Help for the Haunted by John Searles Page B

this priest was helping her daughter after all. She went to the city and spoke to people there. That is how she learned of my wife and me. And when she was told that our approach to these situations was more gentle, more humane, unlike the clichés we see in movies and books, she made contact with us . . .”
    When I reached their door, I expected it to be locked. But it opened right up. The first thing I saw was Rose passed out on our mother’s bed, mouth open in a lopsided O, bible facedown on her chest. On the nightstand: the tape recorder from that basket in the basement. The wheels turned inside, and I looked at my father’s cramped writing on the cassette: Sylvester Mason, Light & Dark Lecture at The Believers Circle. 11/9/1985.
    â€œ . . . When we arrived in that village, it was immediately apparent to my wife and me that this was not a girl in need of our help, but one who desperately needed a doctor to address her medical issues, a psychiatrist to treat her emotional problems. You are probably all wondering how were we able to tell the difference. Let me explain—”
    STOP.
    When I hit that button, the air inside our house fell silent. On the other side of the bathroom door, things remained eerily quiet. I waited for my sister to wake, but when she didn’t, I went to the door. “Dot? Are you okay in there?” She did not answer, and my sister remained dead to the world. I went to work, attempting to undo the rope around the knob. When it wouldn’t give, I moved to the bedpost, where the knot came loose more easily.
    When the rope fell to the floor, my sister’s eyes opened. Groggy voiced, she asked, “What are you doing?”
    â€œWhat do you think, Rose? She’s been in there for hours.”
    I expected her to argue. Instead, my sister rubbed her eyes and got out of bed, then found her flashlight and strolled out of the room. I grabbed the other flashlight off the dresser and pointed it toward my parents’ pink-tiled bathroom. Inside, I found a slumped and shivering figure, huddled in the corner on the floor. Except for a towel wrapped around her waist and another around her shoulders, she was naked.
    â€œDot?”
    Slowly, she lifted her head. One hand shielded her eyes from the glare of the flashlight. I moved it away. Asked if she was all right. Not a word in response. Quickly, I went to the bed, grabbed her uniform with the bears, and returned to hold it out to her. Dot stood, legs shaking, towel slipping from her body so that her skinny legs and sagging breasts and drooping pouch of a stomach, even the thatch of gray hair at her crotch, were exposed. I saw that her legs and arms were scraped and realized she must have tried, unsuccessfully, to crawl out the window onto the slanted section of our roof.
    Before I could look away, Dot reached out and snatched the uniform. She began to clumsily dress, gripping the towel rack for support. In the end, her shirt wound up inside out and backward, the tag in front, the V of her neckline dipping down the wrong side. It didn’t seem to matter: Dot picked her bloated paperback off the floor and walked past me, bumping my shoulder so that I stumbled back. She felt her way down the hall in the dark as I regained my balance and trailed behind, doing my best to light our path. When we arrived in the living room, she grabbed her laundry basket off one of the wingback chairs right where I’d left it.
    â€œI washed and folded your clothes just like you wanted,” I told her.
    She did not respond, though the house seemed to, because all at once the lights came on and Rose clomped up the stairs. She paused when she saw Dot at the front door.
    â€œDot,” I called when she pulled it open. “You don’t have to go.”
    Those words caused her to pay attention at last. She whirled around, eyes wide behind crooked glasses, more spittle on her lips than ever before. “Oh, yes, I