Page 29 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

“I’m writing a story about dear Otis,” I say. “Just interviewing folks close to him in his final days so I can paint a nice picture.”

“Oh,” she says, perking up. Maybe happy I’m not going to put her in an uncomfortable position, or just happy to be named someone “close to Otis.” “Buddy from the cafeteria would come and do crosswords with him, Clay Dawson would bring him waffles from the IHOP sometimes when he’d come in for shift, Nancy from the gift shop would bring him balloons sometimes—the ones that were losing their helium and would go to waste. He always got a kick out of that, even though the Elmo’s and Dora’s faces looked droopy. Gosh, all the nurses doted on him. He had lots of friends and family visit. Hard to keep track. I guess you can put down that he was surrounded by love and support by those who knew him best,” she says.

Thanks for the cliché, I think to myself, but leave the writing to me, but of course I don’t say that. This was a fool’s errand, it seems, but I dare to ask one last question.

“Do you remember anything about a ripped-up note—something Otis seemed upset about at all?”

“Um… I don’t know about a note, but I do remember him tearing up something—some paper the night before he passed, because I swept up the scrap he dropped and asked if I could throw the rest away for him. He shoved the scraps in his sweater pocket, which I thought was odd…which is why I remember, but patients like him have a lot of strange behaviors, so I didn’t think much of it,” she says, and then she’s paged from the little radio thing she wears on her waistband and quickly excuses herself.

I stand, brush the folds in my slacks with my palms, and pick up my handbag. Well, at least Winny hasn’t lost the plot. Otis did put that torn note in his pocket. Of course I believed her, but I did wonder a little bit about the validity of her story. What if someone planted it there, what if she herself had gone off her nut and done something terrible? I mean, when things become this strange all around you, you really can’t trust anyone. But he certainly did write those warning words and try to hide them from someone. I shudder as I walk out of the vomit stench of the room and back down the bleak hallway. At least that was something. A small piece of the ever-expanding puzzle. Poor Otis.

When I arrive back downstairs, I clutch my chest and rush to the front desk when I see Bernie lying on the ground in front of it, staff circled around him.

“Oh God! What’s happened?” I cry and see Herb behind the desk shoving a file folder into his coat. Millie and Mort stand over Bernie with the nurses, and Millie leans into me and whispers. “Don’t worry, he’s fine. He’s creating a diversion.”

I look at Millie with my mouth agape and then down to Bernie, who gives me a very subtle thumbs-up as he lies there with his eyes closed and his tongue hanging out. I cannot believe what I’m witnessing.

“Don’t look at me like that, it was Bernie’s idea,” Millie says, and then I see Bernie open one eye and see Herb with a thumbs-up, and he suddenly begins to push himself to a seated position.

“I’m okay, just low blood pressure,” he says, and the nurses help him to sit in a wheelchair that someone brought over.

“Are you kidding me?” I whisper. Then there is some back and forth when Bernie tries to stand and say he’s fine and is going home and they insist he stay for a while for observation.

“Okay, alright,” he finally acquiesces. He winks our way and then makes a waving gesture to us to make a run for it. Before I even fully register what is happening, Millie has me by the hand and the four of us are scurrying out the front door and into Evan’s waiting van. As soon as the doors are closed, Millie hollers, “Go, go, go!”

Evan flashes a confused look into the rearview mirror. “Um…okay.”

“Before they catch us!” she adds dramatically, and Evan presses the gas to our getaway car and we pull away from the hospital full of adrenaline and pride. Herb hands me the file covertly, pleased with himself for his accomplishment, and I take it and quickly begin looking through it with the light on my phone on the ride back.

“Anything I should know about?” Evan asks.

“Nothing!” Herb says and pulls out his Keeblers at some feeble attempt to appear normal. I scan through the visitor log of people who signed on the date of Otis’s death and the surrounding days. There are dozens, of course, but it’s not a huge hospital, so not so many I can’t get a quick assessment, and it’s a lot of names I know because I’ve lived here so long, and some I don’t, and then one name stops me cold. I suck in a sharp breath when I see it there in black-and-white.It’s so shocking I can barely believe I’m looking at it.

Leo Connolly was there, signing his name into the visitor log at 10:18 p.m. the night before Otis died.

12

MACK

“It stopped again!” I shout, startling Billy and he swerves slightly at the jolt before regaining control of the car. “Sorry, but he stopped.”

“Where?” he asks, rubbing his sleepy eyes. We have been driving for a couple of hours and haven’t said much because my mind has been reeling and he’s trying to be respectful and supportive, I can tell, but I’m sure he doesn’t know how the hell he’s supposed to act…so the hum of the heater and the low volume of a country station coming in and out on the radio has filled the silence for most of the ride.

On the tracker app it shows the phone is no longer moving down highway 10. My heart is beating frantically. The phone was stopped for over an hour when we first got on the road which allowed us to practically catch up to it, but then, when we were somewhere outside of Winnipeg Junction, it started again,and I was worried we’d be driving all night to God knows where. The stop it made was in the middle of nowhere it looked like from the location—just a roadside pit stop exit with a bar, strip club, and a gas station.

“It’s just this side of Fargo,” I say, practically shouting. “It looks like it’s in the parking lot of a diner called Toasty’s. We’re only twenty minutes away. Oh my God.” I take a deep breath and tap my nails on the back of my phone nervously, willing the location not to change.

“So what’s your plan when you see him…” Billy asks. “If I’m allowed to pry.”

“I mean, youaredriving me across the state to help, so I suppose you’re allowed to pry,” I say. And then I don’t elaborate because I don’t know. “Am I supposed to have a plan?” I ask. “I’ve never tracked down a runaway husband before, so I’m not exactly sure how this goes.”

“Oh,” he says, flatly.

“Yeah.”

“Huh.”

“I know. But I just want answers. I guess… I’ll know what to say when I see him. I think. Or maybe I’ll just kill him if the opportunity presents itself,” I say, and he shifts his eyes over to me, then back to the road. I don’t say that I’m kidding. My blood is boiling at the thought of him living a secret life somewhere and making a mockery of the years and years we spent together, of Rowan, our families, our whole lives. Maybe I could just run him down in the Toasty’s parking lot once I see him.

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