little under the weather. Could you repeat that last thing?”
“I said I need to go to the Mission Street Woods to deal with this nightmare. I know it’s Christmas Eve, but we’re on a deadline.”
He braced himself as if she would rip him a new polo chute for even suggesting he leave the family on Christmas Eve. But she just smiled.
“Of course, honey,” she said. “I’ll make you the best Christmas Eve dinner when you get back from work.”
“Are you all right, Kathleen?” he asked.
“Of course I am,” she said with a measured smile.
“You sure?”
“Go to work. I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”
With that, she gave him a kiss on the lips. He couldn’t have been more confused if she had given him a blow job without the minimum three glasses of Chardonnay on their anniversary. Mrs. Collins was many things to her husband. Understanding wasn’t one of them.
“Okay,” he said. “Call me if you need anything.”
She nodded, and he left. The minute he was out of sight, Mrs. Collins looked down and realized she had dug her fingernails so deeply into her palms that they were bleeding. She hadn’t even known she was doing it. She looked into the cafeteria at all the unwashed patients on their gurneys.
They were all staring at her.
She knew that without her husband there, these people might be coming for her instead. She had studied enough history to know what happens to rich men’s wives during a revolution. Mrs. Collins knew that all these people were trying to intimidate her with their staring, but they didn’t understand.
They were aluminum siding to her.
The staring contest lasted the better part of a minute. When the last person in the cafeteria blinked and looked down, Mrs. Collins moved out of the room. Call it common sense. Call it a voice inside her head. But something told her that she had to get her son back home. She needed a glass of white wine and a long hot bath. She couldn’t wash herself off in her mother’s private hospital bathroom again. So, she went back to the room and found her mother still unconscious and her son reading to her.
“All the better to see you with, my dear,” he said.
“Brady, we have to go,” she whispered.
“I want to stay with Grandma,” he whispered back.
“Grandma is still asleep,” she said.
Brady dug his heels in.
“No. Grandma is awake. We were just talking,” he said.
“Stop lying. Get your coat.”
“I’m not lying,” he said.
Mrs. Collins looked at her mother, sleeping soundly on the bed. She had known her son to play some cruel jokes, but this was a new low.
“Brady Collins, I’m counting to three. At three, you sit in the doghouse.”
But Brady wouldn’t move.
“I swear we were talking,” he said.
“ONE,” she said.
“Grandma, wake up,” he said.
“TWO,” she hissed.
“Please, Grandma! Don’t make me go home with her!”
“THREE!”
Mrs. Collins grabbed her son and spun him around. She looked him dead in the eye.
“If you make a scene in front of these people, I will leave you in the doghouse until Christmas morning. I swear to Christ.”
Brady’s eyes went black, and he stared at her for as long as he could bear it. But eventually, he did what everyone else did with his mother. Including his dad.
He blinked first.
As soon as they left the room, Mrs. Collins began to feel apprehensive. It wasn’t the walk through the hospital, although the stares from the rabble were somewhat disconcerting. It wasn’t even the drive home, even though the accidents and fallen trees and lines at the gas station were alarming.
No. The problem was Brady.
“Mom, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Kathleen Collins.”
“No. What’s your real name? Before you met Dad.”
“Kathy Keizer. Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
Mrs. Collins might not have been the warmest mother in the world, but she knew her son. And Brady didn’t ask questions. He was exactly like his father in that respect. But right now, he couldn’t have been friendlier. It was a sick friendly, though. A calculated friendly. He was giving the Stepford smile right back to her. A silence masking itself as peace. The two of them got home and climbed the long driveway through the estate. None of the servants’ cars were there. While the cat was away, the mice did like to play. They were all alone.
“Mom, would you like a sandwich?” he asked.
“No, thank you. I just need a bath. And aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?”
“I counted to three. You can’t fool me with this nice act.