Chương 3
Someone had dressed her carefully.
That detail made me sick.
Her hair had been brushed smooth and fastened with the small pearl clip I gave her for kindergarten picture day.
Her nails had even been cleaned.
People had prepared her body for viewing while she was still breathing.
“Eleanor, I need you to stay sitting.”
The paramedic with the gray beard spoke gently, but I was already half out of my seat.
“I’m sitting.”
“You’re hovering.”
“I’m her grandmother.”
“I gathered that.”
He attached another monitor lead to Chloe’s chest.
His partner, a younger woman named Reyes, examined the blue plastic cap under the ambulance light.
“Any idea what container this came from?”
“No.”
“Prescription bottle?”
“It doesn’t look like one.”
“Could be a dosing syringe cover.”
Chloe’s eyelids fluttered.
I leaned closer.
“Sweetheart?”
She did not answer.
The monitor gave a rapid electronic chirp.
Reyes looked at the screen and then at her partner.
Their movements became faster without becoming frantic.
That frightened me more than panic would have.
“What’s happening?”
“We’re treating her.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I need a little room.”
I moved back.
My knees struck the metal cabinet behind me.
The ambulance turned hard enough to make the hanging IV bag sway.
Outside, Chicago’s western suburbs slipped past in red reflections and dark lawns.
I had driven those streets hundreds of times.
I could not have named a single intersection.
Reyes spoke into a radio using words I understood individually but not together.
Altered mental status.
Possible ingestion.
Pediatric.
Unknown sedative.
The phrase unknown sedative seemed to settle in the ambulance and remain there.
Chloe opened her eyes.
“Grandma?”
“I’m here.”
“Where are we going?”
“To the hospital.”
Her fingers moved weakly inside mine.
“Daddy said hospitals tell.”
“Tell what?”
Reyes glanced at me but kept working.
Chloe’s lips moved behind the oxygen mask.
I lowered my ear.
“He said they ask too many questions.”
My throat tightened.
“Who told you that?”
She closed her eyes again.
I did not press her.
At the hospital, the emergency entrance swallowed us into white light.
A nurse stopped me before I could follow the stretcher through a set of double doors.
“She’s going straight back.”
“I’m coming.”
“We need to get her stabilized first.”
“She’s afraid.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
The nurse’s expression changed slightly.
Not offended.
Tired.
She had probably heard some version of that sentence every night of her working life.
“Give us five minutes to do what she needs.”
“I’m not leaving the building.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
She pointed me toward a chair.
I sat because there was nowhere useful to direct my anger.
My hands were stained with something from the casket lining.
There were faint gray streaks across my palms.
I rubbed them against each other until the skin hurt.
A security guard stood near the entrance watching a basketball game on a television mounted high in the waiting room.
The sound was off.
One team was down by twelve.
A vending machine hummed beside me.
Somebody had left a half-finished orange soda on the floor.
The ordinary world had become offensive.
A woman across from me was filling out insurance forms while a teenage boy held an ice pack against his ankle.
He complained that he would miss a tournament on Saturday.
His mother told him Saturday was four days away and he was being dramatic.
I nearly envied them.
Then I hated myself for it.
A police officer entered through the sliding doors.
It was the younger officer from Julian’s house.
His name tag read MORALES.
He spotted me immediately.
“Mrs. Mercer?”
I had been divorced for twenty-two years and still occasionally answered to the wrong surname when I was scared.
“Eleanor Hale.”
“Sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He sat two chairs away instead of directly beside me.
“Your granddaughter’s being treated?”
“They took her back.”
“Good.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, ma’am.”
He folded his hands.
“Your son has been detained while we sort out what happened.”
“Detained or arrested?”
“Detained right now.”
“And Victoria?”
“We have officers looking for her vehicle.”
I stared at him.
“What vehicle?”
“A white Lexus SUV registered to her.”
“Julian told you he didn’t know what she drove.”
“Yes.”
“He bought it for her.”
Morales’s eyes stayed on mine.
“When?”
“Last Christmas.”
“Do you know the plate?”
“No.”
“Does she have somewhere she might go?”
“Her sister lives in Oak Brook.”
“We checked.”
“Her parents are in Scottsdale.”
“We’re contacting agencies there.”
I almost said Victoria would never drive to Arizona.
Then I stopped.
I had also once believed she would never put her daughter into a casket alive.
Morales took out a small notebook.
“I need to ask you some questions while things are fresh.”
“I’m not fresh.”
“That’s fair.”
He waited.
His patience irritated me.
Everything irritated me.
“Ask.”
He started with the obvious things.
When had I last seen Chloe conscious before that night?
Almost seven weeks earlier.
Why so long?
Julian and Victoria said she had become susceptible to infections.
Had I spoken with her by phone?
Twice, briefly.
Video?
No.
Why not?
Victoria claimed screen time worsened Chloe’s headaches.
Had I been told which doctor was treating her?
I gave him the name Julian had mentioned.
Dr. Kaminski.
Morales wrote it down.
“First name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hospital?”
“I don’t know.”
“Specialty?”
I looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
The stupidity of my own answers began accumulating between us.
Seven weeks of excuses, and I had accepted all of them.
Morales did not point that out.
He did not have to.
“What were you told about her death?”
“Julian called me yesterday morning.”
“What time?”
“A little after seven.”
“What did he say?”
I closed my eyes.
Julian had been crying.
Or making the sounds of someone crying.
At the time, the distinction had seemed cruel.
Now I could not stop making it.
May you like
“He said Chloe had gotten worse during the night.”
“Worse from what?”
