Scott Turow - Personal injuries

By the time Evon arrived in Glen Ayre, Mort had gone off to the funeral parlor, leaving his wife. Joan, behind. She was a tiny, thin woman, pretty in a way, but drying up and bowing just a bit in the hormonal retreat of oncoming middle age. She was dressed in black crepe and pearls and had been setting up coffeepots for the crowd that would arrive here from the cemetery. She showed Evon what Mort had shown her about Rainey's care, as he'd been instructed by Robbie. There was no telling what had been forgotten or misinterpreted in the many retellings. But the basics were apparent. The bedpan. The Sustacal in the kitchen for Rainey's lunch. When Evon realized moments later she was alone with Lorraine, she nearly sent a scream rebounding through the empty house. My God, what if she killed her? Then she sealed off all of that like the hatches in a submarine on the verge of descent.

Rainey slept for nearly half an hour after Evon arrived. She was wearing a full oxygen mask now, a transparent plastic shape covering her mouth and nose. Her breathing was growing more shallow every day. She had no energy to leave the bed, and Evon knew that soon she would be engirded in something called a cuirass, a negative-pressure device to assist in drawing air into her lungs. But that could put off only so long the ultimate crisis of whether she would allow the installation of the mechanical ventilator. Robbie remained hopeful of persuading her as the time for decision drew nearer.

When Rainey woke, Evon reminded her who she was and swung into place the hospital tray that held the computer mouse and its pad, lifting Rainey's fingers onto it. Lorraine was far more adept with the speaking machine than she'd been only a few weeks ago. She scrolled through lists of words, clicking rapidly.

"Oh I Know Who You Are," the bleating boy's voice said. Even without any emphasis, there was something ominous in the choice of words. Evon had no idea what to do if Rainey began to pelt her with the kind of abuse she sometimes hurled at Robbie. He said he'd actually turned off the volume on the speakers on a couple of occasions, but she had no right to be so callous. She busied herself instead. She pulled the covers back on the bed and buttered Lorraine's flaccid arms with almond-scented lotion, but Rainey was not about to be put off.

"He Is Such A Great Liar," Rainey said. "Do You Know What He Says About You?"

Evon stopped. A clutch of devastated feeling was already gathering in her chest.

"He Says You Are A Lesbian."

Evon laughed, longer than she might have but for the relief.

"I am.”

Expression remained alive in the submerged depths of Rainey's eyes, which contracted somewhat in doubt.

"He Talks About You."

"We work together. We're friends. Robbie has lots of friends." Evon found a pillow and pulled Rainey to her side and put it behind her. She'd seen all of this done with her grandmother. Her skill was amazing to her, the ease and naturalness of it once she started. At the side of the bed, she placed her face near Rainey's on the pillows.

"We aren't lovers," she told her.

Even with her body wrecked, Rainey clearly craved to believe her, but she had been hardened by the disappointments Robbie regularly delivered. Rainey circled there in the ruinous back-and-forth of doubt and longing.

Evon read to her for some time. Robbie had begun Mitigating Circumstances, and Evon went through several chapters. No doubt she was a poor substitute for Robbie and his stagecraft. Even to herself, she barely sounded more dramatic than Rainey's voice machine and she was not surprised when Rainey dropped off again. She awoke with a pathetically contained shudder that reached only her right arm and foot. Her eyes sprang open and the palest rasp of sound emerged from her, almost certainly meant to be a scream. Evon could feel the pounding when she touched Lorraine's cheek.

"I Dream I'm Dead. All The Tune."

Evon closed her eyes, caught on the barb of her own dread. It came back to her a second, like some bitter, regurgitative mess rising with a hiccup.

"That must be frightening," she said.

"In Some Ways." Lorraine took her time in thought, then described the dream. She had seen her mother-in-law. "We Were Wearing The Same Hat. It Had A Peacock Plume On The Front." Rainey paused for several breaths amid the bare whooshing of the oxygen tank. "But Then I Wanted To Take It Off. And Realized I Couldn't. That Was Frightening. But It's Not Usually That Way. They Say Dreams Are Wishes. Have You Heard That?"

She had been a psychology major, so she probably had. She'd figured she was going to learn to understand people that way. These days the thought of it made her laugh.

"You Know He's Promised Me." Somehow Evon was beginning to discern expression in the squawking from the computer speaker. It wasn't possible, she realized, yet this dry adenoidal male voice corresponded more and more to the broken person now shaped like a question mark in the bed.

What was it he'd promised? Evon asked. She took Rainey's hand and touched her brow.

"He's Promised. He'll Help Me. Whenever I Tell Him. He Swore To Me."

Unconsciously, she had tightened her grip on Rainey's fingers and barely had the presence of mind to release them. Lorraine was undeterred. She went on describing the arrangement she'd reached with Robbie long ago, when she learned about the disease's inevitable progression. She'd made him reaffirm the agreement only recently when she'd begun to lose the last control of her limbs. It petrified Evon to listen to this. Rainey's voice poured from the speakers at the same volume as before, words that should have been hushed. It was not the act or the idea that frightened Evon so much as contemplating the moment it would be for both of them. But Rainey seemed at ease. The certainty of a reprieve, an outlet, a way to end the suffering seemed a part of bearing it.

"Don't Let Him Back Out. Don't."

"No," Evon said, more as a reflex.

"Promise."

God, she was a cluck, Evon thought of herself, never even to suspect this, particularly given Robbie's longstanding desperation to be certain he was free throughout Lorraine's decline. Robbie, she thought. Good or bad, you'd just never get to the end.

"You can't ask me that, Rainey."

"I Suppose I Can't. But I Ask All His Friends."

She slept again, and Evon herself drifted off, waking at the sudden sound of voices downstairs. Joan had returned, along with Mort's mother, a stout woman with a white bun. Linda, one of Robbie's cousins, wore a hairdo that looked harder than an insect shell and so much jewelry she glittered like a Christmas tree. The women had returned following the service to ready the house for the remainder of the crowd, which would begin arriving after the interment. There had been nearly nine hundred people at the mortuary, they told her, enough to fill a second chapel, where the ceremony was broadcast on closed-circuit TV. Center City must have been a ghost town with the exodus of Feaver's friends-lawyers, clients, court personnel, the legion whom Robbie amused and aided. Joan worried that the house could be overrun. Evon helped the women carry in a dozen heaping trays of cold cuts, which had been sent to Mort's house by friends offering comfort. The new home care person, a grandmotherly Polish immigrant, came in at the same time. She had a heavy suitcase, and Joan, who knew the house, showed her where she would be staying.

Rainey was awake when Evon went back up.

"Cavalry's arrived. I guess I'll be going."

"Come Back."

She promised that.

"I'm Sorry. For Before. I Say Things Now. Sometimes I Don't Believe I Even Thought The Words That Are Coming Out."

Evon took her hand again. She didn't mind, she said. What Rainey feared wasn't true, and she was glad she could reassure her.