Sarah Benadine is Dead

Chapter XVII, Part I

Very often the most painful things we have to face come not from monsters or demons, but from the others around us. Ginger Beaumont knew this better than most.

Monday mornings were always a headache in the Beaumont household, but not for the expected reasons. Of course, there was plenty of dismay at the week having reset itself, and tiredness that seemed grossly amplified from the normal amount. There was the lingering sadness that weekends never seemed long enough, the regret that more had not been done. All of that was present in spades. But there was something unique in the Beaumonts' line-up: after a short reprieve over the weekend, Ginger's mother was going to be left home alone for the day again. A very unspectacular event in theory, but rather tricky in practice. The issue was that Ella Beaumont was quite slowly but quite surely losing her memory.

During Ginger's first few years at Briargate, it wasn't so bad. Ella had her good days and her bad days, but the good days still outnumbered the bad days, and there were plenty of days that Ginger would have labeled average days, and those weren't so bad either. But bad days were still bad days, and by late April of 1956, bad days were verging on really bad days. By then, there had been three cases of Ella wandering some odd corner of the town without a clue how she had gotten there or why she had come. All three of those incidents had happened on a Monday.

The most important rule was not to talk about it outright; that would be like jinxing it. There was plenty implied in the words and the gestures and even the silences of every Monday morning—or any morning, for that matter—and every member of the family knew it, but nothing could be blatantly stated. If there was anything that needed to be done—chores around the house, for example, or, if they were feeling brave, grocery shopping—Marcus Beaumont, Ginger's father, would remind Ella of it at least a half a dozen times, each with the same patience as the first. Little notes were scattered all over the house, written by husband as well as children for wife and mother, to remind her of anything they felt important for her to remember as the day progressed. But no one said anything about these things; no attention was called to them. That was a bad idea, for sure.

On the chilly Monday morning in April when the wind blew strong and steady from the south, Ella Beaumont's confusion was strong but, in Ginger's opinion, not too nasty. Ginger thought it had the makings for an average day. Her memory would be short and inconsistent, but she wouldn't get herself into any worrisome situations. (Ginger was perhaps right, but what did happen that day was worse than anything a bad day had doled out yet.)

The wind blew Ollie O'Brien to the door, dressed in an overly large sweater and a skirt that was much the same, pins on the sides of her skinny hips the only things keeping it from sliding right off. This was another not-talked-about ritual of Monday mornings; one of the neighbor kids would come to the door, just in case. Nobody really knew in case of what, but that did not matter. There was still a 'just in case' that hung around every Monday morning, painfully obvious, and it had to be heeded. Ollie heeded it this morning; she stood at the Beaumonts' front door rather sheepishly, twisting her hands together and scuffing a shoe across the ground. Her relief was almost palpable when she saw Ginger answer the door.

"Hey, Ollie," Ginger said merrily. She looked over her shoulder shortly. "We'll be out in a minute. Jordan has to brush his teeth."

An unenthusiastic shout came from somewhere in the house, but neither Ginger nor Ollie caught what was said. As if it were an exercise in symmetry, Jared Wilkins crowed something at Ollie's back from the sidewalk. Ginger did not catch that one either, but Ollie did, and she turned to where the other kids were gathered.