Page 46 of An Immaculate Deception
I turn into my room first. I open the top drawer of the nightstand by my bed and withdraw the skeleton key. He raises the oil lamp so that it’s a palm’s width from my face and I can feel its heat on my cheeks. “What is this?”
“The key.”
His face hardens. Up until now, he did not believe the chambermaid’s account. He came here as a formality, maybe even felt irritated that his time was being wasted.
I suspect if he had believed her, he would not have come alone.
But now, seeing me holding up a key, he is thinking perhaps I am a madman, after all.
I find it enjoyable, the way the confidence drains from his face. Doubt flickers in his eyes.
“This way, please,” I say as I turn my back to him and glide into the corridor.
I feel him following closely behind me. He’s silent and on edge. At one point he jerks his head as though alarmed by a sudden noise, but I hear nothing. There is no one on this floor but the three of us.
When we reach the final door at the end of the corridor—her room—I stick the skeleton key into the keyhole and turn. The hinges groan and we step inside.
The air is always musty in this room no matter if I open the windows.
The dark orange of the setting sun streams in and faintly illuminates the bed at the center of the room, where she lies. She almost looks like she could be dead, and for a moment I wonder if maybe she is. Maybe I am a madman, and she has been dead this whole time.
She’s wearing her gray wool dress. Hair carefully combed. The white blanket is pulled up to her shoulders, just one thin sheet, for the nights can get hot. Her hands are as I left them last night, resting by her sides. I always check for movement, and sometimes there is a slight shift, which gives me hope. Doctor Amado said subtle movement could be a sign that she’s about to wake up. She may wake up any moment, but she may also die any moment. That’s what he had said.
But she never shifts by much. Always lying on her back like a vampire in a coffin. I detest it.
I take my seat on the stool by the bed. “This is my mother. She is very ill.”
“Your mother?” He approaches tentatively, holding the lamp before him almost as a shield. As though afraid of Mother. People often are.
“Yellow fever. The condition deteriorated until she fell into a deep slumber from which she has not yet awoken.”
“A deep slumber?” he echoes. He leans in and looks down at her, frowning. Then presses a finger to her pulse.
A weighty silence falls as we both await confirmation that I didn’t murder her. I’m struck by an irrational fear that there will not be breath. Maybe she died this very afternoon.
There was a time when I feared what I would find when I came into her room. During the day I listened for sounds of movement upstairs, footsteps against the floorboards, shuffling or coughing. Any signs of life. But I never heard anything, not since Mother fell into the slumber. And each passing day my hope dwindles.
The officer looks reassured as he draws back his hand. I sigh in relief.
“She lives still, as you can see,” I say, “though barely; that is why I told you I live alone, because in a sense I do. But the doctor says she may yet awaken. Only he cannot say for certain.”
He looks uncomfortable. “So you are her caretaker?”
I nod.
“Have you no sisters? This is a daughter’s job.”
“I have no sisters.”
“So when the chambermaid saw you…”
“Caring for an unconscious person involves several tasks. Movements so the muscles don’t stiffen. Sponge baths. A nurse taught me how to do these things.”
“Why lock her in?”
“The lock is not to keep her in but to keep people out. I do not like the idea of a maid coming in to dust and sweep while Mother lays there. I told the chambermaid to stay out of this room, that there was no need to clean here. I didn’t tell her why, I suppose you’re going to say I should have. But do you see, she must have disobeyed my order and tried the door. Otherwise, how would she know that it was locked? This goes to show how meddlesome the servants are. Mother was right—”
I catch myself and stop short.
