All three turned to her and stepped away, revealing Blah’s frail form slumping upright, nightgown twisted around her thin, veiny thighs. “Blah.” Sewanee went right over to her. “It’s okay, I’m here.” She tried to catch her grandmother’s gaze, but her eyes were unfocused and glassy, wide with residual terror, darting loopily around the room. “What happened?” Sewanee asked, trying to sound steady.
“She’d been–” a young female nurse started, cleared her throat. “She was agitated. Telling people to get away from her, but no one was there. Then she wanted to go see the movie. And that seemed to calm her down. But when it was over–”
“Before it was over,” an older woman chimed in.
The nurse–who, Sewanee glimpsed from her name tag, was Gina–nodded. “Before it was over, she started up conversations with imaginary people–”
“What was she saying?” Sewanee asked.
“Things like, ‘You’re always like this’ and ‘leave me alone.’ So I brought her back to her room, got her into bed, and then I went to talk to Carlos about meds–”
Carlos interjected, professionally, “I suggested her usual dose of Ativan.”
“And?”
“I got the Ativan,” Gina continued, “came back into her room and . . .” She pointed at the window. “She was halfway out.”
“How the hell did–” But Sewanee stopped.
The window had been open.
Because she’d opened it.
And not closed it.
This was her fault.
“I yelled for Carlos. We pulled her back inside and that’s when the screaming started.” Sewanee noticed Gina was holding her right forearm with her left hand. There was gauze underneath her fingers. At Sewanee’s questioning look, Gina said, “She scratched me. Just a little. I’m fine.”
Reeling, Sewanee turned back to Blah. She appeared completely disoriented. Her mouth had gone slack, her hair was standing up as if she’d been in a pillow fight.
“Blah?” Sewanee reached for her hand. “Everything’s fine. I’m here.”
Her grandmother’s eyes settled on Sewanee’s face and went wide. Sewanee smiled, trying to provide a hint of familiarity, of normalcy. But then Blah said, “Who are you?”
Sewanee squeezed her hand. “Sewanee.”
Blah pulled her hand back. “Get away from me.”
Sewanee took it again. “Blah, please, it’s Dollface–”
Blah yanked it back. “No!” Her voice was raw. “Don’t you touch me!” Frantic, too. Sewanee leaned in closer, which only made Blah retreat further, which made Sewanee say, desperately, “I’m Henry’s daughter, your granddaughter–”
“Help!” Blah screeched. “Somebody help me!”
Sewanee felt Carlos’s hand on her shoulder, urging her back. She threw it off. “BlahBlah!” Sewanee barked.
Blah thrashed, trying to get away, get up, get out. Gina grabbed her shoulder.
The older aide said, “We may have to call an ambulance.”
Sewanee changed tactics. She made shushing noises, and in her gentlest voice said, “You’re my grandmother and I love you and you’re safe and everything’s fine.”
“AAAHHHHHHH!” She’d reached banshee hysteria.
“Okay, Barbara, okay, easy,” Carlos murmured, grabbing her other shoulder.
Sewanee made one final attempt. She couldn’t help it. She took Blah’s face in her hands, looked in her eyes, trying to connect through force of will alone. “BlahBlah, listen to–”
Blah spit in her face.
Sewanee was so shocked, so utterly dumbfounded, that all she could do was nothing. She was paralyzed.
“You’re not my granddaughter! My granddaughter is beautiful!”
“Blah–” Sewanee choked.
“MONSTER!!!”
Sewanee didn’t remember leaving the room. She didn’t know how she ended up downstairs and outside, on her knees in the grass in the garden sobbing so hard she couldn’t breathe. She felt faint and nauseous and inflamed all at once. She felt as though she were on fire. The sounds coming from her were the primal keens of the mortally wounded. Her forehead dug into the muddy grass, she pulled clumps of it up by the handful. She cradled her head and burrowed the mud into her scalp. Her throat burned like a crematorium. Eventually the sounds subsided and what was left were residual heaves. And the hand on her back.