Chương 5
Rachel looked at him sharply.
Evelyn’s forehead creased. “What papers?”
“The documents in the suitcase.”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she talk about the house?”
“Daniel.”
“Did you promise it to her?”
Rachel stood. “Not now.”
Evelyn stared at the blanket. “You only come when something is wrong.”
The words struck with the cleanliness of a fact.
“I came last month.”
“You fixed the toilet.”
“It was leaking.”
“You spent forty minutes with the toilet and ten with me.”
Rachel touched his arm. He pulled away before he meant to.
“Mom, I’m trying to protect you.”
“From the toilet?”
Rachel closed her eyes briefly.
Evelyn began to laugh, then coughed. The laughter was faint and wrong for the room, but it kept returning between breaths. Rachel handed her water from a paper cup. Daniel stood there feeling anger, shame, and a small unwilling amusement at the same time.
When Evelyn settled, Rachel walked him into the hallway.
“You cannot interrogate her.”
“I asked two questions.”
“You asked them like you were billing her by the hour.”
“She may have signed away her house.”
“And she may not understand what happened this morning.”
“That’s exactly why I need to know.”
“No. That’s why you need to wait.”
Daniel looked through the window in the door. His mother was picking at the adhesive holding an intravenous line in place.
Rachel said, “You’re scared.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re turning it into authority.”
“What would you prefer? Panic?”
“I would prefer you not punish her for frightening you.”
He almost replied that Rachel did not understand the legal and financial risks. The sentence reached his teeth before he stopped it. Rachel managed the finances for her mother, whose Parkinson’s disease had gradually removed choices from the family. She understood too well.
Daniel sat in a chair near the nurses’ station. “I hired Nora.”
“Yes.”
“I gave her access.”
“Yes.”
“I should have checked.”
“Yes.”
He looked at Rachel.
She sat beside him and opened the sandwich wrapper. “Eat half.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then eat it without enjoying it.”
He took the sandwich.
Late that evening, Kline called to say the house search would continue overnight. Louie had been found behind the dryer and moved to a neighbor’s home. Nora had ended her interview after requesting an attorney. She had been released, but police had issued instructions preventing her from returning to Evelyn’s house while the investigation continued.
“How can you release her?”
“Because suspicion is not the same as grounds to hold someone indefinitely.”
“She had other people’s prescriptions.”
“That issue is being investigated.”
“She packed documents giving her my mother’s house.”
“The documents are drafts. We still need to determine what was executed, witnessed, notarized, or filed.”
“She was leaving.”
“There is no confirmed reservation at Lake Mercer under her name.”
“So she lied.”
“Possibly.”
“What was in her car?”
“We are working through legal steps.”
Kline’s patience made him feel childish, which made him less patient.
“Is my mother safe?”
“At the hospital, yes.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It’s the answer I can give tonight.”
Evelyn slept in short, restless intervals. Daniel remained in the reclining chair beside her bed, listening to hospital carts roll through the corridor. Around three in the morning, she opened her eyes and asked whether he had finished his homework.
“I’m forty-five, Mom.”
She blinked.
“It’s Daniel.”
“I know.”
He could not tell whether she did.
A nurse checked Evelyn’s blood pressure and adjusted the blanket around her feet. After the nurse left, Evelyn whispered, “Don’t put me in one of those places.”
“What places?”
“You know.”
“I’m not putting you anywhere.”
“You say that now.”
Daniel rubbed his face. “Mom, Nora may have been stealing from you.”
“She made good oatmeal.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“It wasn’t an answer.”
He looked toward the dark window, where his reflection appeared older than it had that morning.
“Did you give her money?”
Evelyn’s eyes remained closed. “Everybody wants money.”
“How much?”
“She needed her teeth fixed.”
Daniel turned back. “What?”
“She had pain. Right here.” Evelyn touched her jaw. “She couldn’t chew on one side.”
“How much did you give her?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was it six thousand dollars?”
“That sounds like teeth.”
“Mom.”
“What?”
“Did you give Nora six thousand dollars?”
Evelyn opened her eyes. “It was mine.”
Daniel sat back.
There it was: the first crack in the version of the story he had carried since the bedroom. He had imagined a helpless woman and an intruder. The truth, whatever it became, would have to include his mother making choices he disliked.
“Did you promise her the house?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“I told her this house was more trouble than it was worth.”
“That’s different.”
“I said maybe she should have it and see how she liked the gutters.”
Daniel stared at her.
Evelyn turned her face into the pillow. “You don’t know how people talk when you’re not here.”
The next morning, her thinking was clearer. She knew the date within one day and remembered the name of the hospital. Dr. Bell said the sedating medication level was declining and that dehydration had likely worsened its effects. She would not say whether the dose had been deliberate, but she confirmed that Evelyn’s prescribed schedule did not call for the medication Nora claimed to have given at nine-thirty.
“Could she have misunderstood the instructions?” Daniel asked.
“Possibly.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I did not say that.”
“You keep refusing to say anything.”
“I am saying exactly what the evidence allows.”
Evelyn watched them from the bed. “She always talks like that.”
Dr. Bell smiled. “It keeps me employed.”
A hospital social worker named Kim Alvarez arrived with a clipboard and a cardigan patterned with tiny lemons. She asked Daniel and Rachel to leave while she interviewed Evelyn privately. Daniel objected until Rachel pulled him into the hall.
“What are they asking her?”
“Whether she feels safe.”
“I’m her son.”
May you like
“That is not an answer to the question.”
After forty minutes, Kim invited them back. She explained that Evelyn did not want to return home alone and did not want a new live-in caregiver immediately. She also opposed moving into assisted living.
