The Law of Nines

29

"HI, MOM,” ALEX SAID in a sunny voice as he came to a stop before her.

She was wearing powder-blue pajama pants and a flowered hospital gown tied in the back. He sometimes brought her nice things to wear but she rarely wore them. She was seldom connected to reality enough to be aware of what clothes she had put on, or to care. On the occasions when she had been aware, she had told him that she was saving her good clothes for when she got out.

Some of her lack of interest in what she wore, he knew, was her mental condition, but a large part of it was the result of the drugs. It was the Thorazine syrup they gave her that left her so heavily sedated, largely indifferent to what was going on around her, and made her shuffle when she walked. It weighed her mind down and made her seem twice her age.

Fortunately, they had arrived not long before she was due for another regular dose of medication. Alex had learned over the years that he had the best chance of seeing her a little more aware when the drugs had started to wear off a little before it was time for her next dose of medication. He often wondered what she would be like, how much better she might be able to communicate, if she were not on such powerful drugs. It was frustrating in the extreme not to be able to have a normal conversation with her.

Alex had often asked the doctors if she couldn’t be taken off the Thorazine, or at least put on something less powerful. Dr. Hoffmann, the head psychiatrist at Mother of Roses, insisted that in her case there was no other antipsychotic drug that was as effective. He claimed that it was the only thing powerful enough to suppress her violent psychosis. He said that it was all that was keeping her somewhat human, keeping her from being a raving lunatic.

Dr. Hoffmann had said that he was sure Alex wouldn’t want that for his mother, nor would he want to see her physically restrained twenty-four hours a day. He’d said that he was sure Alex would want her to have as much human dignity as possible. The drugs, he said, were what made that possible.

Alex had never been able to argue against that.

His mother rose from the worn-out brown leather couch. She didn’t smile. She almost never smiled.

She took in Jax with a quick glance and then frowned up at him. “Alex, what are you doing here?”

Alex was gratified that she not only remembered his name, but used it. She almost never did that. He wondered if maybe Jax was having a positive influence. He hoped so.

“I came to visit you. I wanted you to meet—”

“I told you to run and hide. Why are you here? You should be hiding.”

“I know, Mom. You’re right. But I had to come here first.”

“You should be hiding from them.”

Alex gently grasped Jax’s elbow and guided her forward. He realized he had butterflies. He wanted his mother to like Jax.

“Mom, listen to me. I want you to meet my friend. This is Jax. Jax, this is Helen Rahl.”

Jax extended her hand. “I’m so very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Rahl,” she said with a warm smile. “Now I know where Alex got those penetrating gray eyes of his.”

His mother looked down at the hand for a moment, then took it. She put her other hand over the top in a less formal manner.

“You are Alex’s friend?” she asked without releasing Jax’s hand.

“I am. We’re good friends.”

“How good?”

Jax smiled. It was a broad, genuine smile. “I care for Alex a great deal, Mrs. Rahl. That’s the truth of it.”

“Jax is about as good a friend as anyone could have,” Alex put in.

His mother stared at him a moment. “You should be hiding.” She pulled Jax closer by her hand. “You should be hiding, too.”

“I think that’s pretty good advice,” Jax said. “As soon as we have a visit with you I’m going to help Alex hide.”

His mother nodded. “Good. You both need to hide.”

Alex checked the other women in the sunroom. Most were watching the visitors rather than the TV.

“Mom,” Alex said, taking her arm, “we really need to talk to you. How about if we go to your room?”

Without protest she let Alex and Jax hold her hands and lead her out of the bright sunroom into the darker corridor. Most of the women on the other side of the room watched them leave. A few were engaged in conversations with no one in particular. One woman waved her arms in a loud argument with someone who wasn’t there.

Alex was relieved to see that his mother’s older roommate, Agnes, was watching the soap opera on the TV and didn’t follow them. While she never spoke, she did often sit in the room and stare at him when he visited his mother.

As they went through the doorway into his mother’s room, Jax first casually glanced in both directions down the hallway to see who might be watching them go in. A nurse, with an orderly to assist her, was at the far end of the hall, taking a tray of medications into the sunroom. Two orderlies coming down the hall in the other direction smiled as they went by.

Alex guided his mother to a leather chair against the wall beneath the window. The nearly opaque glass let in only a frost of light. He and Jax sat on the side of the bed, facing her.

Before they could ask her anything, his mother rose from the chair and shuffled over to a small wardrobe. After a brief search she pulled a shawl from the shelf. When his mother draped the shawl over the polished metal square screwed to the wall that served as a mirror, Jax glanced over at him out of the corner of her eye. He knew what she was thinking.

“They look at me,” his mother muttered on her way back to them.

“We know,” Jax said. “I’m glad that you know to cover your mirror.”

His mother paused to stare at Jax. “You know?”

Jax nodded. “They’ve been watching Alex the same way. That’s why we’re here. We want to stop them from looking at you, and from looking at Alex.”

There wasn’t a lot of room between the bed and the chair against the wall. As she shuffled by, she rested a hand on Jax’s knee for support.

She paused, then reached out and ran her thin hand down Jax’s wavy blond hair. “You have such long, beautiful hair.”

“Thank you,” Jax said. “So do you.”

As she sat, Alex’s mother reached up and ran a hand down over her own hair. “I brush it to keep it nice. I won’t let them cut it.”

“I never let anyone cut mine, either,” Jax said.

Satisfaction at Jax’s words brought a small smile to her thin lips. “Good.” She turned her gaze to Alex, as if she had forgotten he was there. “Alex, why aren’t you hiding, like I told you?”

“Mom, we need to know about these people who are looking at you.”

“They ask me things, too.”

Alex nodded. “I remember you saying that. That’s why we’re here. We need to know what they want.”

“What they want?”

His mother, when she was lucid, or lucid after a fashion, became easily confused. Alex also knew that she wasn’t likely to remain aware of the real world around her for long. If they didn’t get answers soon her mind would very likely turn inward. On the other hand, he knew that they needed to be gentle in their questioning or she would simply switch off. In years of trying, he was rarely successful at walking the razor’s edge with her.

There was also the problem that when they brought in her medication she would quickly get groggy. Her speech would begin to slur. Soon after, nothing she said would make sense. But that was the drugs, not her mind switching off. As far as Alex was concerned they simply needed to get answers before she couldn’t answer, no matter what the cause.

“That’s right, Mom. The people who watch you want something.

You told me about it before. You said that they want something from you. We need to know about that.”

She touched a slender finger to her lower lip. “They ask about, about. . the way they talk, it’s not easy to remember. I don’t understand what they want from me. Always asking things, such confusing things. I don’t understand.”

“I know. It’s confusing for us, too. But we need to know what they want from you. Please, Mom, just try to remember what it is they want to know.”

When his mother only frowned, as if she didn’t understand what he was asking her, Jax leaned in, resting her forearms on her knees.

“Mrs. Rahl, they probably say something like ‘Tell us about. .’ and then they say something. Remember? When they say, ‘Tell us about,’ what’s the rest of what they say?”

His mother smoothed down her hair for a moment as she considered. She looked up suddenly.

“They say, ‘Tell us about the gate,’ I think. Is that right?”

Jax didn’t so much as blink.

“That can’t be it,” she whispered to herself as she slowly stood. “That can’t be what they mean.”

“What?” Alex stood up next to her. As her gaze cast about distantly, he could almost see her mind racing. “What does that mean?”

Jax didn’t seem to hear him. She abruptly looked back down at his mother, her voice becoming insistent, almost demanding.

“Is that what they say? ‘Gate’? Is that the exact word?”

His mother shrank back into her chair a little. “The exact word?”

Alex could tell that she was getting confused by the pressure to come up with an answer. Seeing the grave look on Jax’s face, though, he decided not to interfere.

“Maybe you’re thinking that’s the word they meant,” Jax said, “but maybe that’s not the word they used. Could it be a longer word that made you think of the word ‘gate’?”

She puzzled up at Jax. “Longer word? Maybe. .”

“Maybe what?” Jax pressed.

Alex thought that Jax looked like she was about to grab his mother by the collar and haul her to her feet.

His mother’s eyes brightened a little as she suddenly seemed to remember.

“Not ‘gate.’ ‘Gateway.’ That’s the word.” She held up a finger. “They say, ‘Tell us about the gateway.’ ”

Jax went ashen.

“Dear spirits, have mercy on us.”

Alex put a hand on the small of her back to steady her. “What’s wrong?”

“I know what it is they want,” she whispered. Her fingers trembled as she pushed her hair back from her face. “Alex, we’re in a lot of trouble.”

Just then the door opened. “Time for your afternoon medications, Helen.”

It was a nurse. Alex was so rattled he couldn’t recall her name. She was middle-aged, big-boned, and wore white from head to toe. Her white nurse’s hat had a small red stripe around the edge, but her crisp dress was pure white. It went to midcalf, where it covered opaque white hose. Her thick white shoes were spotless.

“I don’t want them!” Alex’s mother shouted.

“Now, now, Helen,” the woman said as she came closer, “you know that Dr. Hoffmann wants you to take your medications so that you’ll feel better.”

“No! Leave me be!”

The door opened again as Henry pushed his way in. He saw Alex’s mother waving her arms, trying to keep the nurse at bay.

“Helen, you be nice, now,” Henry said. “You don’t want to be making a ruckus in front of your nice visitors.”

Alex’s mother sometimes tackled the nurses when she got the chance. The orderly was there to make sure that that didn’t happen. Alex considered taking the medication from the nurse and giving it to his mother himself so that maybe she wouldn’t become so agitated that Henry would have to intervene.

“We won’t be a minute, Alex,” the nurse whispered to him.

Alice. That was her name. “Thanks, Alice. I understand.”

He watched Jax out of the corner of his eye as she moved out of the way so that Alice could squeeze in between the bed and the chair. He was worried about Jax.

Alex wanted Alice and Henry out of the room so that he could find out why Jax had become so upset at hearing the word “gateway.”

Henry looked embarrassed to have to intrude and cause a scene. “I’m sorry, Alex,” he said as he came closer. “We’ll be out of your way as soon as we make sure she takes her meds.”

Alex nodded, moving farther down the bed, trying to give the nurse room. As she stepped closer she held the tray up out of the way, in case his mother took a swing at it.

Jax, deep in thought, turned away. Upon hearing the word “gateway” she’d said that she knew what they wanted. Alex wanted to know what she’d figured out, what this was all about. He wanted to find out what had her so upset and distracted.

Whatever it was, it appeared that they had found the answer they’d come for.

“Leave me be!” his mother yelled, snatching for the tray.

“Come on now, Helen,” Alice said, holding it out of reach, “settle down.”

The next time Alex glanced over, he saw Henry with a syringe held partially out of sight. He knew that the orderlies sometimes brought a syringe along when they thought there was the possibility of trouble. They’d told him in the past that they would rather give his mother a shot when she became violent than try to restrain her physically and risk hurting her.

“I told you before, Alice,” his mother yelled, “I don’t know anything about a gateway!”

Jax looked over sharply.

As she did, Henry snatched her by the hair. At the same time he stabbed the syringe into her rump. Before she knew what had happened or could react, he jammed the plunger home.

Alex was already diving over the corner of the bed toward the man. Henry turned and swung a meaty fist at him but Alex blocked the blow with his forearm as he dove inside the man’s defenses.

Behind him, as he crashed into Henry, the nurse swept another syringe off the tray she had been holding up out of sight and rammed it into Alex’s behind. Alex felt the hot stab of the drug cocktail being injected into his backside as Alice shoved the plunger all the way into the syringe. Having his hands full with Henry, he hadn’t been able to turn in time to stop the woman.

Jax landed a full-force side kick in the woman’s ribs, sending her flying. Alice knocked his mother back into the chair before crashing headlong into the wall by the headboard. The tray clattered against the floor. The lamp attached to the wall broke off as she snatched it for support on her way down. The bulb shattered with a pop, sending glass everywhere.

As he struggled with the big man, Alex saw Jax reach for a knife at her waist. There was no knife there. She faltered, stumbled, and then started to go down even as she tried to swing at Henry. She missed by a mile.

Alex was lost in rage. Grappling with the powerful orderly, he growled in fury as he swept a leg around behind the man’s legs to take him off his feet. It upended Henry and they both went down, Alex on top of him. They hit hard, Henry on his back. Alex followed up immediately with a blow from his elbow that crushed Henry’s nose.

Henry cried out in pain. Out of the corner of his eye Alex saw another orderly charging into the room.

Alex tried to swing his fist as the second man jumped him and swept an arm around his neck, but his own arms were tingling and going numb. They wouldn’t respond to his wishes. He tried harder. When Henry punched him in the middle Alex reflexively rammed his knee up into the man’s groin. Henry cringed in pain. Alex struggled to get up, but the second man at his back had him securely by the neck.

Out of the corner of his eye Alex saw Jax trying to crawl toward him to help. Alice planted a white shoe on Jax’s neck, pinning her to the floor. Jax moved as if she were mired in mud. She cried out his name, but it came out as a slurred murmur.

The world began to blur. Everything looked small, as if it were at the distant end of a dark tunnel. Alex yelled Jax’s name, but only a whisper made its way out.

His fingers found hers, then. Both of them held on for dear life as the room dimmed.

Alex felt himself being engulfed by thick, tingling blackness. It was all happening too fast.

His last thought, before thought ceased to exist, was of Jax, of the terror in her eyes.