Virtue Falls by Christina Dodd

didn’t know about his eyes, but the wrinkled skin of his eyelids showed veins under pale skin.
    The monster who had haunted her childhood, who had made her a pariah wherever she went … was old. Ancient. “He’s only sixty-five,” she murmured.
    “We’ve seen it before. Prison ages a man,” Yvonne said.
    “I presume that’s true.” Elizabeth supposed he deserved whatever misery had worn him down, but right now, he looked pitiful.
    In that ever-chipper voice of hers, Yvonne said, “Today it was weird to watch. Mr. Banner was eating at his place at the table. Mr. Cook was ranting behind him.”
    Mr. Cook had been the creepy old guy. “Does he always rant?”
    “On some men, the dementia peels off the civilization and allows the rage to come out. Mr. Cook is an unpleasant man and his wife is glad to be rid of him. She doesn’t visit much. Sort of tells you a lot, doesn’t it?” Yvonne pushed the thinning hair off Charles’s head with an affectionate hand.
    “Yes.” It took more nerve than Elizabeth could imagine, but she had to ask. “What about my father? Does he ever show signs of rage?”
    “Never. When he first came here, we were scared of him. We were careful to make sure he wasn’t alone with the other patients. We restrained him before he went to sleep. But your father’s a sweetie. Never any trouble, kind to everyone, mostly keeps to himself. Except for the thing with your mother.” She laughed awkwardly. “The … killing. No one here believes he did it.”
    Elizabeth turned on her. “You don’t?”
    Yvonne leaned back and gazed curiously at Elizabeth. “Surely you don’t, do you?”
    Elizabeth stared at her, and thought of all the times her cousins had taunted her that her father had murdered her mother. They had been like Mr. Cook, only younger, and meaner, and they had taught her caution in her relationships.
    “Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” Yvonne patted her arm. “Charles Banner is a sweetheart through and through.”
    Elizabeth shook her head. “You’re too trusting.”
    “Really? Do you think your mother would continue to hang around him if he had killed her?”

 
    CHAPTER SIXTEEN
     
    Had working here in this place of ephemeral minds and memories robbed this nurse of her sanity? “My mother’s dead,” Elizabeth explained carefully.
    “He talks to her sometimes, and looks at this empty space beside him like she’s there.” Yvonne nodded her head as if that explained everything.
    “Well. He does have Alzheimer’s.”
    “I know.” Yvonne looked at her, her brown eyes wide and not at all crazy. “Today, right before the quake, Mr. Banner was sitting in the dining room eating his meal with Mr. Cook carrying on behind him, and all of a sudden your father did that thing where he was talking to the air.”
    Elizabeth needed to clarify. “You mean, he thought he was talking to my mother?”
    “I’d say so, because he nodded, like he was agreeing, got up, and moved close to the wall. Cocky as a bantam rooster, Mr. Cook sat down in Charles’s seat like he was proud of chasing him away. And the earthquake hit. Boom! ” Yvonne clapped her hands. “Everybody staggered or fell over. But the only place the ceiling came down was onto your father’s chair. Ceiling tiles, steel support— slam! —knocked Mr. Cook out cold. We sent him to the hospital with a concussion and a broken collarbone for sure, and heaven knows what other injuries. If Charles had stayed at the table, if he would have been the one injured … He’s a slighter man, more frail than Mr. Cook. I think the ceiling collapse would have killed your father.”
    “So you’re saying you believe my mother warned him to move?”
    “How else can you explain it?”
    “Coincidence. Or luck.” Yvonne’s conviction made Elizabeth uncomfortable.
    “Or your mother is with him. If I loved a man, and he had suffered for a crime he didn’t commit, I wouldn’t leave him to die alone. I’d come back for a visit,