The Night Visitor by Dianne Emley Page A

is the one who murdered her sister and shot Junior. Because of Richard Tate and Rory Langtry, I don’t have any more brothers. That’s all I have to say.”
    Sylvia went into the hospital, ignoring the reporter’s nattering behind her. She signed in at the counter, slapped on her visitor’s badge beneath her shoulder, and pushed through the double doors.

    Televisions blared from patient rooms. Sylvia avoided looking in, not wanting to see sick people.
    The main corridor ended at a T. The wall there was decorated. Someone had taped up vinyl record albums, cardboard musical notes, and cutouts of girls in poodle skirts and ponytails. A banner announced: Rock and Roll Party Today. Food, Music, Fun!!
    The cheerful melody of “Rock Around the Clock” was coming from the subacute unit on the other side of the wall. The unit had an activities director who planned events for the patients, their families, and the staff. This had always struck Sylvia as perverse, but the subacute unit represented a perversion of life anyway, so maybe the bright parties with the staff in costumes, blaring music, and food the patients were incapable of eating made sense. Maybe the staff did it to keep themselves from going nuts.
    Sylvia had made a point of frequently visiting Junior during the first few months after the shootings, but as the months stretched into years, it seemed pointless. For her, Junior was as good as dead. Worse than dead. Still, the slender strand that connected her to her big brother tugged at her gut. When the unsettled feeling got bad enough, she paid an obligatory visit, dreading it, forcing herself to stay an hour, counting the minutes as soon as she set foot inside Junior’s room.
    The hospital’s odor especially got to her. She covered her nose and mouth with her hand, but the molecules, the fetid by-products of illness and death, still reached her, as if they were gunning for her. She imagined them traveling down her nasal passages into her lungs and being absorbed into her blood.

    You think you can dismiss us? the subacute patients seemed to be saying. We’re part of you, whether you like it or not.
    Sylvia pressed her hand over her nose and mouth as she walked around the partition and entered the U-shaped unit. It was devoid of the hustle and bustle of normal hospital floors. These patients required little and voiced no demands.
    Sylvia signed in at the nurses station, which had its own visitors log. She turned as a nurse came up. “Hi, Corliss.”
    “How are you, sweets?” Corliss opened her arms and gave Sylvia a long hug.
    “I’m okay.”
    “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the news.” Corliss held Sylvia at arm’s length and looked deeply into her eyes. “If there’s anything—”
    Sylvia knew that Corliss was genuinely concerned, but she’d been the object of that look enough to last her a lifetime. She stepped out of her grasp. “I will. Thanks.”
    She took in Corliss’s poodle skirt, tight sweater with a felt C sewn beneath the shoulder, and hair done with bows and pin curls. “Cute.”
    “It’s for the rock-and-roll party. Come down and have some food. Your mom brought that killer salad she makes with the papaya and avocado.”
    “Thanks. I will. How’s Junior?”
    “Not good. The pneumonia isn’t responding to antibiotics. It’s putting a strain on Junior’s kidneys and his heart’s weakening.”
    “How much longer?”

    “Maybe weeks. The doctor will talk to you and your mom about options. We can continue aggressively treating the pneumonia or suspend treatment and let nature take its course. We’ll keep the comfort measures in place, of course.”
    “Corliss, if it was up to me, I would have let nature take its course years ago. My mother won’t allow it. She thinks God’s keeping Junior alive for a purpose. I tell her God’s not keeping him alive. Science is. Maybe I can get a volume discount on funerals.” Sylvia was surprised the dark comment had flown from her