Anna in the Afterlife by Merrill Joan Gerber Page B

mentioned in passing that she might have been “a little depressed,” that she had taken a few too many sleeping pills. This blood bath was extravagant and gaudy—leave it to Gert to gussy up everything, to wear a red lace nightgown to do the deed. To call to say good-bye!
    It turned out, and it served her right, that after Gert was sewed up in the ER, she was admitted to the psychiatric lock-up ward where they put all the nut cases. Janet and Carol found her in the ER at the hospital just before they wheeled her away; her arms were wrapped in gauze like a mummy. When she saw her nieces looking into the cubicle, she said “Don’t worry about me anymore, I’m not worth it.” On the floor, just to the side of her bed, was her red lace nightgown in shreds. Gert saw them looking: “They cut it off me. It’s a pity, my best nightgown. I had to have seventeen stitches. I don’t know how I had the nerve to do it, a chicken like me. It took a lot of courage, don’t you think? Like they say, old age isn’t for sissies.”
    The girls were speechless. Gert had plenty more to say. “Did you get my note? I left you a good-bye note.”
    â€œWe didn’t see the note,” Janet said. “The police took it.”
    Gert looked surprised and pleased. “Maybe they have to investigate that I wasn’t murdered.”
    â€œWhat did you say in the note?” Janet asked.
    â€œI said to forgive me. That I was tired of living, that I was doing this so you’d have some use of my money.”
    â€œYou killed yourself for us?” Carol asked her. “So we could have your money?”
    â€œWhy should it be wasted on an old lady like me? You two have much more use for it. You could have some fun with it.”
    â€œ This is really a lot of fun, Aunt Gert,” Janet said. “Seeing you like this.”
    The lock-up ward of the hospital was a little like a college dorm: two to a room, a snack machine in the lounge where a TV played all day, a ready supply of free tea and coffee, and one pay phone hanging in a hallway, which, unless you had proper change, you could not use. Nor could you receive any calls on it.
    Gert who had never been away from home one day in her life, who had believed that “if a man is going to find me, he’ll find me taking out the garbage,” now appeared to be having the lost excitement of her youth. A black man, another nutcase, took a fancy to her, and tried to waltz with her every time she sashayed down the hall. He sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” as he twirled her around the floor. He wore pointy brown shoes with white wing tips.
    Twice a day the inmates had therapy sessions. Gert had a Jewish psychiatrist who liked to shove his face into hers and say, “Are you going to do what you did ever again? Ever again? “
    â€œI wish it had worked the first time,” Gert told him.
    He scowled. Wrong answer . His face was even more fierce.
    â€œYou’re going to put your family through that again? Do you know what it did to them? I met your nieces, they’re nice girls. One is a widow, she told me, of a suicide.”
    â€œI did it for them,” Gert told him. “I thought they could use a little extra money.”
    Wrong answer . His face was even meaner.
    â€œOkay, so it didn’t work, and now I’ll be a terrible trouble to them.”
    â€œYou don’t think you’ve already been a terrible trouble to them? Your older niece said all you do is call her up ten times a day and tell her how many pains you have.”
    â€œWho else should I tell?”
    â€œYou should tell your doctor, no one else. He’s the only one who can do something about it, not your nieces.”
    Gert was obviously getting bored. She was looking around for the black man. With all Gert’s prim and proper attitudes, Anna suspected her sister was a sex maniac. She once saw a red mark on