It wasn’t a week after the funeral when Flannery met up with the trooper again.
She awakened one morning to find Mama gone. Flannery called the state police post and reached Trooper Green. Frantic, she asked him to check down at the river. “I’m throwing on some clothes and will be there as soon as I can,” Flannery told him.
Flannery made it to the boat dock just as Trooper Green was peeling off his shirt and shoes. Mama, once again, stood up to her shoulders in the muddy water.
Trooper charged into the river with Flannery not far behind him.
Mama screamed at him and waded out deeper. Her head slipped under and bobbed back up just as the trooper tried to clutch her into his arms.
Even though he was taller and had a good footing, Trooper had a hard time latching on to Mama, and she pulled him under twice. By the time he and Flannery got her back to shore, the trooper was both furious and spent. After checking her out for injuries, he made her sit in the backseat of his cruiser and called for an ambulance on his police radio. “That was very foolish, Mrs. Butler. Not only foolish, but downright dangerous. Next time, I’ll have to lock you up.”
Mama’s eyes filled, and she begged, “Please, oh, please, Trooper, get me back my baby’s pearls. Pleeease . . . I miss my baby girl so much. It’s all I have left of her.” Her cold, wet hands shook as she reached out for him. “I need to hold the pearls and remember how beautiful she was in them. Remember her in her pretty yellow dress. The lovely pearls that put a sparkle in her eye. You should’ve seen her, Trooper.”
“Ma’am, I understand, but—”
“She had a sweet smile when I clasped them around her neck that night. I can’t, won’t, have only that keepsake . . . a dirty, nasty ribbon to hold to her memory,” Mama said weakly.
“Mama, please,” Flannery said, not wanting anyone to know she’d brought home the small piece of evidence from the wreck. “Trooper Claymore, just let me take her home. I won’t let her out of my sight.”
The trooper lightened at the sight of Mama’s tears and draped his dry shirt over her shoulders. He patted her arms. “Come on now, Mrs. Butler. Let’s get you to the hospital and make sure you’re okay.” He turned to Flannery. “Can’t do that again, ma’am. She’s becoming a danger to herself. I have to get her checked out, or it’ll all be on me.”
Mama recovered from her swim within hours, but the doctors couldn’t fix her broken heart. During her stay, doctors ended up trying something new for her nerves, this new pill, and another, some more new in a syringe another day, and then back to that better new, and again a sure new pill five days later, until they were convinced Jean Butler’s nerves were rested and the old woman was strong enough to be dumped someplace else.
The doctors tried to figure out what to do with Mama and spent a good deal of that time just talking.
In town running errands, Flannery overheard folks talking too. Talking a lot. Talking sideways, anyways, and no-ways, trying to make sense of it all. Many gossiped it was ol’ Joetta that had done the sheriff in, same as she must’ve done to his younger brother. Others swore and argued the ghost drew the teens to Ebenezer Road on prom night and sent them off to their cold, watery grave. That Hollis had even done himself in. And more than a few argued ol’ Joetta was punishing Jean Butler, tormenting her for allowing her daughter to run off from Glass Ferry and die like that. Patsy Butler was surely the murderer, a few prattled.
Lots of scared talk that folks puffed themselves up with to make them feel bigger and less frightened.
Flannery visited Mama at the hospital in the mornings and returned at night to tuck her in. She wanted to bring her flowers, but she couldn’t make herself look at them, pick them up. Twice she walked into the small florist shop inside the hospital, and twice the scents ran her out and left her shaky and gagging.
The third time Flannery managed to pick up a bundle of cheerful sunflowers, Mama’s favorite. She plucked them up from a glass shelf, carried them low where she wouldn’t see them, keeping her grip sealed on the lip of the vase, holding it as close to her knee as she could without dropping it. But when Flannery reached the cash register, her legs knocked a little. Quickly she placed the flowers on the counter and opened her purse.
“That’ll be four dollars and twenty-four cents,” the clerk said, centering the Coke-bottle-green vase, pushing it back toward Flannery. “Now aren’t these perfect for the gloomy skies we’ve been having.” She smiled.
Something closed in Flannery’s throat, and it became hard to breathe, hard to think through the pounding in her chest, the blood rushing up to her ears.
The lady caught Flannery’s arm. “Honey,” she said, “do you need to sit down?”
Flannery tried to blink and pull herself out of the toppling panic, but the anxious feeling grabbed ahold and wouldn’t let go.
She jerked loose of the woman’s grip and rushed out of the shop, fleeing down a long corridor.
A minute later Flannery found herself outside, in back of the hospital, bent over, taking in large gulps of air. Soon, she felt her legs getting back their grit, and she latched on to the corner of the building to straighten herself.
“Damn you, Mark,” she said hoarsely, and smacked the concrete wall. She was missing more than what he and that old delivery doc took long ago, knew she would always feel her ex’s choke leash on her neck, his bite on her skin.
Flannery pulled herself up and went back into the building. A doctor met her in the hall and said he would keep Mama a few more days, but advised Flannery to take Mama away from Glass Ferry. “Take her to a home for the idiots, if you can’t care for her. The asylum,” he suggested. “Her mind is failing. They can restrain her, best deal with her kind there.”
“A home for idiots? Restrain her?” Flannery repeated his words.
“Yes,” he said, in a mood to rush. “They are equipped to care for these creatures.”
“Creatures? But—”
“Mrs. Hamilton, we’re a hospital. We care for the ill. Not the addled. Now please, I have patients waiting.”
That night when Flannery came to tuck Mama in, she found her tied to the bed with leather straps. Mama’s arms were pulled up high and wide, ugly, stretched to the rails, and her legs were spread and fastened to the metal sides, her gown hitched up to her waist.
Mama pulled a helpless gaze to Flannery. Her lips quivered, but nothing came out.
“Mama! Who did this to you?” Flannery rushed to her side and went to work on the straps, loosening the knots and pressing the nurse call button in between her frantic efforts to get Mama free.
A nurse came in. “Mrs. Hamilton, what do you think you’re doing?” The heavyset woman pushed Flannery’s hand away from the last strap.
Flannery shoved the nurse’s arm back.
“Mrs. Hamilton, you need to stop. You can’t do that. The doctor gave orders for restraint.” The nurse pulled up a strap.
“And I’m giving orders to release her.” Flannery bumped the nurse aside.
“She tried to escape. We had no choice, Mrs. Hamilton. This afternoon we found her in the nursery ward. She was delusional, and argued with a nurse, accusing her of harming the babies—”
“I don’t believe you.” Flannery released the last strap, threw it on the floor, and pulled down Mama’s gown to cover her nakedness. Quickly Flannery snatched the covers and stretched the thin blanket over her mama’s shivering body.
“Mrs. Hamilton, I must insist—”
“Get out. Out. Dammit.” Flannery cursed the nurse and rubbed Mama’s ankles.
“Flannery,” Mama moaned.
“Shh, shh, Mama.” Flannery gently patted Mama’s reddening arm, rubbed the indents the strap had left behind.
A doctor came in behind her. “Mrs. Hamilton, you can’t—”
“You can’t! You can’t tie her up like that. Like a dog. I’m taking her home,” Flannery said.