Carol O’Connell - Stone Angel

Darlene looked up at him and smiled. She folded back a page of the magazine to mark her place, then looked quickly to Ira, as though this rustle of paper could have disturbed his sleep. She motioned Charles to join her in the hall outside the room.

Softly, she pulled the door closed behind them, saying, “It’s his first day out of the intensive care unit. His doctor says he’s going to be just fine.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I have some good news for you. Let me buy you a cup of coffee in the cafeteria.”

As they walked down the corridor, he noted that Darlene did not fill out her clothes anymore, and her nails were bitten down to the quick and raw.

“You know,” said Darlene, “when he’s awake, he lets me hold his hand. I’m sure he still hates to be touched. I think it’s sort of like he’s giving me a present.”

Her fingers went mechanically to her mouth. Suddenly self-conscious of the ragged nails, she drove both her hands deep into the pockets of her skirt. “When Ira was little, he used to bring me flowers from Cass’s garden. I always thought she made him do that, maybe as part of his therapy. But Mallory said no. When she came by last night, she told me Ira always asked Cass if he could pick flowers for his mother.”

Charles thought that was a beautiful story. And if Mallory had made it up, it was even better.

The cafeteria was noisy with the rush of feet and fifty conversations, clattering dishes and silverware. The staff and visitors were all deep in their own preoccupations and taking little notice of Charles and his pale companion.

Darlene’s skin was sickly in this brighter fluorescent lighting. He seated her at the nearest table. If she did not sit down, and soon, she might fall. When had this woman slept last?

“You wait here. I’ll get the coffee.”

He meant to bring her only that cup of coffee, all that she had wanted, but while he was in line with the other patrons, he also loaded down the tray with nutritious green vegetables, and suspicious gray meat swimming in dishwater gravy. The piece de resistance was a dry-looking slice of chocolate cake encased in a cellophane bag. It was his intention to fatten her up.

When he set the tray down in front of her, she laughed.

Well, that was an improvement.

As he sat down, he handed her the letter of introduction from the Dallheim Project. She read in silence, and then the paper fell from her hands. “They want him! They want Ira!”

“Oh, yes. Now they’re very excited about him. Eat something. And it’s not just the multiple talents. I think it was Ira’s star that finally won them over.”

He had badgered the project director for days with stories gleaned from Betty, Mallory and Augusta, until Darlene’s son had become a person instead of an application number. Ira had jumped to first place on the long waiting list.

“They’ll take him as soon as he’s well enough to travel to New Orleans. You won’t be allowed to visit him for the first three months. But later, you’ll be able to bring him home on the weekends.”

“I understand. You really think he has a chance of making it on his own?”

“Thanks to you. If you hadn’t kept up his therapy, he’d be a lost cause by now. Please eat something. It might take years of work, but in time, he will be able to survive outside of a care facility.”

“So if anything should happen to me – ”

“He won’t go to a state institution.”

She was happy for a few moments, even outglowing the brilliant overhead lights. Then something else must have occurred to her, for her eyes were saddened now. Perhaps she was grieving over something that had not happened yet. He could make a shrewd guess at what that might be. “That’s good – wonderful.” She was more subdued now. “There’s something I have to do. I only needed – ”

“Try the meat, Darlene. I’m just wildly curious to find out what species it is.”

She picked up the knife and fork and went through the motions of cutting the meat. Losing the last of her energy now, the knife and fork were laid down in the thin gravy. “Not too appetizing, is it? Sorry.”

“I need to talk to the sheriff,” she said. “There’s something – ”

“Did you hear the sheriff’s theory that Fred Laurie killed Babe?”

“Fred didn’t do it.” Her hand upset the coffee cup, and a stream of brown liquid ran across the table.

“I know.” Charles pulled napkins from the metal dispenser at the center of the table and mopped up the spilled coffee. “But, you see, everyone really likes this theory. So it might be difficult to force your confession on the sheriff. Try the vegetables.”

“You knew.” She raked one hand through her hair, fingers thin as claws. “I wanted to tell Tom. I wanted to tell him every day. I don’t sleep at night. I keep hearing that rock hit Babe’s skull.”

“You don’t have to tell me any of this.”

“But I do,” she said, a bit too loud. The people at the next table turned to look at her. Darlene lowered her head. “I want to.” Her voice was a whisper now. “I have to talk to somebody.” She worked her wedding ring up and down her finger. “I saw Babe leave the car at the gas station. He was heading for the bridge over Upland Bayou. I went back after him while the doctors were working on my boy. But it’s not what you think, not because of what he did to Ira’s hands.” Her ring was so loose now, so little flesh on the bone. Charles stared at his reflection in the metal napkin dispenser. He couldn’t meet her eyes anymore. She was in so much pain as she described the violence on the road to Cass Shelley’s house.

“I didn’t know if I’d killed him or not. I screamed when I saw all the blood, and I ran for the car. I was sure someone must have heard me or seen me. I left him lying there in the road and went back to the hospital to wait for the sheriff. I was so sure that any minute Tom would walk in the door and arrest me. When the doctor came to the waiting room to talk to me, he didn’t notice that there was more blood on my suit -

“Babe’s blood splattered over Ira’s.”

She buried her face in her hands, and Charles stared at her wounded fingertips.

“Eat something.” This was what his mother had always said to him when he had been through another day of torture among normal children with average-size noses and intelligence. Food conveyed nurture and caring, and it was all he could think of to comfort her.

Darlene picked up her fork and absently stirred the peas into the cranberry sauce. “I was half crazy wondering what would happen to my boy when I went to prison.” The peas swirled round and round in the red sauce, faster and faster. “Every single day, I thought Tom would arrest me. I even tried to tell him once – when I thought I couldn’t stand it another minute.”

The fork slipped and the peas scattered, some to the floor, and one flew to the next table. “But I didn’t tell. Who would have looked after Ira?”

Two people seated nearby stared at the single pea and a dot of cranberry sauce at the center of their table.

Darlene abandoned the vegetables. Peas were too difficult. She picked up the cellophane package with the cake inside. “How did you know, Charles?”

“This is the hospital where Cass ordered Ira’s blood tests. When you brought him in with his broken hands, a red flag showed up on the computer for the previous entry – when Ira was only six. The doctor would have asked you if he’d completed the treatment for syphilis. The computer entry was sparse and he would have wanted a patient history – standard procedure.”

“It was the desk nurse, not a doctor.” Her hands worked over the cake wrapper, trying to tear it open and failing to find the weakness in the cellophane seal. “I didn’t know what that woman was talking about. I said it was a mistake. Ira had been tested for hepatitis that year, not syphilis.”