Tender Loving Care

  Michael loved his wife, but after the tragic accident to their daughter Lillian, Miriam was untouchable, like a dream.

  Desperate, hoping that his living nightmare will finally end, and yearning to lie once again in the arms of his beautiful wife, Michael hires a nurse to care for his beloved.

  But though Murse Randolph’s powerful presence has done wonders for Miriam, the nurse’s ominous yet erotic dominance over Michael fills him with a strange, shuddering sense of doom.

  And nothing can make the terror disappear, especially not ...

  Sometimes in the night, he could hear her screaming for his help. “Hurry,” she’d beg. “Lillian’s calling, she’s so afraid ...”

  * * *

  Now Nurse Randolph has Miriam’s eyes shining brightly and her joyful laughter filling the house once again. But Michael isn’t happy.

  His daughter’s gone and Miriam is still living in a world of illusions.

  Nurse Randolph is all one could ask for in a nurse, efficient, competent, tactful.

  But Michael feels sucked in by her great assurance, her enormous aura of power. And something else.

  He is beginning to live under her spell.

  He isn’t sure he knows how to cope with that ...

  * * *

  Books by Andrew Neiderman

  Brainchild

  Pin

  Someone’s Watching

  Tender Loving Care

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

  Most Pocket Books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums or fund raising. Special books or book excerpts can also be created to fit specific needs.

  For details write the office of the Vice President of Special Markets, Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Another Original publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1984 by Andrew Neiderman

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-6654-0

  eISBN: 978-1-4516-8178-9

  First Pocket Books printing April, 1984

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  For my father, whose smile gave me

  the strength to endure pain,

  and whose courage

  gave me the will to succeed

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  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Humphrey Evans III, who lives on for me in the contributions he made to my work

  Pat Capon, an editor who personifies literary perception

  Prologue

  * * *

  WITH MRS. RANDOLPH GONE, THE HOUSE IS VERY quiet at night. I have been reading and Miriam has been knitting a new sweater for Lillian. From time to time throughout the evening, I have looked up to watch her work. Miriam is very beautiful, childlike in her expressions. Her face captures and holds innocence and peace. I can sit and watch her forever.

  When she is knitting, her fingers move with a graceful rhythm. I am dazzled by the little twists and turns. I even enjoy watching her do crossword puzzles because I can practically see her mind mulling over the meanings and spellings. A dimple forms in her right cheek, and she tilts her head just a little to the left whenever she is in deep thought.

  Tonight she is not in deep thought. She is content and I am content. We are both glad that Mrs. Randolph is no longer here. I go back to my reading and then stop when Miriam puts her knitting down. She sighs and looks up at the ceiling in the direction of Lillian’s room.

  “It’s late,” she says. “I’ll go upstairs and turn off her television set. Otherwise, she’ll never go to sleep.”

  “Very good, dear. I won’t be long.”

  “I hope not, Michael. You know how she waits for you to go in and say good night.”

  “I know,” I say softly, almost too softly to be heard. I watch her put her knitting away and move across the room. Her eyes are glassy, trancelike.

  For me the hardest part of the day is going upstairs to sleep. Lately, I try to stay up later and later in an attempt to put it off for as long as possible. It’s not that I can’t sleep. When I finally do get into bed and shut the world out, I sleep very well. It’s just too difficult to have to stop at Lillian’s room. It tears the heart out of me. And if I should try not to, by pretending I have forgotten or acting as though it’s too late, Miriam never fails to remind me.

  She does so tonight. I have taken a while to go up, and when I come to Lillian’s doorway, I pause and then go on to our bedroom. Miriam is sitting up in bed.

  “You didn’t go into Lillian’s room.”

  “I ... I think she’s asleep.”

  “No, no. I just heard her moving about. She’s awake. You know how she waits for you to say good night. She won’t fall asleep for the longest time.”

  “All right. I’m going.”

  I am deliberately loud when I go into Lillian’s room to say good night. I am annoyed that I am doing it, that Miriam has made me do it. It reminds me too much of the way Mrs. Randolph treated me.

  But I want Miriam to be reassured. I love her that much. Miriam needs the reinforcement; it’s what keeps her going. I have had enough opinions about it, a few of them from people with three degrees after their names, and I can see no reason to add to the hurt and pain she has already suffered. I am dreading Dr. Turner’s impending return.

  More often now I think of my own suffering. I do so tonight and am on the verge of tears when I come back from Lillian’s room. But I hide it. If I were to show Miriam my sorrow, she would be destroyed completely. So I swallow hard. I dress for bed, forcing myself to think of insignificant things: the buttons on my pajamas, how far I have opened the windows, how neatly I have folded and hung my clothes.

  In the darkness Miriam cannot see my face, and my sorrow forces its way out. I struggle with it desperately, pleading with my inner self to be stronger. I tell myself I don’t have the freedom to feel alone and afraid. I have to keep up the facade. Miriam lives in a world of cellophane as it is.

  But tonight I weaken and lose some of the grip I usually have on myself. A sob escapes. I hold my breath. Did Miriam hear it? She turns over in bed. I keep my eyes shut tightly and wait. I know she’s listening hard. She might even hear the pounding of my heart.

  “Was that you?”

  “What?”

  “I heard crying. It woke me.”

  “No, no,” I say quickly, convincingly. I am a good actor by no
w.

  “It’s Lillian,” she concludes after another moment of silence.

  “No. I didn’t hear anything. Honest.”

  “I definitely heard someone crying. If it’s not you, it’s got to be her.”

  Before I can argue any further, she gets up quickly, puts on her robe, and heads for the door.

  “Miriam, I heard nothing.”

  “Shh. Go back to sleep. I’ll take care of it.”

  I can’t go back to sleep. I hear her muffled voice through the wall. I hear her talking softly to Lillian. I hear her sing a lullabye that her grandmother used to sing to her. It’s an old Hungarian tune, and it brings tears to my eyes.

  Oh, how I ache inside; my chest hurts so. I am afraid to close my eyes again. The pain is so great. There is only one way to relieve it: Miriam’s way. When she returns, I ask her.

  “Is she all right, dear?”

  “Now she is.”

  “What happened?”

  “She had a nightmare. She dreamt we left her somewhere and never came back for her.”

  “We would never do that.”

  “Of course not. But she’s a child, so she dreamt it. She fell asleep. She’ll be all right now.”

  “I heard you singing that lullabye.”

  “Did you?”

  “Sing it again, softly.”

  She’s beside me now. Her hand wipes some strands of hair from my forehead. I close my eyes. Her fingers feel like warm drops of rain.

  “Poor Michael,” she says. “I always forget what you’ve been through. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s OK.”

  “No, I’ll make it up to you.”

  “Just sing softly.”

  She begins. I rush back through time to become a little boy again. It makes me feel safe. Soon I will fall asleep, and for a time, I will forget. That’s good, even though I know when morning comes it will begin all over again.

  1

  * * *

  THE NIGHT MRS. RANDOLPH ARRIVED, THE TREES STOOD hauntingly still. They were full, and the configurations of their branches and leaves gave them shapes I had seen silhouetted in nightmares. To the right, across the field, I saw the dark mountains painted against the purple night sky. To the left and to the rear, the woods were thick and filled with wildlife. That night the animals seemed to ache. They moaned; they called: owls, raccoons, bobcats, deer. It was as though they knew something in the world had gone wrong. I thought they were as much afraid of the darkness as I was.

  Where we live, four miles from Gardnertown, a small Catskill hamlet, there are few houses. They call our road a secondary road. It gets plowed last in the winter and patched last, if at all, in the spring. On hot summer nights like the one when Mrs. Randolph came, when the air is heavy, I sit on the small porch of our house and wait for a breeze. Sometimes Miriam joins me, but more often she remains inside listening for Lillian to call.

  There is a small hotel about five miles away. I can’t see it from here, but sometimes during the resort season I can hear their poolside band playing for a cocktail party. Laughter and voices carry. They seem like so many ghosts in the darkness, but happy ghosts. It fills me with melancholy. I am the one who is more like a ghost, alone out here, wondering what it’s like to feel free.

  Mrs. Randolph came by taxi from Monticello. I didn’t know what bus she was on, so I couldn’t meet her at the station. We got her from a firm in New York that Dr. Turner knew. He said there were many nurses who preferred not to work in hospitals. The salary could be just as good, and there were less hassles. I wanted to do what was best. He told me a full-time nurse would be ideal. We had the money so I went out and hired her.

  I shouldn’t say I went out and hired her. I didn’t actually go and choose her from a group. In fact, I was surprised by the woman who stepped out of the cab. I had prepared myself to greet an elderly woman, one who probably had little family and few active interests. But Mrs. Randolph looked in about her mid-thirties. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman either.

  I got up quickly to help with her bags. The driver wasn’t doing much.

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m Michael Oberman.”

  She didn’t look at me when she spoke. She reached in for a small carryall bag and waved her hand arrogantly at the driver.

  “This man,” she said, pronouncing “man” as though it were an obscenity, “says it’s twenty-two dollars from Monticello to here. Is that the correct fare?”

  “Well ... I really don’t know for sure. I never take cabs. Have my own car,” I said pointing to the station wagon. We had an English sports car, but I don’t even want to think about that anymore. “I’ll take care of the fare.”

  “Don’t overtip him. He hasn’t been that nice,” she said loudly, enough for him to hear her clearly. She headed for the house.

  The driver took his hat off and wiped his forehead. He looked overwhelmed by the heat and his passenger. I had no idea about the circumstances of their trip out here, but I felt sorry for him. I gave him a decent tip.

  “You’ve got a tough one there,” he said. He left immediately after I paid him. I stood there for a moment, watching the night swallow him up. Of course there are no streetlights on this country road, and darkness rushes in behind passing automobiles.

  “Mr. Oberman,” she said. “I would like to get inside and settled tonight.”

  I turned quickly. With the porch light behind her, backlighting her head, her face was in shadow. She wore the darkness like a mask. Somehow, it made her look dangerous.

  “Sorry,” I said, and I hurried to pick up her two suitcases. They were quite heavy so I must have looked comical struggling with them. I was five feet nine inches tall and only weighed one hundred and forty pounds. I was never much heavier. In high school they called me Stick.

  “I would have picked you up if I had known what bus,” I said. The effort to carry her bags caused my voice to lower. Although I didn’t mean it that way, she took it as a reprimand.

  “I didn’t get the call until late this morning,” she snapped. She brought her shoulders back and up and folded her arms just under her chest. I nearly fell back over the second step, fumbling stupidly to keep her suitcases from touching the ground. I had to set the bags down softly for a moment though. My lower arms felt as though they were coming out at the elbow. It gave me a chance to catch my breath.

  Although she was up a step, I could tell that she was an inch or so taller than I was. She was dressed in a dark blue skirt and a loose, white blouse, the kind through which a woman’s bra is well outlined. She had a well-shaped bosom even though her shoulders were a little heavy and her upper arms were considerably bigger than mine. She was narrow waisted and long legged. I must say that I was intimidated by her almost immediately.

  “Do you know the situation?” I asked in a subdued voice. Miriam was in the living room, but the television wasn’t on. I thought she might be able to hear us.

  “Certainly. Do you think I would come all the way up here without knowing it? Let’s get settled and we’ll do the introductions properly.”

  “Of course. Right this way.” I bumped her with one of the big suitcases as I passed her on the steps. She opened the screen door, and I led her into the house. Apparently, Miriam didn’t hear us.

  We went up the stairs to what would be her room. It was just across from Lillian’s. Our two-story house has four upstairs bedrooms and three bathrooms: one downstairs, one upstairs, and one in the master bedroom. The house was a turn-of-the-century structure that I had renovated considerably. I had replaced the old wooden siding with aluminum, reshingled the roof, put new floorboards in the porch, recarpeted every floor inside, modernized some light fixtures, and redone the kitchen with greater counter space, all new appliances, and tile flooring. All of the fixtures in the three bathrooms had been changed as well.

  The house had belonged to my father, who died five years after we moved in with him. My mother died nearly twenty years ago. We inherited the house and the twent
y-six acres, including the lake and what was once good pasture land. Up until the last ten years of his life, my father ran a rather prosperous dairy farm. But I was no real farm boy. I always hated the physical labor and avoided the animals as much as I could. We have had no farm animals on the land since my father died.

  For the last ten years, I’ve worked as a bank teller in the United National in Liberty, a village about fifteen miles away. Six months ago the trustees granted me a leave of absence. I explained that things were getting difficult and I needed to be home for a while until I figured out some solution or there was some improvement. I was a loyal and efficient employee, and since they sympathized with our situation, there wasn’t any difficulty. When it appeared that my staying home wasn’t going to be enough, Dr. Turner recommended the nurse.

  I opened the door and snapped on the light quickly for her. She stood there surveying the room. Her eyes became small, and she studied every crack and crevice. I thought she might just say, “Sorry, this is not good enough,” and turn around to go back to New York. It wasn’t an elaborate and luxurious room, but it was neat and clean. There was a definite feminine touch to it: light pink walls, a white pine double bed with a blue and white bedspread, a dark brown shag carpet, and flower-patterned cotton curtains. One of the windows faced the front, and one faced the pasture side of the house. There were two dressers that matched the bed, one with a vanity mirror above it. I had left an antique web seat in the corner.

  “I hope this is OK,” I said.

  “It’ll do.” Although I breathed relief, I was a little annoyed that she didn’t think more of the room. “Just leave everything by the closet there,” she commanded. I lugged the suitcases in and dropped them by the closet door. When I turned around, I felt as though she were about to give me a tip. It was then that I took my first good look at her face.