False Memory

The poet’s intent, however, was not the sole meaning to be found in those three brief lines. There was another interpretation that had profound importance to Skeet when he was in his peculiar trance, but he now appeared to have forgotten all that. Previously, he’d called each line a rule, although he hadn’t been coherent in his attempt to explain what conduct, procedure, sport, or game these cryptic rules governed.

Dusty considered sitting on the edge of his brother’s bed and questioning him further. He was inhibited by the concern that under pressure Skeet might retreat into a semi-catatonic state and might not easily wake the next time.

Besides, together they had been through a difficult day. Skeet, in spite of his nap and fortifying dinner, must be nearly as weary as Dusty, who felt clipped, ripped, and whipped.

Shovel.

Pick.

Hatchet.

Hammers, screwdrivers, saws, drills, pliers, wrenches, long steel nails by the fistful.

Although the kitchen was not yet entirely a safe place, and though other rooms of the house must be inspected and secured, as well, Martie couldn’t stop thinking about the garage, mentally cataloging the numerous instruments of torture and death that it contained.

At last, she was no longer able to maintain her resolve to stay out of the garage and to avoid the risk of being among its sharp temptations when Dusty eventually arrived. She opened the connecting door from the kitchen, fumbled for the light switch, and turned on the overhead fluorescent panels.

As Martie stepped across the threshold, her attention was first drawn to the Peg-Board on which were racked a collection of gardening tools that she had forgotten. Trowels. One pair of snips. A hand spade. Spring-action clippers with Teflon-coated blades. A battery-powered hedge trimmer.

A pruning hook.

Noisily, Skeet scraped the last traces of clotted cream and brown sugar from the dessert cup.

As though summoned by the clatter of spoon against china, a new private nurse arrived for the night shift: Jasmine Hernandez, petite, pretty, in her early thirties — with eyes the purple-black shade of plum skins, mysterious yet clear. Her white uniform was as bright and crisp as her professionalism, although red sneakers with green laces suggested — correctly, as it turned out — a playful streak.

“Hey, you’re just a little bit of a thing,” Skeet told her. He winked at Dusty. “If I want to kill myself, Jasmine, I don’t see you being able to stop me.”

As she removed the dinner tray from the bed and set it on the dresser, the nurse said, “Listen, my little chupaflor, if the only way to keep you from hurting yourself is to break every bone in your body, then put you in a cast from the neck down, I can handle that.”

“Holy shit,” Skeet exclaimed, “where’d you go to nursing school — Transylvania?”

“Tougher than that. I was taught by nuns, the Sisters of Mercy. And I’m warning you, chupaflor — no bad language on my shift.”

“Sorry,” Skeet said, genuinely chagrined, though still in a mood to tease. “What happens when I have to go pee-pee?”

Scratching Valet’s ears, Jasmine assured Skeet, “You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before, though I’m sure I’ve seen larger.”

Dusty smiled at Skeet. “From now on, it would be wise to say nothing but Yes, ma.

“What is chupaflor?” Skeet asked. “You’re not trying to slip some bad language by me, are you?”

“Chupaflor means ‘hummingbird,’“Jasmine Hernandez explained as she stuck a digital thermometer in Skeet’s mouth.

In a thermometer-punctuated mumble, Skeet said, “You’re calling me hummingbird?”

“Chupaflor,” she confirmed. Skeet was no longer hooked to the electrocardiograph, so she lifted his bony wrist to time his pulse.

A new uneasiness slid into Dusty, as cold as a shiv between the ribs, though he couldn’t identify the cause. Not wholly new, in fact. It was the free-floating suspicion that earlier had motivated him to watch Skeet’s reflection in the night-mirrored window. Something was wrong here, but not necessarily with Skeet. His suspicion refocused on the place, the clinic.

“Hummingbirds are cute,” Skeet told Jasmine Hernandez.

“Keep the thermometer under your tongue,” she admonished.

Mumbling again, he pressed: “Do you think I’m cute?”

“You’re a nice-looking boy,” she said, as though she could see Skeet as he had once been — healthy, fresh-faced, and clear-eyed.

“Hummingbirds are charming. They’re free spirits.”

With her attention on her wristwatch, counting Skeet’s pulse, the nurse said, “Yes, exactly, the chupaflor is a cute, charming, free, insignificant little bird.”

Skeet glanced at his brother and rolled his eyes.