Harlan Coben - Just One Look

“Yes. Bobby jokes that he’s waited his whole life for that kind of odds.”

Grace smiled.

She waved a hand. “Oh, but he’s all talk. His wife-he calls her ‘his Maudie’-died almost thirty years ago. I don’t think he’s looked at a woman since.”

That silenced them. The corridor was done up in forest green and pink, the walls lined with the familiar-Rockwell prints, dogs playing poker, black-and-whites from old movies like Casablanca and Strangers on a Train . Grace limped along. Lindsey noticed it-Grace could tell the way she cut quick glances-but like most people, she said nothing.

“We have different neighborhoods at Starlight,” Lindsey explained. “That’s what we call the corridors like this. Neighborhoods. Each has a different theme. The one we’re in now is called Nostalgia. We think the residents find it comforting.”

They stopped at a door. A nameplate on the right said “B. Dodd.” She knocked on the door. “Bobby?”

No reply. She opened the door anyway. They stepped into a small but comfortable room. There was a tiny kitchenette on the right. On the coffee table, ideally angled so that you could see it from both the door and the bed, was a large black-and-white photograph of a stunning woman who looked a bit like Lena Horne. The woman in the picture was maybe forty but you could tell that the picture was old.

“That’s his Maudie.”

Grace nodded, lost for a moment in this image in the silver frame. She thought again about “her Jack.” For the first time she allowed herself to consider the unthinkable: Jack might never come home. It was something she’d been avoiding from the moment she’d heard the minivan start up. She might never see Jack again. She might never hold him. She might never laugh at one of his corny jokes. She might never-and this was apropos to think here-grow old with him.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“Bobby must be up with Ira on Reminiscence. They play cards.”

They began to back out of the room. “Is Reminiscence another, uh, neighborhood?”

“No. Reminiscence is what we call our third floor. It’s for our residents with Alzheimer’s.”

“Oh.”

“Ira doesn’t recognize his own children, but he still plays a mean game of poker pinochle.”

They were back in the hall. Grace noticed a cluster of images next to Bobby Dodd’s door. She took a closer look. It was one of those box frames people use to display trinkets. There were army medals. There was an old baseball, brown with age. There were photographs from every era of the man’s life. One photograph was of his murdered son, Bob Dodd, the same one she’d seen on the computer last night.

Lindsey said, “Memory box.”

“Nice,” Grace said, because she didn’t know what else to say.

“Every patient has one by their door. It’s a way to let everyone know about you.”

Grace nodded. Summing up a life in a twelve-by-eight box frame. Like everything else about this place, it managed to be both appropriate and creepy at the exact same time.

To get to the Reminiscence floor you had to use an elevator that worked by a coded numeric keypad. “So the residents don’t wander,” Lindsey explained, which again fit into the “making sense yet giving the willies” style of this place.

The Reminiscence floor was comfortable, well appointed, well staffed, and terrifying. Some residents were functional, but most wilted in wheelchairs like dying flowers. Some stood and shuffled. Several muttered to themselves. All had that glazed, hundred-yard stare.

A woman deep into her eighties jangled her keys and started for the elevator.

Lindsey asked, “Where are you going, Cecile?”

The old woman turned toward her. “I have to pick up Danny from school. He’ll be waiting for me.”

“It’s okay,” Lindsey said. “School won’t be out for another two hours.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. Look, let’s have some lunch and then you can pick up Danny, okay?”

“He has piano lessons today.”

“I know.”

A staff member came over and steered Cecile away. Lindsey watched her go. “We use validation therapy,” she said, “with our advanced Alzheimer’s patients.”

“Validation therapy?”

“We don’t argue with them or try to make them see the truth. I don’t, for example, tell her that Danny is now a sixty-two-year-old banker with three grandchildren. We just try to redirect them.”

They walked down a corridor-no, “neighborhood”-filled with life-size dolls of babies. There was a changing table and teddy bears.

“Nursery neighborhood,” she said.

“They play with dolls?”

“Those that are more high functioning. It helps them prepare for visits from great-grandchildren.”

“And the others?”

Lindsey kept walking. “Some think they’re young mothers. It helps soothe them.”

Subconsciously, or maybe not, they picked up the pace. A few seconds later, Lindsey said, “Bobby?”

Bobby Dodd rose from the card table. The first word that came to mind: Dapper. He looked sprightly and fresh. He had dark black skin, thick wrinkles like something you might see on an alligator. He was a snappy dresser in a tweed jacket, two-tone loafers, red ascot with matching hanky. His gray hair was cropped close and slicked down.

His manner was upbeat, even after Grace explained that she wanted to talk to him about his murdered son. She looked for some signs of devastation-a wetness in the eye, a tremor in the voice-but Bobby Dodd showed nothing. Okay, yes, Grace was dealing in heavy generalities, but could it be that death and big-time tragedy did not hit the elderly as hard as the rest of us? Grace wondered. The elderly could be easily agitated by the little stuff-traffic delays, lines at airports, poor service. But it was as if the big things never quite reached them. Was there a strange selfishness that came with age? Was there something about being closer to the inevitable-having that perspective-that made one either internalize, block, or brush off the big calamities? Can frailty not handle the big blows, and thus a defense mechanism, a survival instinct, runs interference?

Bobby Dodd wanted to help, but he really didn’t know much. Grace could see that almost right away. His son had visited twice a month. Yes, Bob’s stuff had been packed up and sent to him, but he hadn’t bothered opening it.

“It’s in storage,” Lindsey told Grace.

“Do you mind if I look through it?”

Bobby Dodd patted her leg. “Not at all, child.”

“We’ll need to ship it to you,” Lindsey said. “The storage facility is off site.”

“It’s very important.”

“I can have it overnighted.”

“Thank you.”

Lindsey left them alone.

“Mr. Dodd-”

“Bobby, please.”

“Bobby,” Grace said. “When was the last time your son visited you?”

“Three days before he was killed.”

The words came quickly and without thought. She finally saw a flicker behind the façade, and she wondered about her earlier observations, about old age making tragedy less hurtful-or does it merely make the mask more deft?

“Did he seem different at all?”

“Different?”

“More distracted, anything like that.”

“No.” Then: “Or at least I didn’t notice, if he did.”

“What did you talk about?”

“We never have much to say. Sometimes we talk about his momma. Most of the time we just watch TV. They got cable here, you know.”

“Did Jillian come with him?”

“No.”

He said that too quickly. Something in his face closed down.

“Did she ever come?”

“Sometimes.”

“But not the last time?”

“That’s right.”