She lost her parents and her sister’s in a sanitarium. Give her a break.
I offered my hand. “Hello, Ms. Hughes.”
She glanced at my hand as if I’d offered her a dirty diaper.
Thea laughed. “Delia, you’re such a crank.” She took my outstretched hand and gave it one, hearty pump. “Thea Hughes. So nice to meet you.”
That’s four.
I let go of her hand but kept staring into her eyes, searching for a sign this was all bullshit. Thea was acting. She wasn’t delirious from an injury or wracked with Alzheimer’s. I recalled my Grandpa Jack’s vacant gaze from his deathbed. How his memories floated in and out, and once they were gone, they were gone. It had been obvious something inside him was broken and falling away. Thea was young and beautiful and perfectly healthy.
Except she wasn’t.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Thea said, laughing while Delia’s cold stare pierced me.
“I’d like to be alone with my sister now,” Delia said, pulling out a chair at the table. “I’m sure you have work to do?”
Thea shot me an apologetic smile and wiggled her fingertips at me in a little goodbye.
Rita pulled me away from the sisters. “Don’t take it personally. Delia’s like that with everyone. And thanks for keeping Miss Hughes occupied. How’d you do?”
“I can’t fucking believe it,” I murmured.
“I know. It takes some getting used to. It feels like she’s faking, right?”
I nodded.
“Her being high functioning almost makes it worse.”
“I think she had a small seizure.”
“That’s to be expected,” Rita said. “They’re called absence seizures. They don’t hurt her.”
“Do they happen a lot?”
“Not too many now. It used to be worse. When she first arrived, she was panicked. Seizures every day, all day. Screaming and hysteria, the poor thing.”
“S-S-Screaming?”
Rita nodded, not hearing my stutter. “The reset would hit, and she didn’t know what was happening. Imagine coming aware in the middle of taking a sip of water or taking a walk outside. Or waking up, not knowing if it’s morning or night. But she’s been at Blue Ridge two years now, so she’s grown used to it.”
“So she does remember where she is.”
“No, honey,” she said. “She can’t remember anything. Most of what she says is out of habit.”
“Does she remember you?”
Rita shook her head. “Nope. She doesn’t know my name. Or her doctor’s name. She eats in the dining room every day, three times a day but couldn’t tell you where it is. She can’t make her own w
ay from this room to her bedroom. If you turned her loose outside, God forbid, she’d be lost within minutes. But she knows routine. We’ve been careful to build a sameness into her days, and that’s grooved itself into her subconscious. Consistency keeps her calm.”
I shook my head slowly. “Unreal.”
She put her hand on my arm. “I know it’s hard to understand, but the brain is an amazing mechanism with billions of outlets. When they’re damaged, the results can be random and fascinating.”
I didn’t find Thea’s situation fascinating.
Fucking horrifying, maybe…