Tara Doyle:Oxycodone
Molly Frank:Also need to be careful with long term use of narcotics?
Tara Doyle:Well she does have pain! Also a fractured wrist.
Sharon Pinkton:Which LTC? Why won’t you answer??
Tara Doyle:Sharon Pinkton, chill. Maybe YOU need a Xanax!
Sharon Pinkton:No need to be rude. I’m going to flag this for the admins.
Tara Doyle:Sharon Pinkton, sorry. I’m just a little stressed out. It doesn’t really matter where I’m working with V bc I’ll only be helping her for a few more days.
Vivian
Present Day
Shadows flit in and out of her vision, a woman’s voice low as she speaks to someone else in the room—a male whose form seems to shape-shift, as if Vivian cannot, or does not, want to recognize him.
Her fear grows prickly, sharp.
Who are these people? Why is she here, at the Knox? Where the hell is Peter, her alleged boyfriend? Ishethe man in the room?
She chews her hazy, ill-defined thoughts like food, and then gradually becomes aware that she is, in fact, chewing a piece of food. No, make that a semisolid mass, like applesauce. How didthathappen? Is someone feeding her? In the next moment, she’s startled to realize she’s sitting up, in a chair, propped up like some doll. And she knows that she’s done this before, multiple times before: sit in the chair,eat.
Yet, without warning, she’s back in her bed. Hours erased, as if she’s been heavily sedated.
Christ. It’s the TBI. It’s making her mind appear and then disappear, allowing her to inhabit her body only for short spurts.But as she runs her tongue over her teeth, tasting the bitter remnants of Xanax, she realizes, with a chill, sheisgetting sedated.
Meanwhile, time ticks, ticks, ticks. There seems to be a waiting, a prolonged waiting. Something everyone is waiting for. Something she, by default, is waiting for.
Vivian knows, with absolute clarity, that it can’t be good.
Taylor
Taylor stares at her laptop screen, the words of the Facebook student nurse group chat blurring as her mind trips over what they mean.
The Knoxisholding Vivian captive. And they’ve hired Tara to help take care of her.
The clues were there: The amantadine Taylor found in the trash. The Med-Ox medical van circling in the neighborhood. The rent for Vivian’s antiques store paid in advance by a “well-dressed” man. The warning note with the Knox symbol in Vivian’s apartment.
The piercing scream.
All along, Vivian has been at the Knox, in one of their many upstairs rooms.
Who is in on it? And what is it that they are trying to do with her?
Shadowy, undefined thoughts circulating in Taylor’s head morph into terrible shapes. Perhaps Vivian’s death is only a matter of time. She’s a potential heir, a threat to the Knox. In the group chat, Tara Doyle had posted:I’ll only be helping her for a few more days.
Taylor lifts her water glass with trembling hands. What has her life come to, that she has these thoughts? That this is the scenario before her?
Maybe she should go back to being a nurse, like that note said. Like Jerry had said.
Suddenly, she remembers something else he said:I had a little chat with your nurse manager, Jan. A little “accidental” run-in at the St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Taylor was still working at the hospital in March. She hadn’t yet quit. Nor yet applied for the Knox. So why were they asking around about Taylor in March?
There’s only one explanation: because she was Vivian’s nurse. Taylor’s employment is not random.
