Best Place to Die (2 page)

Always conscious of potential hazards related to clock repair – the solvents, turps and various oil-based finishes had to be handled and disposed of respectfully – he grabbed his daily rags. It reminded him of counting sharps and sponges before closing a patient. And he was careful not to upset any of the piles of journals, boxes and bags that formed a channel from the tidily staged Skype area to the congested galley kitchen, with counters obscured by stacks of cleaned dishes, overflowing baskets of vitamins and nutritional supplements, mugs with brushes soaking in cleaning solvent, and mounds of unopened mail that spilled from counter to floor. Along one counter was a pyramid of three-pound-size Chock Full o'Nuts coffee cans, their tops tightly sealed. He opened one that was filled with water and oily rags from a previous day and wedged today's deep into the liquid. The skim of blue-black solvent coolly tickled his fingers and left a ring around his wrist. Once a month they'd offer hazardous waste removal, admittedly he'd not taken advantage of one for the past several months . . . maybe a year –
longer than that? Possibly
– but this month for sure; he'd make a note of it.

Then, from next to the double sink – one side not used for over three years on account of needing it for overflow dishes, he selected a medicine bottle, held it up in the filtered light from his second-floor window and checked the label – Sildenafil 10mg. He popped one of the blue blunt-edged diamonds of Viagra into his mouth and swallowed dry. His gaze flicking over the prescriber's name at the bottom – Dr Norman Trask. Cautiously, he opened his fridge just wide enough to reach in, grab a carton of OJ and take a few swigs, but not so wide that the crammed contents would come tumbling out.

His ears perked as a dozen clocks came to life, soft mechanical whirrs presaging the first strike of hammer to brass, bronze and iron bells. An English bracket clock from the second bedroom provided the melody of Westminster as American brass- and wooden-movement clocks, mostly from Connecticut, provided their resonant harmonies. As the last finished striking the hour, his front door buzzed. He grinned in anticipation and felt a giddy rush of relief – with Kate gone this wasn't cheating any more. ‘Life really is good,' he said and, passing back through the kitchen and into the long entryway that was lined on both sides with wall clocks that he and Dennis had hung up when he'd first moved to Nillewaug Village, he opened the door.

R
ose Rimmelman's water-blue eyes shot open, her heart raced as she struggled to quell the panic triggered by her dream.
Where are you?
Having to once again remind herself this was no longer the Lower East Side of Manhattan and her familiar-as-the-back-of-her-hand 14th floor rent-stabilized apartment on Rivington.
It's the other place with its silly fake Indian name.
Her nightmare hovered in the dark, bodies falling, waves of dust burying buildings as the towers burned and one by one did the unthinkable – collapsed, and as they did a horrible rain of ash and acid fell to the ground. Her ninety-two – possibly ninety-one, could be ninety-three – year-old body felt heavy and frozen beneath cotton sheets and a down comforter stuffed with even older feathers that her mother had taken in treasured pillows and a now-gutted comforter from her shtetl in the Ukraine. The dream lingered, something too real –
it wasn't raining on 9/11.
Droplets spattered her face, like being caught in the spray of a lawn sprinkler and then her nose caught the smell;
something's burning.
Her heart fluttered, and with it came the pit-of-her-stomach lurch that meant she'd gone back into atrial fibrillation. With each breath her worst fears confirmed;
something's on fire!
Just move.

She eased her thick legs over the side of the bed and tapped the lamp with its clever touch sensor – just one of the many perks her daughter Ada had bribed her with in exchange for Rose finally agreeing to this awful move to Connecticut. Anger surged, mingling with panic as her apartment came into fuzzy view, then on with her thick glasses and the fuzz became a thin and slightly acrid mist. ‘Fire.' Feeling for her slippers she gripped the edge of her bed and the adjacent nightstand. A glance at the bright orange numerals on the alarm – 4.12 a.m.
Just get out,
she thought, anger now rolling over her fear as she looked at all her possessions getting ruined by the overhead sprinklers, the family photos neatly hung by Ada, her great-grandson, Aaron, and their Waspy friend, Lil. All of their light-hearted banter, telling her how much happier she'd be here; their non-stop sales pitch about the dining hall with its world-class chef, laundry service, bus trips to Broadway and the casinos. She hurried to the door, grabbing a pink fleece robe.
Serve them right if I die in this hell hole!
And her faithful navy pocketbook with the once brass-colored clasp worn down to the base metal.
Why couldn't they just leave me where I was? Or if she really was that concerned she could have stayed with me. But no! Ada always has to have things her way.
She felt the knob, remembering fire drills past: if it's warm don't open it. Cool to the touch, she twisted. Even without her annoying and too-expensive hearing aids, and no thought of returning for them, she sensed pandemonium in the hall. ‘Why isn't an alarm going?' she shouted. ‘What's wrong with this place?'
All Ada's fault. Why did I ever agree to this move?

She took shallow breaths as the smoke tickled her throat. It was impossible to see through the haze and falling water that dribbled down her glasses. Around her, other elderly and semi-infirm tenants emerged from their apartments. Scared faces in cracked doorways. ‘What's happening?'

‘Is there a fire?'

‘I need help! Tell someone I need help!'

Navigating by the red EXIT in the distance and keeping to the side of the wide carpeted hall, Rose held tight to the rail and tried to remember how far it was to the outside. All the while, thinking of Ada – all her fault.
I didn't want to move!
Tears streamed, mingling with the sprinkler water that soaked her hair and dribbled down her back.
I just want my apartment back!
Knowing that could never happen. Not stopping, she shuffled forward on stiff knees and hips, taking careful sips of dirty air, trying not to cough and using her fury to quiet the fear.

‘Ma'am,' came a young man's urgent voice, and then a firm hand on her shoulder.

‘I'm fine,' she said, not wanting to lose her momentum and only able to glimpse the outline of a dark-haired man in a parka holding the hand of a shorter woman, but something about him familiar.

‘Please help her. Just get her out, please; she has dementia.'

There was no arguing, as a woman's shaky fingers were joined to hers. ‘Alice, stay with this woman . . . Rose, right?'

‘Yes, Johnny,' said the thin woman in a drenched white flannel nightgown dotted with flowers, her dyed hair – impossible to tell what color – plastered to her face. ‘I want to go home. Are we going home? I don't like the water.' She looked at Rose. ‘I can't swim.'

‘Please, help her,' he pleaded.

‘Yes,' Rose said. She shifted her pocketbook to her wrist, tried not to think how heavy it was and gripped Alice's hand. ‘You're the nurse. But your name's Kyle.'

‘It is,' he said quickly. ‘She thinks I'm someone else. Please, just help her out. I have to make sure everyone gets out. Just follow the red exits. It's not much further, and please don't let her out of your sight. She wanders.' And then a siren from far off. ‘Thank God.'

‘You can't go back there,' Rose said, feeling Alice's hand trying to pull free, a part of her wondering . . . hoping, if maybe this were all still part of the dream.

‘I have to check on others,' Kyle said, and, squeezing both their hands, he was gone.

‘Johnny!' Alice tried to pull free and go after him. ‘Johnny! I want to go home! Johnny!'

No dream
.
‘Come on, Alice, we have to get out of here.'

‘I want to go home!'

‘Alice.' Rose felt the woman pulling away. The smoke was everywhere and if she let go . . . ‘No, You're coming with me!' She clenched the woman's hand with her left, while trying to not lose her grip on the hallway railing with her right. ‘I'll take you home. Just come with me, we're going home.' Strangely, just saying those words, gave her hope, even though they contained not an ounce of truth. ‘Yes, we're going home.'

‘Oh goodie,' Alice said, and like a switch had been thrown, she stopped resisting.

Moments later they'd found their way through the smoke and the frightened cries of the residents of Nillewaug Village Assisted Care to a still dark and very cold early April morning. The only illumination coming from the burning building's windows, exit signs, and faux gas lanterns that lined the property's drives.

Soaked to the skin, her nostrils thick with smoke, and heart beating out of rhythm, Rose steered them to a wooden bench at the periphery of the sprawling facility. A wave of shivers shook her stocky frame as she sat, pulling Alice down beside her.
We're still too close
, she thought, not more than fifty feet from the side of the four-story structure, where dense smoke billowed through two shattered second-story windows and glimmers of orange flames peeked over the sill. A few other residents trickled through the side exit, one woman with a walker crumpled to the ground, a man with a cane stood behind Rose and Alice, using the bench for support.

‘What's happening?' Alice asked, as they stared back at the central building of the assisted care facility, with its ersatz Georgian brick architecture and white shuttered windows. Sirens wailed and the first red engine with its lights flashing roared down the long drive, with its ornamental pond and beautifully tended boxwood hedges.

Clutching her pocketbook Rose had no answers, just a growing ache of loss. She thought of her home on Rivington Street, the three-bedroom apartment in which she'd raised her children and sent them out into the world. The furniture she and Isaac had bought when they'd learned they were going to be able to move out of their cramped tenement quarters on Delancey and into the brand new rent-stabilized towers.
Everything's gone,
she thought, and what little she was able to take from New York, now likely ruined.
What was so wrong?
she fumed.
Why couldn't you have let me be? I didn't want to move. I didn't want this. And now . . .

‘What's that?' Alice asked as her hand patted Rose's. ‘Up there, what's that?'

Through smudged glasses Rose tried to see what had Alice so excited. Something sparkly was falling, like glitter coming down. She tried to see what Alice was pointing to, at first she thought it was the windows now spitting flames over thick waves of dark gray smoke, but no, something higher up on the top floor. A blackened window surrounded by jagged shards, bits of glass falling and then something . . . someone . . . at the edge, paused and then dropped to the ground not forty feet from them.

‘What's that?' Alice repeated, now pointing at the unmoving shape.

‘Oh God, no! Stay here,' Rose said with a sick feeling in her stomach, and, leaving her pocketbook, she stood. Her knees felt like they might buckle, but she had to see, maybe they were OK, just unconscious. But in her gut, she knew it was just like 9/11 – people jumping to their deaths. She edged forward, as flashing lights bounced off the brick. A shiver edged down her spine, and she had to clamp her mouth shut to keep her teeth – mostly still her own – from chattering. As she approached, the crumpled shape didn't move. Through smeared lenses she saw it was a blonde woman with one pump on and one missing. Years of being in retail identified her cherry-red suit as a good Chanel knock-off, probably from Talbot's. Closer still, she recognized her – Delia Preston, the administrative director of Nillewaug Village and the woman who had rolled over her every objection to this ill-fated move. The energetic Delia who had talked, seemingly without need of breath, about the wonders of life in the Connecticut countryside, of clean air and distant mountain views, of picturesque season changes, and activity-filled days. And her obvious pride in Nillewaug: ‘
Voted four years in a row the best assisted-care facility in Connecticut.
' She was certain the woman was dead, and in this growing nightmare found her voice. ‘I need help! Someone help me!'

And from where she'd left her, Alice chimed in, like a parrot with a single phrase: ‘Help me! Help me! Help me!'

L
il Campbell woke to the sound of sirens. She lay still, and wondered if Ada was awake, as she counted at least half a dozen –
that's not good.
Living in a retirement community the occasional ambulance in the night was to be expected, even in the dark of an early Sunday morning . . . Although all the local companies and Pilgrim's Progress's own emergency-response team rarely used sirens out of respect for the sleepy community of well-to-do retirees. What had pulled her from sleep at 4.15 a.m. and had her staring at the drape-hung sliding doors of her bedroom was frightening. She tried to count them, letting the different tones and cadences filter through the night and into her head. She'd get up to six or seven and then lose track –
what's happening?
From the volume, she could tell they were close, not more than a half mile – could be one of the town homes or connected condos in Pilgrim's Progress, the sprawling ‘Active Adult' community on the outskirts of her hometown – Grenville, Connecticut. She'd moved here to Pilgrim's Progress nine years ago with her now departed husband, Dr Bradley Campbell, and where she now remained with her best friend and lover, Ada Strauss. That last bit still quite new, and wonderful . . . and strange.

‘What's going on, Lil?' Ada asked, pushing back in the bed.