Page 111 of Never Die for a Sinner
The inside of Pleasant Oaks is exactly what you’d expect. The scent of Vicks VapoRub and that slightly off-putting aroma of urine that seems to hang around in places like this. I look around the lobby, but Ava’s not there amongst the dozen pairs of eyes that stare back at me.
A few older women grin at me and giggle. One even winks, waving in my direction. I give her a curt nod and turn my back on them at the front desk, earning me a string of grandmotherly giggles.
“Excuse me?” I greet the clerk, who can’t be bothered to look up from her phone. “My wife just came in while I was parking the car. Can you tell me which way she went?”
She glances up at me for only a second before turning her attention back to her phone.
“Who?”
“Brunette. About this tall. Drop-dead gorgeous.”
She rolls her eyes and points down the hall. “Room 402.”
“Thanks.”
She doesn’t respond, and I don’t wait around to be catcalled by the elderly, stalking off through the halls.
I’ve always hated nursing homes. I have vivid memories of visiting my great-grandmother’s house when I was a kid, and it always felt more like a tomb than a place for people to live. Oddly enough, that’s truer now than it was back then.
The halls are barren. With each room I pass, the sounds of televisions filter through the open doors, mixing with the whir of the machines used to keep people alive. There are hardly any visitors, and the scent of shitty food hangs in the air.
Coming to a door at the end of the hall, I pause, listening to the soft sound of Ava’s voice from within.
“It’s potato soup today,” she says, and though she sounds cheerful, I can hear the sadness hidden in her voice. “Yours was better, though.”
I peek my head around the corner, seeing her back to me where she sits in a chair beside an elderly woman in the bed.
Her grandmother.
And now . . . everything’s starting to make sense.
“I’m not hungry,” the woman says, though her voice sounds strained.
She’s tiny, her frail body barely filling an eighth of the large bed. If I didn’t hear her speak, I would be sure she was already dead.
“You have to eat something,” Ava says softly, and I can’t take my eyes off her. There’s something so vulnerable about seeing her like this that I can’t deny there’s a part of me—a fucking big part—that wants to wrap her in my arms so nothing can reach her. Protect her from the inevitable.
“Ava . . .” the woman sighs, like she’s utterly exhausted. “I had my treatment yesterday. You know it ruins my appetite.”
Ava’s shoulders sag, and she looks down at the useless bowl of soup in her hand as if it might hold the answer as to what she should do.
“I know,” she says, and lead fills my chest where I hide in the shadows. “I just . . . never mind.”
I fucking hate this. I hate the guilt I already know she’s feeling. I hate the guiltI’mfeeling for lying to her.
No—fuck that. I didn’t do this. I’m merely trying to fix a problem that had nothing to do with me.
Still . . . when I see Ava hastily wipe the unshed tears from her eyes while she turns away to put the bowl down, something unpleasant and tight fills my chest, and I grit my teeth against the sensation.
“How are the treatments going?”
“Ava, we need to talk.”
“Nana, I don’t—”
“I’m dying, Ava.”
I tense, leaning back against the wall beside the door. Just out of sight, the silence in the room couldn’t be louder.
