Little Girls(21)

“Spectacular,” said Ted as he tucked the business card into the pocket of his Izod polo shirt.

“Now,” Cushing said, leaning back in his chair again, “there was that other issue we spoke about over the phone, I believe.” Cushing was looking at Ted. “A claim against the health-care provider.”

“Yeah,” Ted said. He folded his legs.

Laurie frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“It was just something I had mentioned to Mr. Cushing, Laurie. We went over this back in Hartford.”

“You’re talking about a lawsuit,” she said. She glanced at Cushing and, for the first time, saw that prideful little grin slide off his face.

“I just thought it would be beneficial to hear what our options are before you slam the door, Laurie,” Ted said.

“I told you I had no interest in a lawsuit.”

“It couldn’t hurt to hear the man out.”

“Mrs. Genarro,” Cushing cut in. “Your husband and I merely discussed the possibility of holding Mid-Atlantic Homecare Services accountable for what happened to your father. Their negligence—”

“With all due respect, Mr. Cushing, my father suffered from horrible dementia and was undoubtedly a handful for the two women who looked after him. The only thing I want to do is hurry up and put this whole mess behind me, not drag it through the courts and relive it every minute of every day.”

“Of course,” Cushing said.

Laurie looked at Ted. “We’ve talked about this already. I just don’t have it in me to prolong this any more than it needs to be. Okay?”

“Sure,” Ted said, placing a hand on her knee. “Okay.”

Behind the desk, David Cushing stood up. He tried the smile again but it seemed even phonier than before. “Well, then. There are just a few papers for you to sign, Mrs. Genarro, and then I can get you nice folks on your way. . . .”





Afterward, they walked down Main Street and had lunch at an outdoor bistro that overlooked the inlet. Boats pulled circles around the inlet and Susan cheered when one of them unleashed two resounding bleats from an air horn. Halfway down Main Street, a small white door in an alley between two shops had a sign on it that read PALM READINGS and there was a neon hand glowing in the door’s window. Susan rushed up to the window and placed her palm against the neon hand. “Ooh. It’s warm,” she commented.

Ted was in high spirits. Every time Laurie looked at him she thought she saw dollar signs in his eyes, like some cartoon character. Several times over a lunch of steamed mussels, crusty bread, some crab dip, and quite a few mojitos, Ted commented on how stupefied he was at the assessed value of the house.

“Why the hell had you never told me your father had so much money?”

“I wasn’t exactly sure how much he had,” Laurie responded. Instead of a mojito, she had a glass of ice water in front of her. She ran one finger around the rim now. “I had no reason to think he’d leave me anything at all, anyway.”

“Who else would he leave it to?”

“It just wasn’t something I sat around and thought about. Like I said back at the lawyer’s office, I just want this stuff over and done with.”

Ted glanced at a busty woman who jogged by in a Lycra top and spandex running shorts. “I didn’t mean to go behind your back and talk with Cushing about the lawsuit,” he said. “I apologize. It was wrong of me. I was just worried you weren’t thinking clearly at the time. I was only trying to look out for you.”

For one second, she recalled the way Ted had whispered about her to Susan while tucking her into bed last night. He had done a lot of whispering about her after the incident on the highway last year. She knew it was only Ted looking out for her, and she felt a sudden pang of compassion for him.

“An old man in the throes of senility wanders up to the roof of his house and jumps off while Dora Lorton is being paid good money to keep an eye on him,” Ted went on, just as she was getting ready to offer him a truce. “Cushing is exactly right. It’s negligence. I just wish you’d listen to reason, that’s all.”

“You know as well as I do that Claiborne called us a number of times to inform us about my father’s worsening condition,” she countered. “He even suggested we send him to a home. But we both agreed we didn’t have the money for that. So we’re just as much to blame as anyone else. And besides,” she added, knocking around a few ice cubes in her glass with a straw, “it wasn’t Dora Lorton at the house that night. It was the other girl.”

“What girl?”

“The girl they brought on for the night shift. Don’t you remember approving a second caretaker?”

He shrugged. “I guess. Who’s this girl?”

“Her last name’s Larosche.”

“What is that? French?”

“I have no idea.”

“Have you spoken to her?”

“No. Dora Lorton mentioned her to me.”

“Okay, whatever. So then this Larosche woman is to blame.”

Laurie pushed her ice water aside. “Does it really matter? Do we really need the hassle of a lawsuit? We’ve got the house. Even if it sells for half the assessed value—”

He held up one hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it’s the principle, Laurie. You get it?”