Part 4
“No sirens.”
“No sirens,” Carly promised.
They wrapped Margaret in a wool robe and helped her into a transport chair. She protested when Nathaniel lifted her, insisting she could stand. Her knees buckled before her feet fully touched the floor.
He caught her.
For one second, she looked startled, not by the weakness but by his presence, as if she had forgotten what it felt like to be held without fear.
In the hallway, Deputy Raines waited near the staircase.
“Where is my wife?” Nathaniel asked.
“In the library with Deputy Grady.”
“Is she under arrest?”
“Not at this time.”
Margaret’s shoulders eased slightly.
Raines continued, “We’ve contacted Adult Protective Services. Given the physical findings, the locked door, and the statements we’ve received, your wife has agreed to come to the station for an interview.”
“Agreed?”
“She’s speaking with counsel on the phone.”
Of course she was. Vivienne remembered attorneys’ numbers the way other people remembered birthdays.
Margaret whispered, “She’ll hate me.”
Nathaniel crouched beside the transport chair.
“She does not get to make this your fault.”
“You don’t know everything.”
“Then tell me.”
Margaret looked past him toward the library door.
“Not here.”
The ambulance carried her to the University of Virginia Medical Center. Nathaniel rode beside her. He left Greenwood Hall still wearing his dress uniform, though the collar had begun to feel like a hand at his throat.
At the hospital, a nurse helped Margaret into a gown while he stood in the corridor and stared at Vivienne’s name on his phone.
She called four times.
He did not answer.
At one thirty in the morning, an unknown number appeared.
He answered because it might have been the sheriff’s office.
Vivienne’s attorney introduced himself as Martin Kessler.
“Colonel Mercer, your wife is not being charged tonight.”
Nathaniel leaned against the hospital wall.
“Why are you calling me?”
“She wants permission to return home.”
“No.”
“Greenwood Hall is also her legal residence.”
“My mother lives there.”
“So does Mrs. Mercer.”
“She will not be in the same house as my mother.”
Kessler paused.
“I understand emotions are running high.”
Nathaniel closed his eyes.
“Do not explain my emotions to me.”
“I’m trying to avoid an unnecessary confrontation.”
“There is already a protective investigation.”
“There is an allegation. At present, there is no restraining order.”
Nathaniel looked through the narrow window in Margaret’s door. A nurse adjusted a blanket over her feet.
He said, “Tell Vivienne to stay at the Jefferson Hotel. I’ll cover the room tonight. Tomorrow she can arrange something else.”
“She would prefer to collect personal items.”
“Not while my mother is there.”
“Your mother is in the hospital.”
Nathaniel’s free hand curled.
“Martin.”
“Yes?”
“If my wife enters that house tonight, every alarm will activate, and the deputies will be called. I’m not threatening her. I’m telling you exactly what will happen.”
Another pause.
“I’ll convey that.”
The line disconnected.
Nathaniel remained in the corridor until Dr. Shah arrived in a raincoat over her scrubs. She had driven from Charlottesville after reviewing the initial photographs sent by the emergency department.
She shook his hand and looked at his uniform.
“You came straight from Fort Belvoir?”
“Yes.”
“Have you eaten?”
He almost laughed.
“That isn’t important.”
“It becomes important when people make decisions at three in the morning.”
She handed him a packet of crackers from her pocket.
Nathaniel took them because refusing would prolong the conversation.
Dr. Shah entered Margaret’s room and greeted her without pity. She asked about pain, sleep, appetite, medications, and falls. Margaret answered vaguely until Dr. Shah asked to see her pill organizer.
“It’s at home,” Margaret said.
“Who fills it?”
“Vivienne.”
“Do you know what you take?”
“One for blood pressure. The little white one for sleep.”
“You weren’t prescribed a sleeping medication.”
Margaret looked toward Nathaniel.
Dr. Shah did not react visibly. “What does the little white pill look like?”
“Round.”
“Any letters or numbers?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long have you taken it?”
“A few months.”
Nathaniel’s phone felt heavy in his pocket.
Dr. Shah ordered a toxicology screen.
The blood work later showed a sedative in Margaret’s system. It had been prescribed to Vivienne.
The amount was not immediately dangerous, but it was enough to affect balance, memory, and alertness in an elderly woman.
Nathaniel sat beside the bed when Dr. Shah explained it. Margaret stared at the hospital bracelet around her wrist.
“Did you know the medication belonged to Vivienne?” the doctor asked.
“She said it would help me sleep.”
“Did you want it?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
Margaret picked at the adhesive on her hand.
“She said I was easier when I took it.”
Nathaniel stood so abruptly that the chair struck the wall.
Margaret startled.
He stepped back at once.
“I’m sorry.”
Dr. Shah gave him a measured look.
He forced himself to sit.
For years, soldiers had called him controlled. He had accepted the description as a compliment, though Vivienne used it as an accusation. She said he turned every feeling into a locked room and then expected everyone else to admire the architecture.
Now anger pressed against every wall at once.
He asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Margaret’s expression hardened.
“You called from airports.”
“I called every week.”
“You were always about to board something.”
“I would’ve come home.”
“And then what?”
“This.”
She gestured weakly toward the hospital room.
Nathaniel could not answer.
Margaret looked at the ceiling.
“You would have come in uniform, with police and doctors, and everyone would have looked at Vivienne as though she were a monster. I thought I could make her stop.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
The word was flat.
Dr. Shah asked whether Margaret felt able to describe what had happened.
May you like
Margaret resisted at first. She complained about the room temperature. She asked for water, then forgot to drink it. She wanted the curtain closed though it was already closed. Nathaniel understood that each small concern delayed the larger one.
At last she said Vivienne had begun giving her the sleeping pills in February, after Margaret woke during the night and found her in Charles Mercer’s study.
