Chương 6
He strongly advised her not to drive until they understood what was happening.
Margaret’s lips pressed together.
“Advised.”
“Yes.”
“Not ordered.”
“Advised.”
She glanced at Evan as though scoring a point.
Dr. Patel added, “Strongly.”
The point disappeared.
He also asked to speak to Margaret alone.
Evan immediately stood.
Laura did too.
Margaret watched them leave with an expression that was almost triumphant.
In the hall, Evan leaned against the wall.
“You found her at the old library.”
Laura nodded.
“You told me she was shopping.”
“Yes.”
“You lied to me while she was missing.”
“I knew where she was when I told you.”
“That does not improve it.”
“I know.”
A nurse walked past carrying a paper cup and pretended not to hear them.
Evan lowered his voice.
“How much don’t I know?”
Laura stared at the carpet.
“There were other things.”
His eyes closed.
“Of course there were.”
“She forgot your birthday.”
He opened them.
“That happens.”
“Your mother has never forgotten your birthday.”
“She called me.”
“At six in the evening after I reminded her.”
He looked away.
“She bought you the socket set.”
“I bought it.”
Evan frowned.
Laura continued.
“She gave me cash and asked me to get something from her.”
“What else?”
“She paid the electric bill twice.”
“That’s not—”
“She paid it five times.”
He stopped.
“The power company mailed her refund checks. She thought somebody was stealing money from her.”
Evan rubbed his forehead.
“What else?”
“She accused her neighbor of moving her trash cans.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“He was in Florida.”
“What else?”
Laura hesitated.
“That many?”
She nodded.
Evan laughed without humor.
“Jesus.”
A woman across the hall looked up from her phone.
He lowered his voice again.
“What else?”
“She called the police in July.”
His face changed.
“What?”
“She thought someone was in the garage.”
“Was someone in the garage?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“She begged me not to.”
“That sentence is getting old.”
“I know.”
The exam-room door opened.
Margaret stepped out with her purse over one shoulder.
“Well,” she said, “I passed.”
Dr. Patel appeared behind her.
“I did not say that.”
“You said I did well.”
“On some things.”
Margaret looked at Laura.
“See?”
Dr. Patel met Laura’s eyes.
It was not a diagnosis.
It was not certainty.
But it was enough.
Something was wrong.
On the drive home, Margaret sat in the back seat.
She refused the front.
Evan drove.
Laura watched storefronts pass outside the window.
A man in a yellow vest was changing letters on the sign outside a tire store. Two teenage girls stood at a bus stop, one laughing so hard she had to bend forward. A woman loaded pumpkins into the back of an SUV even though Halloween was nearly three weeks away.
The world had not noticed them.
Laura found that comforting.
Halfway home, Margaret said, “I would like my medications back.”
Laura turned.
“I’ll bring them over.”
“That was not what I said.”
“We can sort them together.”
“I do not require supervision to take a pill.”
Evan’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Laura said, “Apparently you do right now.”
Margaret looked out the window.
The silence lasted three blocks.
Then she said, “Your mother would hate hearing you talk like that.”
Laura felt something close inside her.
Evan glanced in the mirror.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“Don’t.”
Margaret’s face shifted.
For half a second she looked confused.
Then she understood what she had said.
“I’m sorry.”
Laura turned back toward the windshield.
Margaret leaned forward slightly.
“Laura.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Laura’s mother had been dead ten years.
Mentioning her was not forbidden.
Using her was.
Margaret knew that.
Or had known it.
That uncertainty was becoming its own kind of grief.
“I said I’m sorry.”
“I heard you.”
They drove the rest of the way home without speaking.
Dr. Patel’s office called that afternoon.
Some blood tests needed repeating.
Nothing immediately alarming, the nurse said, but enough irregularities that they wanted Margaret back.
The cognitive evaluation could not be scheduled for six weeks.
A cancellation might open sooner.
Six weeks sounded both insignificant and impossible.
Margaret wanted to go home.
Evan wanted her to stay with them.
Laura wanted ten minutes in which neither of them wanted anything from her.
Instead she made grilled cheese.
It was what she did when she could not think.
She buttered bread all the way to the edges, used too much cheddar, and cooked each sandwich slightly longer than necessary because Evan liked the corners almost burned.
Margaret sat at the kitchen table reading a grocery circular she had already read twice.
Evan stood at the sink drinking water.
“This cheese is on sale,” Margaret said.
Laura looked at the advertisement.
“That’s next week.”
“It says Thursday.”
“Next Thursday.”
Margaret stared at the date.
“Oh.”
Nobody commented.
She folded the circular carefully.
“I’ll stay here tonight,” she said.
Evan turned.
Margaret lifted a hand.
“One night. Maybe two.”
“Okay.”
“I am not agreeing to move.”
“No one asked you to.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking about the burnt sandwich.”
Laura flipped it.
“Not burnt.”
“Black.”
“Character.”
Margaret looked at the pan.
“You married a woman who serves carbon.”
Evan sat across from her.
“You taught me to eat canned peas.”
“Peas are vegetables.”
“Gray ones aren’t.”
Margaret smiled.
For almost fifteen minutes, nothing important happened.
They ate.
Laura wiped cheese from the stove.
Evan complained that somebody at the shop had ordered the wrong brake rotors.
Margaret said the grocery store had moved coffee filters again “for no reason except cruelty.”
The ordinary conversation felt fragile but not false.
That was the difficult thing.
Margaret was still Margaret.
She could forget the library and remember the exact price of coffee.
May you like
She could call her dead sister’s name and tell Evan which wrench he had left in her garage in May.
She could be frightened of invisible people and irritated by actual coupons.
