nodded with enthusiasm. “You
Mrs. Scott, yeah?”

“I am.”

His response was a wide grin. “Dr. Van Graf,
like, sent us? You know, to like, move your stuff?”

“Yes. He told me he was going to have—”

“He’s Wolf,” he said, indicating his partner.
“And I am Igor.”

“Nice to meet you, Wolf and Ig—”

“Igor to get started,” he burst, breaking
into high-pitched guffaws. I couldn’t help but notice he had pointy
teeth. A lot of pointy teeth.

As Igor chortled and snorted at his own joke,
Wolf spoke up.

“Not to mind him, missus.” He rolled his
eyes. “An idiot, is Igor. Speaking before he is thinking, always.”
He punctuated his critique with a small shrug.

Cordial and polite, Wolf possessed an accent
I couldn’t quite place. The situation being what it was, however, I
decided I didn’t want to pursue an examination of either man’s
origins.

So, “Very nice to meet you both,” was all I
said. Standing back, I opened the door wider and gestured them to
come in. “The furniture pieces have been sold, so it’s just the
boxes. They’re in the living room. Ready to go. There’s, uh,
there’s…”

There’s not
much.

I cleared my throat and forced a smile.
Gesturing toward the archway that led from the foyer to the living
room, I simply said, “In there.”

My life had been reduced to the contents of
twenty cardboard boxes. A series of yard sales over the last few
months had emptied my house of most of the furnishings, small
appliances, dishes, books. I’d kept our clothing and other
necessities. A smaller box, taped up and labeled, contained my
mother’s mementoes. Ironic, since she didn’t remember any of
them.

Three of the cartons held my own past. Me,
young. Me, married. Me, pregnant. My babies in my arms. At one. At
two. Toddling, walking, running, gone now to their dad’s. Hurried
text messages replaced conversations; text messages I wished were
hugs.

As Igor and Wolf began loading my life into
the van, I returned to my mom’s bedroom to finish packing for
her.

She sat quietly, her empty eyes looking at,
but not seeing, me. She’d checked out for a while; it was anybody’s
guess when she’d come back…if she’d come back.

“Missus?” Wolf stood in the bedroom doorway.
“Big snow is to be starting soon. Best we go now. You are needing
anything else?”

I swallowed. “Um, yes. Sort of. I just have a
question, if I may?”

“Yes, missus?”

“How long have you worked for Dr. Van
Graf?”

“Many years.” His jaw clamped shut making it
obvious he would not elaborate.

“Do you find him a good employer?”

We stood facing each other while he seemed to
mull this over. Behind me, my mother coughed, but when I turned to
make sure she was okay, she’d already slipped back into her waking
coma.

“Yes,” Wolf said as I faced him again. “Is
good man. Good to work for.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

His eyes locked with mine, he crossed his
arms over his chest, took in a big breath, let it out. Then, “Know
this. It will be best for you to hurry nowhere. Big house. Easy to
getting lost. Ending up, maybe, in a place you should not want to
be.”

“I see.” I didn’t, but at least I had
something to go on, vague warning though it was.

“Also…” He dropped his arms to his sides.
“Best being in your room at the mid-of-night. Is locking your door.
Stay, and not to wander before the sun is rising.” He turned on his
heel and started down the hallway. Over his shoulder, he said,
“This you do every night, and you are being okay.”

After he’d gone, I struggled to understand
what he’d meant.

Behind me, my mother sighed. When I looked at
her, she was folding and unfolding her hands, her eyes fixed on the
spot where Wolf had been standing. Blinking a few times, she slowly
shook her head.

“Lady?” she whispered. “I have a bad feeling
about this.”

So do I, Mom. God help me,
so do I.

By the time
I’d gotten my mom ready to go, the October sun had tumbled toward
the horizon, smearing the clouds in brilliant pastels like a
child’s erratic finger painting.

Regardless of how long or short the trip,
travel anywhere with my mother always required patience and
planning, but on the Stephanie-Stress-O-Meter-Scale-of-One-to-Ten,
preparing her to move to a new home had accelerated the level from
Mildly Frustrating to Terminally Exasperating.

After buckling Mom securely into the
passenger seat of my silver Forester, I double-checked to make sure
she had her not-too-hot-chocolate-filled travel mug. Folding her
wheelchair, I stowed it in the back of the SUV, then tossed in the
suitcase containing her meds, all the while assuring her the angels
weren’t going to come for her today.

Before climbing behind the wheel, I stopped,
hooked my fingers over the top of my open door, and prepared myself
to say farewell to my house. After months of trying to refinance
with no income, I gave up the fight and let the place fall into
foreclosure. I’d known for weeks this day was coming, but now that
the moment of parting had arrived, I felt as though I were losing a
cherished friend.

The house was the only one I’d ever owned. It
was mine, all mine, bought with my own money after Vince decided he
needed tastier arm candy to display at his executive dinners. The
house was my first, my only. And now I’d lost it.

I could have blamed Vince for my predicament.
I wanted to blame him, but the truth was, it was my fault.

After all, it was my career that had
failed.

My career.

My failure.

My problem.

Not being able to afford to provide better
for my mom would have been an added burden, except for the fact
that even when I’d had the funds, I’d cared for her myself. I owed
it to her—it was my fault she’d developed early onset Alzheimer’s
in the first place.

There was this accident. I was sixteen. I was
driving. The car skidded in the rain and I hit a barrier. And my
mom hit her head. She was in the hospital for a week.

My mother.

My driving.

My fault.

Smiling at the house, I put my fingertips to
my mouth and blew it a gentle kiss. “Bye,” I whispered. “I’ll never
forget you.”

Once inside the SUV, I gave a quick look over
at my mom to make sure she hadn’t unbuckled her seatbelt then
thrust the stick into gear and drove away and away and away, never
once glancing in my rearview mirror.

Looking back would do me no good. The time
had come to look forward.

Snowflakes splattered my windshield as I
rolled through the iron gate for the second time that day and by
the time I reached Moonrise Manor, the snowfall was so heavy, my
wipers could barely keep up. Already, the pine and fir trees were
groaning under the weight of wet snow, and the wind howled through
the treetops like an angry banshee.

Perfect. Just perfect for my first night in
what was most surely a haunted house. But hell, as long as it had
central heating, my mom and I would at least have a roof over our
heads. Things had happened so quickly, I hadn’t had time to let
Kimmie and Jace know we were moving. As soon as I got settled in,
I’d give them a call.

Mom had remained silent during the drive,
staring out the frosty passenger-side window. I wondered where she
thought she was. On arriving at the mansion, she made no remark.
Was she adrift on an empty sea, resting in her bedroom, or simply
gone deep inside her memories? I only knew that wherever she was, I
was not there. I had disappeared from her life moment-by-moment,
inch-by-inch as completely as though I had never been.

An odd dichotomy, this thing called dementia.
Usually, it is the victim who must cope with the consequences of
illness or injury, but with Alzheimer’s, it is not the victim, but
those who love her, who suffer the wounds.

I parked in the same spot as I had that
morning. Setting the brake, I said, “This is it, Mom. Our new home.
For a while anyway.”

She tilted her head. “Are we going in the van
yet?”

Forcing myself not to sigh, I reached over
and patted her hand. “No van. Not today.”

Her brow furrowed. She tugged her hand from
beneath mine and examined it as though it were a foreign thing she
had never seen before.

I would have dwelled on that for a bit, if
not for the sight of my new employer emerging from the house to
make his way down the path to my car.

He’d changed clothes and was wearing an Irish
cable-knit sweater and blue jeans. His stride was long and
graceful, and even as the snowfall swirled around him, he seemed to
glide through it effortlessly. I’d’ve been slipping and jerking and
fallen on my ass three times already, but Dr. Van Graf moved as
through a dream. As he drew nearer, my mother seemed to snap into
some kind of awareness.

“Woof,” she barked, making me jump. “Woof,
woof, woof!”

“Mom?” I reached over and touched her
shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She glowered at me. “I may be old, Lady,” she
snapped, “but I’m not blind. Man. Hunk. Of. Man. Bow-wow and wow
and wow. How old am I?”

“Um…I…” Taken off guard, I paused before
answering.

I was sort of used to these abrupt shifts in
my mother’s conversations. Yet, since I hadn’t a clue why her brain
juked from one thought to a totally unrelated topic, I would
probably never get used to it.