Chương 5
“Yes.”
Reyes held out her hand.
“Show me.”
Lucas did.
She read the messages without reacting visibly.
Then she looked at him.
“Were these on the same tablet?”
“Yes.”
“Original messages or screenshots?”
“Original first.”
“And then you took screenshots.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you send them to anyone besides me and Mrs. Mercer?”
“No.”
Reyes looked at me.
“Have you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I bristled.
“Why is that good?”
“Because right now we need evidence preserved, not circulated.”
“I wasn’t planning to post them online.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You sounded like you thought I might.”
Reyes paused.
“I sound careful for a living.”
That shut me up.
She looked back at Lucas.
“Do you know the passcode to the tablet?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t use it again.”
“You already told me.”
“I’m telling you twice because people forget instructions when they’re upset.”
“I’m not upset.”
Reyes glanced toward the chapel.
Lucas looked away.
She did not challenge him.
“Where is the tablet?”
“At our house.”
“Can you take us there?”
I answered before Lucas could.
“Yes.”
Reyes nodded.
“I also need to know where Lily’s backpack is.”
I explained.
She asked what color it was, what was inside, whether Lily carried any other medication, and who had possession of her belongings after the hospital.
The questions were ordinary and unbearable.
Purple.
Rescue inhaler.
Spacer.
A little packet of tissues.
Probably two crayons without paper because Lily did things like that.
I did not know what happened to the backpack after she was admitted.
I had arrived at the hospital after everything that could save her had already failed.
A nurse had handed me Lily’s shoes in a clear plastic bag.
Nothing else.
Reyes wrote each answer down.
“Was Mrs. Vance carrying a bag when she came to the hospital?”
I closed my eyes.
I saw fluorescent light.
A vending machine.
Evelyn sitting against a wall with her coat folded across her lap.
“I don’t remember.”
“Don’t force it.”
“I should remember.”
“No.”
“I should.”
Reyes lowered her notebook.
“Mrs. Mercer, memory after an acute trauma can be inconsistent.”
I looked at her.
“Please don’t talk to me like a brochure.”
She blinked.
Then she nodded.
“Fair.”
Beth appeared at the end of the hall holding my coat.
She looked at Reyes, then Lucas, then me.
“Are we going somewhere?”
“Home.”
“I’ll drive.”
“I can drive.”
“No.”
“Beth.”
“You slapped a seventy-year-old woman in front of two cops.”
“One cop.”
“Two uniforms and a detective.”
“I wasn’t counting.”
“Exactly.”
Lucas made a small choking sound that might have been laughter.
I turned toward him.
He covered his mouth.
“Sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“No.”
For the first time all day, something like warmth passed through the three of us.
It lasted maybe three seconds.
Then Father Daniel came from the chapel and told me the funeral director needed a decision about whether the family was proceeding to the cemetery.
I had forgotten there was still a cemetery.
I had forgotten that Lily’s casket had to leave the room.
I had forgotten that death involved logistics long after it stopped being imaginable.
“Yes,” I said.
Beth touched my arm.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
That became the answer anyway.
The procession to the cemetery moved slowly under a low afternoon sky.
Beth drove my car while Lucas sat in the back with Mark’s old tablet now sealed inside an evidence bag because the officers had retrieved it from our house before the burial.
Detective Reyes followed separately.
I watched the hearse through the windshield.
At red lights, ordinary people crossed in front of us carrying grocery bags and coffee cups.
A man in a reflective vest laughed into his phone.
A woman tugged a toddler away from a puddle.
I hated all of them for being untouched.
Then I hated myself for that too.
At the cemetery, Evelyn was not there.
Some relatives whispered about it.
Others whispered about the police.
One woman I barely knew squeezed my hand and said, “God has a plan.”
I pulled my hand away before I could say something unforgivable.
Lucas stayed close to the grave but not close to me.
When the minister finished, everyone waited for some cue that grief had become socially complete.
There was none.
People began leaving in pairs.
Marjorie approached me last.
She looked smaller without Evelyn beside her.
“Claire.”
I waited.
“She called me Tuesday.”
My skin prickled.
“Evelyn?”
Marjorie nodded.
“What time?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Before the hospital?”
“Yes.”
Lucas had heard.
He moved closer.
“What did she say?”
Marjorie twisted the strap of her handbag.
“She said Lily was having trouble breathing.”
“And?”
“She asked whether I thought children sometimes panic themselves into making asthma worse.”
My mouth went dry.
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her to call an ambulance.”
“Did she?”
“I assumed she did.”
“Did you hear Lily?”
Marjorie’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Everything around me seemed to recede.
“What did you hear?”
She looked at the fresh earth beside Lily’s grave.
“She was crying.”
I could barely get the next words out.
“Was she talking?”
Marjorie nodded.
“What did she say?”
Marjorie began to cry.
“Claire, I’m so sorry.”
“What did she say?”
“She kept asking Evelyn to call you.”
The words struck harder than Evelyn’s hand had.
For a moment I heard nothing except the soft hiss of traffic beyond the cemetery fence.
“Call me?”
Marjorie nodded.
“She said, ‘I want Mommy.’”
My knees weakened.
Lucas caught my elbow before I reached for anything.
I pulled away from him too sharply.
“I’m fine.”
He let go.
Marjorie wiped under one eye with the side of her finger.
“I told Evelyn to call you.”
“What did she say?”
“She said you were already on your way.”
“I was stuck in traffic.”
“I know that now.”
“No, I mean she knew I couldn’t get there.”
Marjorie lowered her eyes.
“I don’t know what she knew.”
“You spoke to her.”
“Yes.”
May you like
“Then tell me exactly what she said.”
“Claire.”
