Page 24 of X-Ray in the Xanth (Lovely Lethal Gardens Rewind #3)

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A fter speaking with Margaret and letting her go—with at least her contact information secured—Doreen decided to head down to Nan’s and see if anybody there knew anything about Margaret, and potentially the mother and the grandmother of Eli.

As she walked toward Rosemoor, Nan called her. Doreen froze in her steps. “Problems?”

“No, I was just going to invite you down for tea.”

“That’s timely,” she replied, “because the animals and I are only a few minutes away. We’re already on our way to see you.”

Nan laughed. “That’s perfect timing, since I already put on the teakettle. I’m glad to know we’re still in sync.”

Doreen ended the call and headed the last little bit to her grandmother’s place.

She entered from the patio door and smiled as she watched a group of residents all collect in Nan’s living room.

They made room for her, and she sat down in her designated chair.

Her animals wandered around and greeted everybody, hoping for food or a hug.

Doreen shook her head. She thought Mugs sometimes just wanted to come so he could get more cuddles.

Doreen cleared her throat and began. “Does anybody know of a Glenda or a Mary, who would have been grandmother or mother respectively to a man named Eli? Mary worked as a cleaner, and Glenda didn’t work full-time at anything, as far as we know.

There would have been a father too, though I don’t have a name or an occupation.

Eli apparently had an accident and broke his legs.

Then during a subsequent investigation into why he wasn’t healing well, among other things such as endocrine problems, they also discovered a brain tumor.

He had surgery for the brain tumor, but he never fully recovered.

He spent the bulk of his life in a wheelchair, with various issues, physical and mental.

This all started when he was young. At well over six feet, he was also very tall for that era. ”

When they all just looked at her, she nodded. “I’m just hoping to trigger something that could lead to something more. I’ve got no last names, just given names. I did just speak with Margaret, who worked over at the home where Eli was for a time.”

“Margaret Gibbons?” Maisie asked.

Doreen looked down at her notes and then nodded. “Yes, that’s her last name.”

“Oh, interesting,” Maisie noted. “She was always very involved with special needs patients.”

“Yes, that’s what I understand. She had a daughter who she lost in a car accident, and her husband has since passed on.

When she heard I was asking questions about Eli, she reached out.

Now, she was told that Eli was moved to the coast. I guess there was some time period where the government stopped funding for a lot of the mental health facilities, and so his father supposedly took Eli down to the coast.”

“So, you’re wondering if he’s actually down there?” Nan asked.

“I’m wondering if anybody in his family is still alive. That would be our best chance of getting more information on Eli, plus confirming that he did go to the coast.”

“You’re not thinking that’s him in the grave at the park, are you?” Richie asked, staring at her.

“I have absolutely no facts to confirm that’s him in the grave,” Doreen clarified. “Yet I have no reason to not consider it either.”

Richie harrumphed and sat back, staring at her. “Sounds like lots of guesswork to me. Mack won’t like that.”

She smiled at him. “You are absolutely correct. He won’t like that, which is why I’m working to find more people who might know about this Eli—or anybody else they’ve lost track of who was extremely tall. So far, I keep getting blank looks.”

Richie snorted. “Losing track of all kinds of people over the years is quite common, but there just aren’t that many people who are extremely tall, especially back then,” Richie pointed out. “I’m considered tall, but you’re saying he was a good couple inches taller than me?”

“Yes,” Doreen confirmed. “And, back then, I understand people were even shorter.”

“Of course.” Richie nodded. “Seems every generation since is getting taller.”

She nodded and didn’t get any further into that discussion. “So, the question is, does anybody know of Eli, Mary, Glenda?”

Immediately heads started to shake. Yet Maisie had a frown on her face.

“Maisie, what about you?” Doreen asked.

“I’m not sure,” she replied.

At that, Nan just rolled her eyes. “How can you not be sure, Mace?”

“Because, back then, an awful lot of people were involved in a lot of these mental health cases,” she shared.

“I was a nurse, you know?” Doreen looked at her in surprise, and Maisie nodded.

“But I wasn’t dealing with the mental health cases,” she added, “so I don’t remember Eli.

I don’t remember anybody with that description.

Now obviously we had many tall people come through the hospital, but it’s not something that I would have thought of as being different or even unusual. ”

“No, of course not,” Doreen noted. “The thing is, we also can’t be sure that many people even noticed how tall Eli was.

If he was in a wheelchair, which he was for a large part of his life, then I’m not sure his height would have even been seen.

It depends on if he was long and tall in the torso or if he was all legs. ”

Nan frowned at her and then nodded. “That’s a good point because, if you’re sitting in a wheelchair, everybody may not even necessarily take that into consideration.”

“Exactly,” Doreen agreed. “The thing is, the remains found in the Rutland park are of a very tall male, with broken legs,” she shared, looking from one resident to the other. “And that, at least, matches Eli’s description.”

Richie stared at her. “Good Lord, if you’ve already got that information and it matches this Eli…”

“Yes, but you know that Mack will still want more.”

“Oh, he’ll definitely want more,” Richie confirmed, “but it’s quite surprising that you’ve found this much so quickly.”

She laughed. “And I can see that, for you, it’s a surprise, but I would like to think it’s less of a surprise for Mack.”

Richie just shook his head. “Hard to say. You know as well as I do that he always wants more proof.”

“He does, and I’m more than happy to give it to him if we can get it,” she stated. “However, right now, things are a little scarce in that department.”

“They are, indeed,” he muttered. “They are, indeed.… I can’t think of but a couple people in all the years I’ve been here that was as tall as me—or taller. Nobody ever laughed or joked or made a comment about it.”

She stared at him. “Which is interesting, since you are definitely tall but not necessarily the tallest.”

“No,” he replied, shaking his head, “absolutely not. And you’re right. As tall goes, there are certainly men who are a lot taller than me.”

“And yet you haven’t seen very many.”

“No, I sure haven’t,” he agreed, with a nod. “Nowadays I do see more. I mean, there was a nurse practitioner in acute care, an ACNP, who I swear was seven feet tall. He was here for a little while, and that wasn’t all that long ago. I think he ended up transferring down to the coast.”

“A seven-foot-tall man would be something,” Maisie noted, staring at Richie.

“It was something to see,” he admitted. “Yet he appeared to be well-liked and didn’t appear to have very many problems.”

“That’s good to hear,” Doreen added. “We would like to think he would have been well received here.”

Richie shrugged. “I don’t know. When you’re different, it doesn’t matter if you’re tall or chunky or something in-between. That always seems to be a challenge for some people.”

“Were you ever given much of a problem over your height?” Nan asked him curiously.

He shook his head. “No, because I’m not hugely out of the norm. Yet, if this Eli as a kid was six foot—or taller than six foot—that may have caused him some issues. However, if he was in a wheelchair, that would have minimized the emphasis on his height.”

“But, if he sat up straight, it might be something that most people would recognize,” Doreen pointed out.

He nodded. “All I can say is, it still seems as if the information is on the slim side.”

“Absolutely it is,” she stated, with a smile. “Still working on it. A work in progress, and as you know, that’s the goal here.”

He smiled. “The fact that you’ve even found somebody who could fit the description from about thirtyish years ago is pretty amazing.”

“But it could all be for naught,” she pointed out. “As soon as we get somewhere, we have to get information that validates the rest of it, and that makes it all that much harder.”

He just nodded and didn’t say anything.

But Doreen returned to Maisie. “Maisie, is something bothering you?”

When Nan went to make another joke about it, Doreen shot her grandmother a look.

Nan shut up, then glared at her. “You’re taking all the fun out of life.”

Doreen rolled her eyes. “That’s hardly fun if it hinders us from getting the information we need.”

“ Right ,” she muttered.

“Maisie,” Doreen called out. When Maisie turned to her, Doreen said, “Now spit it out. What is it you’re thinking?”

“I thought I remembered something about him.” She stopped and shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to grab that information just now.”

And she looked so upset that Doreen immediately said, “It’s all right, Maisie. You have time. Even if you can’t think of it right now, don’t worry. It will probably come to you later, when you’re not trying so hard.”

“Oh, thank you,” she whispered. “I get so frustrated.”

“When you do get frustrated,” Doreen pointed out, “it’s even harder to get the information you need.”

“I know, and it’s not that I don’t want to help. I really do.”

“And I appreciate that,” Doreen stated. “Let’s just confirm we get the right information at the right time.

So anything that anybody can come up with, I need to hear about it.

If you find out something else or remember something later, just let me know.

But, please, we don’t want to stress any of you out. ”

On that note, she looked down at her animals and asked, “What do you think, guys? Shall we head back?”

Mugs immediately jumped up and headed to the door, making everybody laugh.

She added, “He’s always happy to go for a walk.” At that, Goliath strolled ahead of him, swiping at Mugs as he walked past.

That sent the crowd into even more laughter.

“The fact that they get along at all,” Richie pointed out, “is purely amazing.”

She smiled at him. “They really do care about each other,” she shared, “even if this swatting is so very typical of them.”

“Typical of any animal,” Richie noted, with half a smile. “Absolutely normal behavior with siblings.”

“That’s it. Siblings ,” Maisie cried out. “There was a sibling.”

“A sibling? Whose sibling?” Nan asked in exasperation.

Maisie turned to Doreen. “That boy,… Eli. He had a sibling.”

“Eli had a sibling? Margaret thought there was possibly a sister or two but didn’t remember the details.”

Maisie declared, “I’m pretty sure he did.”

Richie nodded. “She may very well be right. And just because he had one doesn’t mean they came to visit,” Richie said, looking over at Maisie. “A lot of families might try to keep something like that a secret, separate from the rest of the family.”

“Yeah,” Nan interjected, glaring around the room. “There was a time when they believed mental health issues were contagious. Just imagine if poor Eli’s already been separated from his family, after going through an accident, brain surgery, sitting in a wheelchair for the rest of his life?”

“So, you’re thinking he had a sibling?” Doreen repeated, facing Maisie.

Maisie nodded. “Yes, I think he had a sibling, and there was some concern that the sibling might also have a brain tumor.”

“Now that makes sense,” Nan replied, facing her granddaughter. “Can you imagine if you already had one child with such a terrible problem, then to find out the second one had the same thing?” Nan shook her head.

“That’s an interesting thought,” Doreen said, nodding in agreement. “If I could possibly get a last name for this Eli, it would help a lot. But nobody seems to remember.”

“We’ll put our heads together,” Nan suggested, “and we’ll see what we can come up with.”

“Good enough,” Doreen replied. She walked to the door with her critters and told them, “Now say goodbye.”

At that, Thaddeus, waking up from his nap in the fall of her hair, poked his head out and cried out, “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.”

At that, everybody howled with laughter all over again.

Nan just looked at the African grey parrot and asked, “Thaddeus, where the heck have you been this whole time?”

He yawned. “Thaddeus is tired.”

Nan stared at him, then walked up, petted him, and replied, “Not so tired that you aren’t still learning new words.”

He snuggled against Nan’s fingers, but Doreen stated, “Really bad timing though, bud, because we’re leaving.”

He glared at her, looked back at Nan, and added, “Thaddeus loves Nan.”

“Thaddeus, I love you too,” Nan declared, with a bright smile. “Now you look after Doreen.”

He glared at Doreen and then snuffled in against her shoulder, tucking his head up close, and whispered, “Thaddeus loves Doreen.”

“He does seem to be awfully tired today,” Nan noted, frowning at Doreen worriedly.

“I think he’s fine,” Doreen offered. “Every now and then he has days where he just wants to lie around the house.”

“Yeah, well, we all have those days,” Maisie admitted, with a bright smile.

And, with that, Doreen and her animals headed off.