Patricia didn’t know what to do as Mrs. Savage writhed in the bags, and then the old lady was on her feet, lurching toward Patricia, and Patricia ran through the absolute blackness of the side yard, toward the front yard. She could see it, lit by the porch lights, as serene and peaceful as ever. She burst into the light, wet grass under one foot, realizing she’d lost one shoe, and she opened her mouth to scream.
It was one of those things she’d always thought she could do if she were ever really in trouble, but now, at ten p.m. on a Thursday night surrounded by people who were either already asleep or getting ready for bed, Patricia couldn’t make a sound.
Instead, she ran for the front door. She’d get inside, lock up, and call 911. That was when Mrs. Savage grabbed her waist and the old lady tried to mount her from behind, taking Patricia down to her knees, which thudded into the grass painfully. The old woman crawled up her body, forcing Patricia onto her hands, and Mrs. Savage’s mouth slobbered hot and wet and intimate into Patricia’s ear.
I drive car pool, Patricia’s mind gibbered. I’m in a book club. Well, it’s not really a book club, but essentially it’s a book club. Why am I fighting an old woman in my front yard?
Nothing fit together. None of it added up. She tried to drag herself out from under Mrs. Savage, but a screaming pain ripped through the side of her head and she thought to herself, She’s biting my ear. Mrs. Savage, whose yard won the Alhambra Pride Award two years ago, is biting my ear.
The old lady’s small, sharp teeth clamped down harder and Patricia’s vision went white—and then a blinding light smashed into her face as a car turned into the driveway slowly, slowly, so slowly and pinned them both with its headlights. A door clunked open.
“Patty?” Carter said over the sound of the idling engine.
Patricia whined.
Carter ran to her, pulling Mrs. Savage off her back, but something went wrong as he lifted Mrs. Savage and Patricia’s head snapped backward with a flash of searing pain, and she realized that Mrs. Savage wasn’t letting go. She heard a crunch deep inside her skull and then a pop and then the entire side of her head was pressed to a red-hot stove.
That was when Patricia screamed.
* * *
—
It took eleven stitches to close the wound and she had to have a tetanus shot, but they couldn’t reattach her earlobe because Mrs. Savage had swallowed it. Fortunately, neither Mrs. Savage nor the raccoon seemed to be rabid, but they’d need more tests to make sure so Patricia had that to look forward to.
On the drive home, she felt heavy from the painkillers, and she dreaded saying anything to Carter, but finally, she had to speak.
“Carter?” she asked.
“Don’t talk, Patty,” he said, merging onto the Cooper River bridge. “You’re pretty out of it.”
“They need to monitor her bowel movements,” Patricia said, head rolling from side to side against the headrest.
“Whose?” Carter asked, accelerating up the second rise of the bridge.
“Ann Savage’s,” Patricia said, overwhelmed with sadness. “She swallowed my earlobe and, and the earring you gave me…it’s going to come out, and I suppose they can wash it…”
She started to cry.
“Relax, Patty,” Carter said. “You’re not wearing those again.”
“But you bought them for me,” Patricia wailed. “And I lost them.”
“One of my patients sells costume jewelry,” Carter said. “He gave them to me for free. Just put the other one in the trash and I’ll pick you up something from the Pitt Street Pharmacy.”
It was probably the painkillers, but that made her cry even harder.
CHAPTER 5
Patricia woke up the next morning with the entire side of her face swollen and hot. She stood in front of her bathroom mirror and looked at the enormous white bandage that covered the left side of her head, wrapped beneath her chin, and around her forehead. Sadness flooded her chest. She’d had a left earlobe all her life, and suddenly it was gone. She felt like a friend had died.
But then that familiar fishhook wormed its way into her brain and got her moving:
“You have to make sure the children are all right,” it said. “You can’t let them feel frightened.”
So she brushed her hair over the bandage as best she could, went downstairs to the den, and made Toaster Strudel. And when Blue came down, followed by Korey, and they sat on their stools on the other side of the counter, she smiled as best she could, even though her face felt tight, and asked, “Do you want to see it?”
“Can I?” Korey asked.
She found the beginning of the gauze at the back of her head, untaped it, and began the long process of unwrapping it around her forehead, beneath her chin, over her skull, until she got down to the final cotton pad and gingerly began to pull it away. “Do you want to look, too?” she asked Blue.
He nodded, and she lifted the square bandage and felt cool air wash over her sweaty, tender tissue.
Korey sucked in her breath.
“Gnarly,” she said. “Did it hurt?”
“It didn’t feel nice,” Patricia said.
Korey came around the counter and stood so close her hair brushed Patricia’s shoulder. Patricia inhaled her Herbal Essences shampoo and realized that it had been a long time since they’d been this close. They used to squeeze in together on the La-Z-Boy and watch movies on the sun porch together, but Korey was almost as tall as Patricia now.
“I can see teeth marks, Blue, look,” Korey said, and her little brother dragged over a kitchen stool and stood on it, balanced with one hand on his sister’s shoulder, both of them inspecting their mother’s ear.
“Another person knows what you taste like now,” Blue said.
Patricia hadn’t thought about it that way before, but she found the idea disturbing. After Korey ran to get her ride to school, and Blue’s car pool honked, Patricia followed him to the door.
“Blue,” she said. “You know Granny Mary wouldn’t do something like this.”
By the way he stopped and looked at her, Patricia realized it was exactly what he’d been thinking.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because this woman has a disease that’s affected her mind,” Patricia said.
“Like Granny Mary,” Blue said, and Patricia realized that was how she’d described Miss Mary’s senility to him when she’d moved in.
“It’s a different disease,” she said. “But I want you to know that I would not let Granny Mary stay with us if it weren’t safe for you and your sister. I would never do anything that put the two of you in danger.”