He led her down the stairs, breathing easier as they went. Back on the first floor, they explored, finding an institutional kitchen with cold metal shelves and a broken stove pushed on its side. Mice had eaten the insulation. The pantry was empty. There was a schoolroom, with broken-down chairs and desks piled in the corners and a blackboard so thick with mold it looked like wet felt. Nearby was a small gymnasium, the floor lined with rotting wrestling mats. Next to that was a massive bathroom, with industrial showerheads over a rusted floor. The bathroom stalls didn’t have doors. The next room was a narrow dining room. The dining room led to a visiting room with decaying bookshelves. A single plastic flower was on the floor. At the end of the room was another door.
treatment services,said the sign.
Larry pushed the door open, his heart suddenly heavy.
The hallway was long, and the doors were many. Amanda stopped to clear a dirty pane of glass on one. They were looking into a small rubber room. That was the only name for it. It was a padded cell.
The hall was lined with these isolation rooms. Larry had been in a lot of jails and prisons in his time, but few images were as haunting as this cold, empty hall filled with coffin-like cells. He could imagine boys inside the rooms pounding on the doors, begging for release. Or maybe they just sat and waited, hoping they would not be forgotten and left to starve to death.
At the end of the hall was another room, this one littered with tattered sheets and deflated, moldy pillows. A rolled-up rug lay in the corner, covered with mouse turds. That room smelled awful.
The final door had a sign that saidcustodian,and Larry opened it to find a simple hallway closet, filled with old brooms and mops with stone-hard heads. He watched as Amanda backed away. She turned to leave, rushing until she was at a near run, and he followed her, concerned. She didn’t stop until she was outside and below the narrow windows, with the trees all watching, and he wanted to reassure her,There is no one here now.
But there was, they both knew. There was.
By the time they got back to town, Amanda looked emotionally spent. Larry studied her, thinking about the three- to four-hour drive back to the city, and on dark and twisty mountain roads, without any cell service.
The hotel manager greeted them, still grinning, saying the roads were clear.
“Should be able to get to the highway now, miss.”
“Thank you,” Amanda said, and went to fetch her backpack from her room. Her hair felt musty and her teeth furred. She longed for home, and yet she was dragged with guilt, as if she were leaving her brother behind.
Larry walked with her up the dune to her car, which was still parked near the cemetery. She decided to visit it one last time to say goodbye to the brother she’d never known. Larry wasn’t sure if he should accompany her. He waited for her a few feet away, on the bluff. The sea below him lashed back and forth, like an angry cat drawing its claws up and down the coast.
“I’ll be heading back now,” Amanda told him, after a bit. “Thank you for being so nice to me.”
She sounded so unexpectedly genuine, Larry was moved. He wassuddenly overwhelmed with emotion and didn’t know what to do. He took a couple of long breaths. Marjorie, he thought. I wish you were here.
Amanda waited patiently.
“Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes it just comes over me.”
She smiled at him, understanding.
“Come back, visit me,” he said. “Maybe I could help you learn more about your brother.”
Amanda turned to the sea. She looked over the swells as if she might still see Dennis out there, bobbing in the waves.
“I’d like that,” she said.
3
Amanda was back a few weeks later. She had called Larry the day before, but he wasn’t expecting her so early. He was still in his old plaid robe, which he’d had forever and a day. He remembered wearing it on a cruise with Marjorie. It had been their one and only cruise. Marjorie had spent most of the time in their stateroom.
Homebodies,Marjorie had liked to say.We’re homebodies, Larry.But the truth was thornier and harder to bear. There were reasons Marjorie had retreated from life, and now that she was gone, Larry was starting to think they were all his fault.
Now Amanda was standing outside his door, which like those on all proper cabins here faced away from the wind that blew perpetually off the coast. She wore the same parka, her blond hair blowing in the wind.
“Oh! I caught you too early.” She looked worried.
“Sorry. Late to bed. Old habits.” He smiled.
He let her in, then excused himself to change. In a few minutes he had joined her in the living room.
“I took a few days off,” she said. “I’m staying at the hotel.”
“I hope Charlie gave you a good deal.”