Chương 6
Summer.
Mia working three evenings a week at the community pool.
Daniel complaining that she had become secretive.
A missing twenty-dollar bill.
An argument about curfew.
“What did you find?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
Evan’s face hardened.
“You’re going to keep asking that like it’s one question.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Dad tells us things separately.”
Laura stared at him.
“He tells Mia you agree with him. He tells me you’re too stressed to deal with stuff. He tells you we already talked.”
Caroline looked at Laura.
Laura ignored her.
“What else?”
Evan picked at the edge of the sandwich wrapper.
“There was a notebook.”
“In Mia’s room?”
“No. Dad’s office.”
“What notebook?”
“I saw it when we were looking for something else.”
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know. He closed it.”
“Then why does it matter?”
“Because Mia’s name was on the page.”
Laura sat down.
“Did you read anything?”
“One line.”
“What?”
Evan looked toward the staircase.
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“Try.”
“It said something like... ‘response after dinner’ and a time.”
Caroline whispered, “Jesus.”
Laura felt irritation rather than fear.
“That could mean anything.”
Both of them looked at her.
She heard herself.
The instinct to repair the world had become humiliating.
“Fine,” she said. “I know how that sounds.”
Evan pushed the sandwich away.
“There’s another thing.”
Laura waited.
“Dad asked me for my old prescription.”
“What prescription?”
“The one from when I messed up my shoulder.”
Evan had injured himself during football practice the previous year. He had been prescribed a muscle relaxant briefly.
“What did he want with it?”
“Said he was cleaning the medicine cabinet and wanted to know if I still had it.”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Did you?”
“No. I threw it out months ago.”
Laura felt the room growing unstable again, though nothing moved.
Caroline said, “You need to tell the detective.”
“I did.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Evan looked at Laura.
“Mom, there’s something you’re not understanding.”
“What?”
“He wasn’t trying to find drugs Mia had.”
“Then what?”
“I think he was looking for drugs he could use.”
Laura’s first response was anger.
“No.”
Evan flinched.
Caroline said quietly, “Laura.”
“No. That’s a huge assumption.”
“I know,” Evan said.
“Based on what?”
“He asked me if muscle relaxers could make someone pass out.”
The kitchen went silent.
“When?” Laura asked.
“The same day he asked about the pills.”
“What exactly did he say?”
“He was joking.”
“Exact words.”
Evan squeezed his eyes shut.
“He said, ‘Those things strong enough to knock out a horse, or is that just movies?’”
Laura’s nails dug into her palm.
“And what did you say?”
“I told him they made me sleepy.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Did he ask about dosage?”
“No.”
“Did he touch the bottle?”
“There was no bottle.”
Caroline stood and began pacing.
“We’re calling Detective Reyes.”
“She already has his statement,” Laura said.
“We call again.”
“We don’t know if that matters.”
“It matters.”
Laura looked at her sister.
Caroline had the fierce certainty of someone not trapped inside the marriage.
It was easy to be certain from outside.
Laura resented that.
Then she resented herself for resenting it.
Before they called, Mia appeared at the top of the stairs.
She was holding the banister.
“What notebook?”
Nobody answered.
Mia came down slowly.
“Mia, you should rest.”
“What notebook?”
Evan looked miserable.
“I saw something in Dad’s office.”
“When?”
“A while ago.”
“What did it say?”
“Nothing important.”
Mia laughed weakly.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Lie because you think I’m fragile.”
Laura stood.
“Nobody thinks that.”
Mia looked directly at her.
Laura sat again.
Evan told her.
Mia listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she said, “I think I know what he was writing down.”
Laura felt dread arrive before the explanation.
“What?”
“My symptoms.”
“What symptoms?”
“After dinner.”
Nobody spoke.
Mia sat across from them.
“Sometimes after we ate, I’d get really sleepy. Or dizzy. I thought it was anxiety.”
Laura remembered.
Three weeks earlier, Mia had gone upstairs after eating half a burger and slept from seven thirty until morning.
Two Sundays ago she complained that her hands felt heavy after Daniel made soup.
Once she had nearly fainted brushing her teeth.
Laura had blamed dehydration.
A sixteen-year-old who drank too much iced coffee.
Plausible.
Ordinary.
Safe.
“Why didn’t you tell me it kept happening after dinner?” Laura asked.
“I did tell you.”
“No, you told me you were tired.”
“I told Dad more.”
“Why him?”
Mia looked at her hands.
“Because he kept asking.”
Detective Reyes returned their call within an hour.
This time her questions were more specific.
Dates.
Meals.
Symptoms.
Who cooked.
Who served.
Whether Mia ate elsewhere.
Whether Daniel had access to her medical portal.
Laura said yes.
They both did.
Reyes asked if Mia’s prior prescription could be verified.
Laura logged into the portal from her phone.
The prescription had been issued eight months earlier.
Thirty tablets.
No refills.
Mia said she had taken perhaps five.
The rest should have been somewhere in the house.
Police had not found the bottle.
“Could Daniel have thrown it away?” Reyes asked.
Laura thought about Daniel’s habit of keeping expired sunscreen for years because “you never know.”
“Yes,” she said.
Then corrected herself.
“He could have. But he doesn’t usually throw medicine away.”
That evening Daniel sent a text.
Please come home. We need to talk without your sister influencing this.
Laura read it three times.
She did not answer.
Another arrived.
I can explain the folder.
Then:
This is about Mia’s health, not what everyone thinks.
Then:
You owe me twenty minutes after twenty-one years.
That one worked.
Not because she believed she owed him.
Because twenty-one years was a heavy object to walk away from without touching.
She called Reyes.
“I want to go home and talk to him.”
The detective was quiet.
“I can’t tell you what to do personally.”
May you like
“Is it unsafe?”
“I don’t have evidence that your husband is physically violent.”
