"That Poor Girl"

It was the same nurse again. She was grim-faced and grossly overweight, and her face, which at one time may have been pretty, constantly wore a look of dour discontent. Her ample bosom strained at the buttons on her uniform, and her large, thick arms were wobbly with yards of excess flesh. Her eyes were small black pebbles peering out of a face that seemed to be structured from raw bread dough. The nurse’s gargantuan hands carried a tray, which held dinner. Tonight it seemed even less appetizing than usual. Overcooked roast beef, instant potatoes with a small portion of brown gravy, a sad-looking green salad with a pouch of Marzetti’s Ranch dressing on the side , and a shallow dish containing red Jell-O with pears.

Her voice was loud and coarse as she bent down to the eye level of the young girl in the wheelchair. “Here is your dinner, Marie! Time to eat.” And then, mockingly, her voice became that of an overbearing adult speaking to a child they believed was simple. “Lookee here! Roast beef! Your FAVORITE! Now be a GOOD GIRL for me and eat it all up!”

Marie looked at the nurse but said nothing. She was a paraplegic, left this way from a tragic horseback riding accident. She’d been sent to this hellhole, the Hadley Institute, by her parents, who were far too busy with their own selfish lives to bother caring for their only child. John Marshall Addison and Liliana Hedgcliffe Addison were respectively a well-known and respected investment banker and his social-climbing wife. The accident had happened three years ago, when Marie, despite her protests, had been forced to compete in a steeplechase meet. As her horse jumped over a stone wall, Marie, who was not an experienced rider, fell off the horse and fractured her spine from her hard fall from the horse. John and Lily Addison had their daughter, then seventeen, institutionalized and went on with their selfish pursuits of happiness.

What they didn’t know was that Marie knew. They thought she was clueless as to what was going on, but she knew that they were having fun, on their godforsaken yacht on the South Pacific where they’d spent so many of her birthdays and Christmases, leaving her at home with the nanny. She was going to get revenge on them. They were not going to be able to walk all over her any more. Because she could get even, and that was exactly what she was going to do, and damn anyone whom tried to stop her.

The nurse was named Edna Hanson, and she’d been at Hadley for more than thirty years. Few liked her, but everyone respected her no-nonsense ways. Rumor had it that she was a lesbian, but no one knew enough about her personal life to verify or contradict that statement. Her shift was almost up, and soon she would be able to go home and sleep. She worked twelve hours straight, seven days a week with no time for pleasure or free time. Not that it mattered. She had no family and no friends. Edna Hanson lived alone.

As she reached the nurse’s lounge, she pushed open the door and plucked her coffee cup off the rack where it hung. It had a happy little person on it was a large smile, with a bright red heading that proclaimed to all that “Nurses Call The Shots!” She reached for the coffeepot and made herself some – she drank it black – and reached for a bear claw from the box of pastries on the table. The magazines on the table were inane and shallow. There were a few Redbooks, some back issues of Good Housekeeping, and the staple of all waiting rooms and doctors offices all over the US, People Weekly. Not that it mattered to her. She had no interest in magazines.

Edna finished her coffee and headed off into the changing room, where she stripped out of her nurse’s uniform. Peeling off her scrubs, she spun the combination on her locker and pulled out a faded blue sweatshirt and a pair of Wranglers. A sharp pain in Edna’s chest caused her to lose her balance and fall onto the hard, blue-tiled floor. It was almost as if someone had reached inside her chest and literally pulled out her heart. Blood spurted from her chest with such force that it spattered the lockers and the newly mopped floor. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she gasped for words that could, or would not come. Taking one final, last, dying breath, Edna Hanson slumped to the floor.

One wrong had been righted. There were two left to go. The soul of Marie Addison slipped down the halls and through the walls, past the nurse’s station and back into her room, where she glided back into her mortal form. She began to feel a warm, almost overwhelming feeling of satisfaction.

Marie had killed Nurse Hanson by reaching into her chest and pulling out her heart. It throbbed in Marie’s hands, but of course to the naked eye, the heart seemed to be suspended in thin air. Over the course of the three years that she had been here, Nurse Hanson had been a constant tormentor, treating Marie like a small, helpless child when in all reality, she was far from stupid. Hanson had done nothing but harass her, almost making her believe that she was nothing more than a mindless creature stuck in this shell of a body. The only reason that she was here was because John and Lily just didn’t care about her enough to let her live a normal life, the kind of life that she deserved. And as much as it hurt to admit, she knew they loved her little or at all.

Marie remembered, and loved, LIFE, in all of its splendorous glory. She’d gone to school, played soccer and softball, done steeplechase although she hated it beyond belief, had a boyfriend, and had lost her virginity at the age of sixteen in the back seat of Jason Frye’s BMW. But the damned steeplechase! It was something that Lily had insisted on. She believed that it was something that all young ladies of upper-class upbringing should do. Marie had argued and said that she hated horses and hated steeplechase, but Lily had insisted. And finally, too tired to argue with her mother, Marie had relented.

Lily had done such a wonderful job playing the concerned mother. Sitting in hospital chairs at Cedars of Sinai, barely eating anything, saying prayers to the God that she had shunned years ago. When the doctors said that she would never walk again, Lily had cried as if her heart was breaking, but her concern was nothing more than good acting. She was yachting with John on the South Pacific, keeping bottles of fourteen hundred dollar wine in the refrigerator and sending Hadley a thousand dollar check each month for her keep. Their society friends didn’t know the truth and believed Lily’s story that Marie was “studying in Europe.”

Marie reached for the remote and turned on the television. A news reporter was standing outside Hadley, which was blocked off by yellow police tape. The reporter, a blonde woman with a heavily sprayed bob, began to speak. “The Hadley Institute was where Edna Hanson, aged sixty-two, was found dead. The causes of her death are not known. Ms. Hanson was a nurse here at Hadley for nearly forty years.” Clicking the TV off, Marie smiled a horrible, wicked grin and fell asleep.

The nurse replacing the old harridan Hanson was thirty-some years younger and had a much nicer bedside manner. She brought the food tray, smiling broadly as she did so. She had hated Edna Hanson, and thought the woman was a mean and hateful creature who took her troubles out on people like poor Marie who couldn’t defend themselves. Marie took a look at tonight’s dinner, which looked considerably more appetizing than the sorry roast beef from the night before. Tonight, it was teriyaki chicken on brown rice, a cup of clam chowder and a small, cold carton of milk. As the nurse left, Marie began to brighten up. She was happier than she had been in days.

Lily Addison sat in a white wicker chair on the yacht’s deck. She wore a pair of large, white-framed Jackie O. sunglasses that covered up half of her face, and a raspberry-red bikini. She dressed like a girl twenty-five years younger and knew that she looked damned good for her age. Yawning luxuriously, she stretched her feet out and let them rest on the matching ottoman. Her stomach was beginning to growl…time for lunch. She ate small amounts of food and ate no red meat at all. She had the body that caused men to turn and look at her on the street, even if they are half her age. Often, she was pictured in the society pages, looking beautiful as usual. She was vibrantly self-absorbed.

She pressed the beeper at her side. “Lars,” she purred, “would you be a dear and bring me a vodka and papaya juice? Yes, that’s a boy, and a Caesar salad would be wonderful for lunch. Oh, is there some of that orange-marinated chicken left? That would be delightful! Dressing on the side, oh yes, I have taught you well. Fifteen minutes will be fine. I’ll see you then.” The problem with Lily Addison was that there was only one person she cared about, and that person was Lily.

Lily and John were yachting in the South Pacific. Marie knew, deep in her heart of hearts, that she could will her soul to go there – to find the yacht and to get her revenge on the people that created her. Calling them parents was far too much of a long shot. She was going to get revenge on John Marshall Addison and Liliana Hedgcliffe Addison if it was the last thing she did.

The South Pacific evening was breathtaking. The brilliant red sun against a background of aqua blue was stunning. Lily Addison sipped her third papaya juice and vodka of the day, and ate, in small, delicate bites, a chicken breast which had been marinating in white wine, orange juice and mint all day. She cut a piece, marvelling in its tenderness. John was in the smoking lounge, having a cigar with some friends. Neither of them had even the fainted suspicion that this would be their last day alive.

Marie’s soul floated through the air, until she spotted the familiar yacht with the red-painted “Lily-Marie” on the side. The Addisons stood on the deck. The tip of John’s cigar glowed red against the evening sky, and Lily had her hand wrapped around his waist. The water lapped gently at the side of the boat, creating a soft, rhythmic pounding. Still, Lily wore her bikini top, and had wrapped her lower half in a beautiful handmade Mexican pareo. John wore Dockers and a polo shirt. He was aging gracefully, like Kirk Douglas.

She felt her feet touch the ground. Softly she padded over to where Lily stood. Remembering the scene from Ghost where Sam learned that he could do it if he only believed, Marie picked up all of the hundred and five pounds of Lily Hedgcliffe Addison and hurled her off of the deck. She screamed as she went down, and John struggled to jump in after her. Water filled her lungs, and soon her water-logged body, no longer beautiful, would end up on some beach somewhere. It made Marie smile with grim satisfaction.

Marie reached for John’s head and pounded it against the metal railing of the deck. She had no regret. He had always wanted a son and believed that girls were a waste of chromosomes. She pounded for all the times that he had talked down to her, made her feel stupid, and for all the other times that he hadn’t cared enough to visit her in the hospital. This was the end. Soon, his once-handsome face was a pulpy mess and his eyes were bloody. A wave of satisfaction swept over Marie and soon, she reappeared in her hospital room, once again slipping into the mere mortal form which sat in the wheelchair by the window.

The next morning, the Lily-Marie was found drifting and unmanned, with the dead body of John Addison a feeding ground for maggots and bugs. The body of Lily Addison was nowhere to be found, until six months later when she was found off the coast of Bermuda by a seventy year old man and his dog, who were using their metal detector. All of the magazines were all over it, wondering how this couple who seemed to have it all had died. People magazine covered their funeral, and the big question was, who had murdered these people? And why?

The young nurse, Glory, came into Marie’s room and found that she was no longer alive. “Poor thing,” the nurse said softly. “What’s the point in going on when you don’t have any family left?”

If only she knew the truth...