L.A. Detwiler - The One Who Got Away

I don’t understand. There’s so much I don’t understand.

I rock myself gently, my back quietly thudding against the headboard. I think about all the horrors I’ve endured here and about how no one believes me. Like so many others, I’m stuck in an unfamiliar place without an escape. Unlike Alice, my wonderland is a nightmarish hell, a swirling phantasm of both mysticism and reality – and there are no friendly faces left at all to help me find my way home.

The babbling resident down the hall warned me. She did. On my first night here, she told me I wouldn’t make it out alive. Now, her words are settling in with a certainty that chills my core. True, it wasn’t the most revolutionary prophecy. No one comes to a nursing home expecting to get out alive, not really. Most of us realise that this place is a one-way ticket, a final stop. It’s why they are so depressing, after all. It’s why our children, our grandchildren, our friends are all suddenly busy when the prospect of visiting comes up in conversation. No one wants to come to this death chamber. No one wants to look reality in the face; the harsh, sickening reality of ageing, of decaying, of fading away.

Still, staring at the warning scrawled in blood on my wall, I know that maybe the woman down the hall meant something very different with her words. I’m going to die here, but not in the peaceful way most people imagine. I’m going to pay first. I’m going to suffer.

But why me? And why now, after so many years have passed since those horrific incidents of my past?

I don’t know who to trust anymore. I don’t know if I can trust myself. My mind is troubled, and my bones are weary. Maybe the nurses are right. It’s all nothing more than this disease gnawing away at me.

But as I look one more time at the blood trickling on the wall, I shake my head. No. I’m not that far gone. I may be old, frail, and incapable of surviving on my own, but I haven’t gone mad yet. I know what’s real and what’s not. And I’m certain this is demonically, insidiously real. Someone here wants to make me pay. Someone here has made it their mission to torment me, to toy with me. Someone here at the Smith Creek Manor Nursing Home wants to kill me. In fact, someone here has killed already.

My hands still shaking, I appreciate the truth no one else can see – it’s just a matter of time until they do it again.

I lie back on the bed, the pieces of glass and the blood cradling me. Maybe, in truth, I resign myself to the fact that I’m helpless, that I’m at a mysterious Mad Hatter’s mercy in this ghoulish game of roulette. I stare at the ceiling, the hairline crack beckoning my eyes to follow it. I lie for a long time, wondering what will happen next, debating what new torture awaits, and trying to predict what the final checkmate will be in this sickly game.

After all, no one gets out of here alive. Even the walls know that.

Smith Creek Manor Nursing Home

2019: One month earlier

The first thing I notice as I’m led into Smith Creek Manor Nursing Home is that the creeping ivy vines strangle the windows. Up, up, up, the vines twist and turn, suffocating the glass panes, choking out any hope of the sun shining into the unsettling, old building. They are a prominent scar on the stone front of the building, marking it as forgotten and dilapidated. It’s a violent disparity with the clean, modern look in the pamphlets they gave to us months ago.

‘Charming, isn’t it?’ Claire beams as she squeezes my arm too tightly, leading me through the creaking front door of the majestic yet decaying building. As I cross the threshold into the draughty building, reality settles in.

There’s no turning back. I live here now. People will walk by on their way to work or to restaurants or the shops, oblivious to me. They won’t think about me or the others here as they try to shield themselves from the stone presence that is a blatant reminder of their own fate. I’ll be the one no one’s thinking about, abandoned in a place called home but feeling like nothing of the sort. The familiar, terrifying twinge in my chest aches, and I clutch at my heart. I squeeze my eyes shut, pausing inside the building as I gasp for air. It hurts to breathe, and the panic doesn’t help. As my heart constricts, the familiar fear usurps me – this time, it will be too much to take. This time, the throbbing won’t stop, and it will all end here, right now.

‘Mum, are you all right?’ Claire asks, patting my shoulder with a concern a mother should express for her child, not the other way around. The order of things is so warped during the ageing process. It takes a moment for me to respond. I try to catch my breath, leaning on the wall, my fingers resting on the scratchy, chilled stone. It’s happening again. Why does this always happen?

After a long moment where I wonder if my lungs are going to keep working, the feeling passes. I open my eyes to look at my daughter, her face contorted with fear. This is why I’m here. This is what put me here, I know. I probably do need to be here, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

I take another deep breath, nodding at my daughter in assurance. She stares for a moment, probably deciding what to do. But I’m here now, and this is the best place for me – or so everyone says. Thus, she leads me forward, and we methodically trudge further and further into the cave that is Smith Creek Manor. Claire bubbles on about how lovely the statue is inside the door and how bright and airy the entrance is. I nod silently, knowing why she’s raving about architectural features. She wants this to work out. No – correction – she needs this to work out. As a fifty-two-year-old divorcee, she’s got more pressing matters to worry about than her daft old mother who is incapable of living on her own. She needs to get back to her job, the life she’s created for herself here in Crawley. She wants me to be happy here to quell her rising guilt. I understand. I don’t blame her. But it doesn’t mean I find Smith Creek Manor charming or likeable or anything of the sort. I don’t want to be here, even if my thudding chest and exhausted mind tell me I probably need to be.

It’s true, I’m being unfair. Any place but 14 Quail Avenue would be a disappointment to me right now. I miss my familiar house in Harlow. I miss Charles. I miss my marriage, my life and the place I called home for so long. This isn’t home. Crawley hasn’t been home for decades, not for me at least. I suppose in many ways, even all those years ago when I lived here during my teenage years, it never was home. In fact, for many years, it was a dark stain in my life, a reminder of all that can go wrong in the world. And for so many years, I’ve thought all of this was in my past – buried deep, deep in the past.

I know it’s pointless to get nostalgic or angry. It’s all done. It’s over now. The for sale sign in front of our house in Harlow was changed to sold . My few belongings were packed, the finances and paperwork were taken care of. I’m here. There’s no turning back.

It pains me to think about 14 Quail Avenue having new tenants. I hate the thought of some new couple dancing underneath the kitchen arch where Charles used to kiss me on the cheek before leaving for work. I loathe the thought of some frilly woman redoing the wallpaper that I loved so much in the sitting room or modernising the charming fireplace that Charles built by hand. Pain throbs in my chest at the thought of the new couple’s children or grandchildren playing with toy cars and dolls in the spot of the sitting room where my dear Charles fell over, dead, one year ago. I hate them. I hate this place. I hate it all.

‘Ms Evans, welcome. So lovely to see you. Welcome to Smith Creek Manor. What a lovely choice for your new home,’ a woman in shiny way-too-high heels offers. She shakes Claire’s hand before rubbing my shoulder. Thus, the patronising gestures begin. I shrug it off. I know I’m just sensitive today.