Page 3 of The Only One Left

“Constant care. That means—”

“That you would be required to live with her, yes.”

I nod to hide my surprise. I thought Mr. Gurlain would keep me close for my first assignment back, giving me one of those nine-to-five, spend-a-day-with-an-old-person jobs the agency sometimes offers at a discount to locals. But this sounds like a real assignment.

“Room and board will be provided, of course,” Mr. Gurlain continues. “But you’d be on call twenty-four hours a day. Any time off you need will have to be worked out between you and the patient. Are you interested?”

Of course I’m interested. But a hundred different questions keep me from instantly saying yes. I begin with a simple but important one.

“When would the job start?”

“Immediately. As for how long you’d be there, well, if your performance is satisfactory, I see no reason why you wouldn’t be kept on until you’re no longer needed.”

Until the patient dies, in other words. The cruel reality about being an at-home caregiver is that the job is always temporary.

“Where is it located?” I ask, hoping it’s in a far-flung area of the state. The further, the better.

“Outside of town,” Mr. Gurlain says, dashing those hopes. They’re revived a second later, when he adds, “On the Cliffs.”

The Cliffs. Only ridiculously rich people live there, ensconced in massive houses atop rocky bluffs that overlook the ocean. I sit with my hands clenched in my lap, fingernails digging into my palms. This is unexpected. A chance to instantly trade the dingy ranch home where I grew up for a house on the Cliffs? It all seems too good to be true. Which must be the case. No one quits a job like that unless there’s a problem.

“Why did the previous nurse leave?”

“I have no idea,” Mr. Gurlain says. “All I was told is that finding a suitable replacement has been a problem.”

“Is the patient...” I pause. I can’t saydifficult, even though it’s the word I most want to use. “In need of specialized care?”

“I don’t think the trouble is her condition, as delicate as it might be,” Mr. Gurlain says. “The issue, quite frankly, is the patient’s reputation.”

I shift in my seat. “Who’s the patient?”

“Lenora Hope.”

I haven’t heard that name in years. At least a decade. Maybe two. Hearing it now makes me look up from my lap, surprised. More than surprised, actually. I’m flabbergasted. An emotion I’m not certain I’ve experienced before. Yet there it is, a sort of anxious shock fluttering behind my ribs like a bird trapped in a cage.

“TheLenora Hope?”

“Yes,” Mr. Gurlain says with a sniff, as if offended to be even slightly misunderstood.

“I had no idea she was still alive.”

When I was younger, I hadn’t even understood that Lenora Hope was real. I had assumed she was a myth created by kids to scare each other. The schoolyard rhyme, forgotten since childhood, worms its way back into my memory.

At seventeen, Lenora Hope

Hung her sister with a rope

Some of the older girls swore that if you turned out all the lights, stood in front of a mirror, and recited it, Lenora herself might appear in the glass. And if that happened, look out, because it meant your family was going to die next. I never believed it. I knew it was just a variation on Bloody Mary, which was completely made up, which meant Lenora Hope wasn’t real, either.

It wasn’t until I was in my teens that I learned the truth. Not only was Lenora Hope real, but she was local, living a privileged life in a mansion several miles outside of town.

Until one night, she snapped.

Stabbed her father with a knife

Took her mother’s happy life

“She is very much alive,” Mr. Gurlain says.

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