J.T. Warren - Remains

I put the key in the slot, and turned it slowly. It clicked, and the handle gave.

Hospitals have a certain smell. Anyone in the world can be blindfolded and dropped off on a hospital ward and know exactly where they are. The room was dim as I pushed the door open. The smell was different, though, than the hallway outside. Somehow, it was darker; more like something horrible than something strange.

I came in, and shut the door behind me. On the bed, the sheets were rumpled. The nightstand was a jumble of sketch pads. Crayons littered the floor. Against the far wall, a counter and a small sink snugged up under a mirror. To the right of the sink was a wall partition. I couldn’t see what was back there, but I guessed a bathroom. As I stood there, I could hear the sound of water dripping. There was a sloshing sound, and then I heard a door open.

“Who is—?” I heard her say, before I saw her walk out from behind that partition wall. “—it,” she finished, stopping. The lights above her mirror made bright lights shoot through her hair. It looked like a halo, only tarnished like brass.

She was completely naked, and covered in water. Her hair was damp, and she was older, but it still looked like her. She was almost the exact same as I’d seen her on that day she came to get Randy from the Y. My eyes traveled from her lips to her breast to her hips before I could stop them. Something in my head knew I shouldn’t be looking, but I was. Something else in me, deeper down, liked that I was looking when I shouldn’t.

I thought, from the blank expression on her face, she was going to scream. Everyone in movies screams when something like this happens. She didn’t, though. Her face relaxed into a smile.

“Randy,” she said, her shoulders relaxing.

She came forward, and put her hands under my arm I stumbled. I caught myself. She wasn’t strong enough to help, but her touch made it easier to get the strength to stand. I tried to look at her eyes, but mine kept drifting to her breasts, her neck. I smelled her wet skin, and felt its warmth against me.

“This is a surprise. Where have you been?” she asked.

“I—,” I started; her tone made me respond, “I don’t know.”

“Well, you need to stay here with your mama,” she said, her hands still under my arm. She led me to the bed, and sat us both down. I tried not to look at her thighs, at her ankles. “Always out wandering. Gonna’ get yourself in trouble, that’s what.” She reached for my shirt and started to pull it up.

“What are you—?” I asked.

“It’s bath time, Randolph McPherson. No back talk. It is late and I am not in any mood to fool with you,” she said, and pulled my shirt off. My heart was racing. Her eyes were clear! She wasn’t seeing me, but her eyes weren’t murky or cloudy or any of a million other things I’d thought about for so long. Her eyes were clear .

“Mrs. McPherson—,” I started.

“ What ?” she asked with a small laugh, pulling away from me a bit. “What did you just say?” she asked, her face quirking into a lopsided smile.

“Mrs. McPherson, you’ve got to listen to me for a second,” I said. Her face stayed quirked to the side, “I need to ask you something about Randy, and about the Sheriff.”

“You stay away from the Sheriff, you hear me?” she said, and reached for my belt. I put my hand in the way, and she smacked it. “Boy, what are you doing? It is bath time.”

“I—,” I said, beginning to protest, but I saw that she wasn’t going to listen. Parts of me had begun to respond to her nakedness, though. My shoulders and elbows felt cold, while every other part of me was burning. I couldn’t catch my breath. “Okay, I’ll take a bath,” I said, hearing Randy’s voice in my head as I did, “but I want to undress by myself,” I said.

“Well, I never —,” she started, but then stopped herself. The smile faded. She sighed. “Alright. I’ve never known you to be so shy, though. Go on. But you wash behind your ears, you hear? I could prolly grow potatoes back there.” I stood up and went behind the partition. I was running out of time; somehow, I knew that. I knew that Kevin wouldn’t be able to stand being slobbered on for too long. Some part of me hoped that was how he’d feel, at any rate. Moving away from her made my body start to relax.

“Mom?” I said, and nearly choked. This was the only way, though.

I knew that.

“Yes, Randolph,” she said.

“Tell me about dad,” I said. My shirt was lying next to my shoe, so I bent to pick it up and held it for a moment.

“Your father,” she said, and sighed. “Your father was a police officer, Randolph. He wasn’t the nicest man, but he was a good man. You’ll understand that someday, honey. The difference, I mean. You’ll see it. I’m raising you to be a good man, baby. A good man. You’ll see.” Even though she was still sitting in almost the same position she had been on the bed, I could tell her mind was far away from here. Something in her voice said she was seeing something other than these four walls. Her tone was flat, and the words seemed to come at a steady rhythm. “Your father was a hard man, too. I don’t think you’ll take after him like that. He knew about Peter, though. He hated Peter. Thought he was a ‘weak little nanny boy’” she said, and her voice got deeper, as if she was attempting to imitate someone. “Said ‘that man over there gonna’ take a pretty philly like you to wife?’ He didn’t say it, but I know what he meant,” she said, imitating again. The clicking switch in my head was so loud, I thought someone might come running to find its source.

She was clearly imitating Sheriff Aiken.

“Said ‘that boy over yonder don’t know his pecker from a parkin’ meter, you can bet on that . He hated Peter, but had to keep up appearances. He said he couldn’t ‘do nothin’ unseemly’.” She said, and a chill ran across my shoulders. “I don’t hear no water movin’ around in there, boy,” she said. I leaned down and splashed my hand around a little. “So, one night I went out to meet him. Must’a been about midnight or so. God, I was just a girl, then. Just a girl. Just a girl,” she said, her voice getting softer each time, trailing off.

The room was quiet for a while, then I heard the sobbing start. I was frozen. For a second, I felt like I really was a little boy, again. I’d never heard my mother cry, and for some reason I’d never even thought that she had or would. This woman in the other room was not my mother, but there was something that connected us. I stood up, and walked around the partition wall. She was slumped over herself, bent at the waist. Her head rested on her knees. Her back and shoulders were shaking violently in long, racking sobs. I was frozen. I sat down on the bed next to her. Her sobs let out in tiny breaths from between her teeth, as if she were trying to clench them back.

“Oh, Johnny, what are we gonna’ do? What are we gonna’ do ?” she whispered, her throat closed up by her crying. She lifted up just enough to turn her head toward me, and her face was a wreck. “Johnny, it’s your’n. It’s your’n, and he’s gonna’ know . What are we gonna’ do ?”

Her eyes pleaded with me for some action, and I didn’t know what to say. Who was Johnny? I put my arm around her back, felt her bird-frail shoulder blades under my arm each time they rocked from her sobbing. She moved herself to fit into my side. Her head went onto my lap. She kept saying “It’s your’n” over and over again, but only bits of it would come out at a time. The rest was choked off by a sob or an inhale. After a while, though, the crying dyed down. She looked up at me, and sat up a bit straighter. For a while, we sat there, side by side. She would sob, then wipe at her eyes, then go quiet. I only looked at her out of the corner of my eye.