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CHAPTER THIRTY NINE | VISITING HOURS
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i have sometimes thought that a woman's nature is like a great house full of rooms...
-the ghost stories // edith wharton
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When Nancy asked Jackie to meet her at the hospital, whatever Jackie had thought Nancy needed help with, the reality of it was far more bizarre than anything she could've thought up. Of all the things it could've logically been, pretending to be the granddaughters of an elderly woman that Nancy, along with Jonathan, sent into a nervous breakdown never crossed her mind.
"This feels like a really bad idea," Jackie muttered, leaning against the side of her car that was parked next to Nancy's.
Nancy, done with her story, shot Jackie a stern glare and grabbed a bouquet of yellow and purple daisies from the backseat of her car.
"Can you please just go with it?"
"Why couldn't you have dragged Jonathan along for this?"
Nancy clenched her jaw. "You could've just said no when I asked you for help!"
"You didn't tell me what it was for until we were in the car!" Jackie exclaimed. She took a deep breath, looked up at the dark sky, and sighed. "Look, Nancy, you got fired over this. This woman's family was already considering pressing charges against you before. Do you really wanna do this?"
Jackie also really didn't want to be implicated in this if it did end up going badly, but she kept her mouth shut on that aspect. It felt too selfish to say out loud.
"You know, I thought you of all people would understand why I'm doing this."
"What does that even mean?"
"The men at Hawkins Post look down on me like I'm an idiot because I'm a girl!" Nancy yelled. "I know I'm right about this, Jackie, and I'm going to prove them wrong. Jonathan doesn't get it, and I figured you would."
"God." Jackie pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Fine. Fine. This is fine. Okay, yeah."
Nancy stared at her for a minute and then broke out into a grin. "Thank you. I so owe you."
"Yeah," Jackie agreed. "You so do."
Once in the hospital, Jackie decided to let do Nancy do all the talking. She would just disappear into the background for this. If no one spoke or noticed her, it would be for the best in the long run.
"Hi, uh, I'm here to see Doris Driscoll. I think she was admitted last night?"
The nurse at the reception desk looked up at Nancy and, in a very bored, monotone voice, asked, "Name and relation?"
