Familiar Strangers Read online

  Familiar Strangers

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  A LETTER FROM JACKIE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Copyright

  Familiar Strangers

  Jackie Walsh

  To Phyllis and Denis

  Prologue

  The light is dimming now, casting shadows all around, but I continue to dig. Dragging up soil, tossing it aside, digging out more. Lifting my hand, I rub the water from my eyes. Rain? Tears? I no longer know. Sirens whine in the distance, getting louder, closer. I have to find it, take it from the ground. It’s what she wanted, what she asked for.

  Rain blurs my vision, seeping through my t-shirt and soaking my skin, running down my front, down my back, filling my shoes.

  I glance up at the house looming in the darkness. A gust of wind catches the broken guttering, banging it against the wall. Bang-bang-bang.

  I’m alone here, which is what I want.

  The hole is already filling with water so I work quicker, making it wider, wishing the gathering pool away. To my right I see a plant pot caught below a plank of wood. It cracks when I pull it free. Sweeping the pools of water into the pot, I pour it to the side but the more I bail, the quicker it fills up again.

  My eyes burn as I look up at the sky and feel the rain sting my face. I think I see Him in the shapes created by the dark menacing clouds rolling past, hiding the stars, hiding the moon. Help me, God. Please, help me.

  I dig again, harder and harder, grabbing at the earth until finally my fingers catch on something hard. My breathing stops. Tugging and pulling, I haul the box out of the ground and open it. Removing the bundle from inside, I lay it on the grass, let the rain wash it clean.

  The bag is badly worn and torn in places, but it’s still pretty much intact. With one finger I press on its hard contents. My hand reaches to my forehead, painting a mud cross on my face. The storm rages on around me but now I feel calm inside, more at peace than I have ever felt before.

  Stretching out my hand, I place it on top of the bundle and gently press down on the tiny skeleton.

  Chapter One

  I hate walking through these doors. Failing bodies shuffling past the white walls and cheerful pictures, struggling to get their feet to take them wherever it is they want to go. The dining room, the TV room, the family room. There’s not a lot of choice.

  When I get to Mom’s door I take a deep breath and cross my fingers. Will she know me? The gentle music humming in the background does nothing to ease my tension. My heart is beating a little faster, my stomach twisting into a knot. This is not how it was supposed to be. I try to put a smile on my face but it’s hard. Hard when I know that what’s behind this door will crush me as it does every time. Mom lying on her sanitized bed, surrounded by photos, flowers, a beaker with some Disney character smiling on it, unaware of anything. Reduced to the package she came in; a body that is also beginning to fade.

  The doctors say her breathing is becoming more labored, her swallow weakening, her legs no longer able to hold her up. The little things she could do, like hold a spoon, or run a brush through her hair, have all disappeared over the past few weeks. Getting her mouth to open is the new goal. When that goes, we’re all in trouble.

  * * *

  A nurse stands with her back to me when I enter the room, blocking my view of Mom and glancing around when she hears the door. For a brief moment I pause, waiting for her reaction. If everything is okay, the nurse will have a smile and a big hello. If things are bad today, she will whisper gently. I know these signs off by heart now.

  Holding my breath, I wait while she presses the controller on the bed, moving Mom into a raised position. When she is lying flat she looks like a corpse and it scares the hell out of me.

  ‘Hello Rebecca,’ the nurse says, nice and loud and cheery, easing my stress and letting Mom know that I have arrived.

  ‘Nancy, Rebecca is here.’ I tilt my head to see Mom but there’s no response. Her glossy eyes are locked on the nurse, looking at her like she’s trying to figure out what she is.

  ‘Your daughter is here… Rebecca is here.’ I fix my eyes on Mom, willing a reaction. Know me, Mom. Please. Know me. Her lips pinch together. Slowly she moves her head in my direction, lifting my heart in the process. A smile moves the corners of her sagging face, releasing the chains that grip my body. I want to jump around the room and shout out loud. She knows me. She knows me.

  ‘You look lovely today, Mom,’ I lie. The tide has gone out on my mother’s eyes. They were the first thing I saw each morning when I was a little girl, those eyes, the color of the sea. ‘Good morning, baby,’ she would say.

  Pulling the chair in closer to the bed I sit to talk to her, telling her day-to-day stuff, about work; how I’m settling into my apartment; the new shoes I bought the other day in the mall. But it’s painful watching her struggle to understand what I’m saying. I tell her about Joanna, my brother Danny’s wife, expecting the baby. She has been told this a hundred times but I have to keep talking, anything to dull the awful reality of this silence.

  After a few minutes of me babbling on my mother interrupts.

  ‘Becca,’ she murmurs, through the small gap her lips will allow. Delighted to hear her say my name, I pull the chair in as close as possible to the bed.

  ‘I better start the supper,’ she says. ‘Your father be home soon.’

  This often happens, her mind going back to days long spent, to moments that revisit her as if they are happening now.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ I say, in my best ‘play along with he
r’ voice. But I don’t get an answer. Mom is someplace else now, somewhere only she recognizes.

  Her hand slowly reaches out trying to grab something from the air. There is nothing there, nothing I can see. Hopelessness surges through my veins; this is desperate. How much more of this can I handle? Tears sting my eyes asking me to cry, but I won’t cry. Not in front of her. Instead I stand up and tuck the sheets in at the side of the bed.

  Another few minutes pass with my mother’s slow, swaying hand clearing the air. It’s only when the nurse returns that she stops.

  ‘Are you staying to feed Nancy?’ the nurse says, placing a tray on a trolley by the end of the bed.

  ‘Yes, if that’s okay,’ I say, watching the nurse press the bed controller and move Mom, like a robot, into a fully upright position. We have been told how important it is that the food goes straight down. Very important, they said, especially with Mom’s swallow weakening. If particles of food are inhaled into her lungs she could get pneumonia. And that, they said, would be the end of her. We were also told that eventually her brain will forget how to swallow altogether and Mom’s life will be preserved by a plastic tube. I’m dreading it.

  ‘This looks lovely,’ I lie again, pulling the tray closer to me, opening the napkin while the nurse makes my mother comfortable, fluffing up the pillows at her back.

  ‘Your daughter is going to feed you today, Nancy. Aren’t you a lucky woman?’ Then the nurse walks out of the room, leaving a pile of mush on a plate that looks like someone has already had a go at eating it. The greyish goo makes me want to gag, but I better not. Taking the spoon in my hand I scoop up a tiny piece and lift it towards the lucky woman’s lips, but Mom moves her head away from it.

  ‘You’re not my daughter,’ she says.

  ‘Mom, it’s me, Becca.’

  ‘I know it’s you, Becca. You’re not my daughter.’ Grabbing my arm, her bony fingers wrap around my wrist.

  ‘You’re not my daughter,’ she repeats and although she’s freaking me out, I laugh. I can’t help it. Things can be very funny in this hopeless situation.

  ‘Of course I’m your daughter Mom, I’m Rebecca.’ She tugs at my wrist, wanting me to move closer to her, so I do.

  ‘Put Rover in the ground, Danny… don’t cry Danny… Rover’s gone to heaven.’ Now she’s worrying me. Her face has turned an even paler shade of white than I have become used to and she is getting very agitated. Her eyes are filled with fear, staring at me, scaring me. ‘Stop, Mom,’ but her grip is tightening, shaking my arm.

  ‘It’s Rebecca, Mom, I’m here beside you,’ I say, willing her to relax, to take her mind someplace else, anywhere else. And even though her words have turned to meaningless sounds now, fear is still carved all over her face.

  Then it stops. She lets go of her grip and sags back into the pillows, her eyes wet with tears. Slowly she lifts her hand to stroke my hair, taking me back to when I was that little girl, the one she cared for. I move my face closer to hers, to where her warm breath heats my skin, comforting me. Then Mom jerks her head up from the pillow and I jump back in the chair. Her eyes are open wide, staring at me, staring through me. Her usually lifeless eyes are alive with a fear so intense it’s scaring me. I want to cry, to tell her she’ll be okay but she is desperately trying to tell me something. I know it. Taking her hand, I squeeze it gently but she continues to stare, to scare.

  ‘What is it, Mom?’ What are you trying to tell me?

  ‘I took you, Becca. You’re not my daughter.’

  Chapter Two

  The parking lot is empty when I step outside, unlike my head which is about to explode. What did she mean? Why did she say she took me? For over an hour I sat there trying to get her to explain, to drag her mind back to where it was when she said those words: I took you, Becca. But it was a complete waste of time. Her thoughts had moved on to whatever dream, hallucination or flashback had decided to visit her. Turning the key in the ignition, I drive the expressway, watching the dark clouds gather in the distance above Boston city. What I’d really like to do is go to the nearest liquor store, get the biggest bottle of red wine I can find and saturate my anxiety. Maybe later, when I finish my shift.

  I go through the shadow of the Hancock Tower and negotiate the tight space that leads to the underground parking lot of my very expensive one bed apartment. ‘It’s the location,’ the realtor announced when my face couldn’t hide the shock at the rent. ‘By the river, Fenway Park just a short stroll away, and the famous Cheers bar,’ which for some reason he felt important to mention, ‘just a few blocks to the left.’ If it wasn’t for my second job, working behind the bar at Mattie’s a couple of nights a week, I’d never be able to afford it.

  * * *

  After parking my car, I stand in the lobby waiting on the elevator to arrive. Jeff, the guy who lives for free in an apartment a few doors up from mine, comes rushing in. He’s house sitting for his sister, an environmental lawyer who is currently living in Europe and needs someone to feed her rabbits. Nice work if you can get it.

  ‘Hi Becca,’ he says, his long, lean body towering over me. ‘Are you in Mattie’s tonight?’

  ‘Sure am. Are you coming down?’

  The elevator screeches to a halt and we step inside. Jeff punches the button for the tenth floor.

  ‘Not tonight, sorry. Big date.’

  Jeff always has a big date. Fit and tanned, his black hair shaved tight around the edges but dangling like a cocker’s ears on top, he goes through women like he’s testing them out for someone else. Which means I shouldn’t really like him, but I do. We met the day I moved in when the bottom fell out of the box I was carrying, scattering my privacy across the floor in the lobby. Jeff arrived at the scene, helped me gather up my belongings and carry them to my apartment. Later that day he called in with a bottle of wine and we’ve been friends since. Just friends. Jeff is one of the few people I speak to in this building. Ms. Cannister is another – an old lady, who hasn’t realized it yet.

  ‘Call me Sophie,’ she demands when I address her as ‘Ms. Cannister.’ Her wardrobe is more exciting than my own and she carries an iPhone with her at all times that no one has ever seen her use. Her age is a closely guarded secret, but the maintenance guy reckons she had a sister who died five years ago, aged ninety.

  The lift jolts to a halt. Jeff rushes down the corridor, all systems go, leaving me strolling behind.

  ‘Good luck with the date,’ I shout before crossing to my apartment and letting myself in.

  22A is a small space, but it has a floor to ceiling window that makes my world look a lot bigger than it actually is. Sometimes I sit in front of that window for hours, staring out at the tall grey buildings beyond, wondering about the lives of those strangers who come and go, come and go. Below me the street is quiet; most people who work around here empty out to the suburbs once six o’clock arrives.

  In between the two tallest buildings a narrow sighting of Boston Common hangs like nature’s clock; browns, yellows, reds. In the summer it’s green. A few blocks down to my right the great Charles River flows, unhindered by market value. If I get right up against the glass and crane my neck, I can see the water glisten in the sunlight. Below the moon, it’s like black oil.

  * * *

  I drop my bag onto the coffee table, switch on the light and straightaway know something is wrong.

  Someone has been in here.

  I tiptoe into the middle of the room, my heart bouncing in my chest. There doesn’t seem to be anything out of place, everything seems okay. Holding my breath, I listen for the sound of someone moving, someone breathing. But there is no sound of life, just the usual clank from the archaic heating system.

  The bedroom door is open so I stick my head in – just my head, I’m not going in alone. There’s no one there. Mom’s words must have me on edge.

  Relax, Becca. Take a deep breath, make a strong cup of coffee.

  The kitchen area is about four feet long and two feet wide, with e
verything squashed into it, including the kitchen sink. To make any kind of a decent meal I would have to be an especially dedicated member of Cirque du Soleil – which I’m not. Boiling water and reheating takeaways is about as much as I can pull off without doing myself damage.

  Slipping off my jacket, I make for the kettle when I notice the pile of clothes neatly stacked on the floor beside the cabinet. What the…? Those clothes were on top of it when I left this morning. Someone was here. Someone searched the cabinet. My heart races as I sprint down the corridor, banging on Jeff’s door.

  ‘Jeff? Jeff!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he says, when he finally answers, tucking in the top of a towel he has wrapped around his waist. He runs his hands through dripping hair, pushing it away from his face.

  ‘I think someone broke into my apartment.’

  ‘Seriously?’ he says, already pulling his door closed behind him, following me down the corridor. Back in my apartment, Jeff looks around, then at me. He was expecting chaos, I guess. To his eyes, I know, it all looks as it should, or maybe even a bit cleaner than usual.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ he says.

  ‘That pile of laundry, Jeff. I left it on top of the cabinet.’

  ‘No way,’ he grins. ‘Someone broke in and moved your clothes. We better call the FBI.’

  ‘You’re not listening, Jeff. I left those clothes on the cabinet. Someone’s been in here.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m certain.’

  The grin slips away. ‘Is anything missing?’ he says, walking around, leaving damp footprints, one hand gripping his towel, which for a brief moment, I imagine him dropping.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t had time to check.’

  ‘But you’re certain that’s where the clothes were when you left?’

  I nod.

  ‘Maybe they fell down,’ he says.

  ‘Into a neat pile and in the same order they were in before?’

  He shrugs, slides me another grin, the kind you use when what you really want to do is growl. Jeff doesn’t believe me. He thinks I’ve simply forgotten I moved them, and he doesn’t want to waste any more time in my apartment when he’s already under pressure to get to his, no doubt, extremely hot date.