The Devil in Silver

Pepper decided he had no questions about what her files were doing there. He decided to forget them. Instead, he pointed at the lounge and asked again. “What’s going on?”

Scotch Tape sat down in front of the computer. “It’s visiting day,” he said. “And it looks like everybody’s family decided to come.”

Pepper nodded. He didn’t say, Not everyone’s.

He went to the lounge anyway. If only because it spared him a little time before he’d have to pull apart his double bed. Before another body filled the mattress that had carried Sue’s.

Every table was full, and there were still so many folks that many had to stand around. The lounge looked like a cocktail party thrown on a New York City subway train.

Doris Roberts and her extended family. Mr. Mack and his. Heatmiser had a sister there and a fucking girlfriend! Yuckmouth and his peoples. Wally Gambino had a whole damn crew. (How did that happen? Each patient was only allowed two visitors at a time but Wally had ten; they’d probably just bum rushed the door.) The Haint sat with two members of her church. Sandra Day O’Connor sat with an old man, her husband. Redhead Kingpin and Still Waters had pulled two tables together and were introducing their family members to one another. Frank Waverly stood outside in the courtyard, alone, smoking.

“Well, shit,” Pepper said to himself. He was practically caressing the blue accordion folder just to have contact with something.

“Pepper.”

He heard his name but he ignored it. You know the only person he wanted to speak with right then. Not Sue. Not Mari. It’s almost too embarrassing to share.

His mother.

He wanted to hear his mom’s voice.

“Pepper!”

But of course that wasn’t his mother.

It was Loochie.

At a table with her mother and brother.

The same mother and brother he’d sworn he’d apologize to.

Loochie waved Pepper over. If there’s one person who wouldn’t forget her promise, it was definitely Loochie.

Pepper lumbered to the table. His feet slapped on the cool floor.

There were three white cartons of Chinese food set out at the Gardners’ table and a game that all three were playing. The game was called That’s So Raven Girl Talk Game. There was a small circular board, and in the middle was a little electronic device meant to look like a purple crystal ball sitting on a golden stand. Cards and little round chips were spread all around the table. A note on the side of the box recommended the game for children eight and up.

“Come say hi to my mom,” Loochie said.

He got close and pointed at Loochie’s head. There was something quite different about it. No more knit cap, no more towel. Loochie wore a wig.

“You’ve got a new look,” Pepper said.

Loochie touched the wig tentatively. “I told my mother what happened. She brought me one of her wigs until my hair grows back.”

Pepper could tell it was her mother’s. A fifty-year-old woman’s style. Jet-black and shaped into a poof that screamed “legal secretary!” No doubt it suited Loochie’s mother at her job, but it had a different effect on the daughter. Not entirely negative. A fifty-year-old woman’s wig on a nineteen-year-old, it served to age Loochie by about ten years. That might sound flattering—and Pepper certainly wouldn’t say that to the kid—but it matured Loochie in a way that seemed fitting. All she’d experienced, just in the time Pepper had known her, she sure as hell wasn’t your average American nineteen. Better this way. She looked like a woman. Herself, but wiser.

“It looks good,” Pepper said.

Loochie smiled. “I wish I could argue with you.”

Pepper laughed as he grabbed the free seat. “Can I sit?” he asked Loochie.

Loochie’s mother huffed. “You ask her, but you’re the grown-up.”

“She looks like an adult to me,” Pepper said.

The brother leaned forward to introduce himself, but didn’t offer his hand.

“I’m Louis,” he said.

Pepper looked from mother to daughter to son. Funny when you see family members together like this and begin that job of detecting the traits that have been passed down. The tangible and the intangible. Both Loochie and Louis had their mother’s slim neck. Their mother’s narrow head and even the same shape to their eyes. Their mother had to be in her fifties but looked ten years younger. A little heavy but her face retained its beauty. Large brown eyes that were only more striking on the mother because the mother was black (dark brown, actually). Loochie and Louis were lighter-skinned so Pepper figured the dad was white or maybe a Latin guy. Mom wore a faint red lipstick and her eyes were done, but her black wig sat slightly too low on one side. The slanted wig made her look like she’d gotten dressed a little too fast. Like she hadn’t planned to come visit today. Maybe Mr. Mack’s suggestion, about getting one’s house in order, made Loochie push or plead. And now her mother and brother were here.

“I owe you an apology,” Pepper said to Loochie’s mother. “About a month ago, I bumped into you. And your son. By mistake.”

Loochie’s mother looked at her daughter.