Mothered (87)

“How long are you gonna be gone? What about Jackie?”

“My mom won’t be living there anymore.” She turned her head away so he couldn’t see the tears welling. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be away. Longer than I’d like.”

“Seriously, what’s going on? Where are you going? You’re kind of freaking me out.”

“Not today, okay? I’ll tell you, but I just want you to enjoy your first day of freedom. I just wanted you to know you can stay in my house if you want to, for as long as you like, whether I’m there or not.”

“I’d rather you were there. But . . . it would be nice to have a little yard, a porch.”

“Washer and dryer? Air-conditioning?” A spark of humor returned as she tried to sell him on the idea. “Walking distance to the supermarket?”

Miguel laughed. “Okay. I’ll consider it. Thank you.”

She parked in front of his building and got out to give him a hug.

“Sure you don’t want to come in for a bit?” he asked.

“I’m sure you need some alone time. And kitty cuddles. I stocked your fridge.”

“Thank you, Grace. I love you.”

“I love you. Give Coco some kisses from me.”

“I will.” She watched him head into his apartment. “See you later!” he called.

She waved in return, too choked up to speak. It might be a long time before she saw him again.



She hauled the moving boxes out of the basement. Ignored the comforter, and the decomposing heap beneath it, as she carried the boxes through the dining room and took them upstairs. Later someone—maybe everyone—was going to question her priorities, but Grace didn’t want to leave this task for Miguel, should he decide to move in. She packed up all of Jackie’s things.

The furniture was too large and heavy to move by herself, but Miguel might find a way to make use of it. She wrote DONATE on all the boxes with a fat Sharpie. It was the best she could do to ready the room for a new occupant. The rest of the house was tidy, but she did a quick dusting and mopping.

She hoped someone—the police or the coroner—would appreciate that she hadn’t tampered with the evidence. Tucked in with Jackie’s corpse were the knives. After she called nine one one, they would come and haul the body away. The kitchen floor and walls still showed faint smudges that she didn’t think looked too much like blood. Anyone with a good imagination could think she’d dropped a pot of coffee or a jar of spaghetti sauce.

The last thing on her to-do list was a long, hot shower. She had no idea what her impending living conditions would be like. This could be the end of the life luxuries she’d always known.

Clean and dressed, she finally called nine one one and told the dispatcher her mother was dead. And yes, she was sure her mother wasn’t breathing and didn’t have a pulse.

“It’s too late for that.”



Only now did Grace start to get nervous, knowing the police were on their way. Only now did she fully appreciate how strange it all looked.

The minutes ticked by, and she didn’t know if they were going to arrive in three minutes or thirty, but she started to panic. She paced, light headed as her blood zigzagged chaotically through her chest. There was so much to explain, and so little of it would make sense without everything that came before it. Should she start with her sister? Losing her job? Jackie’s arrival? Her mother’s accusation?

Grace had worked herself into hysterics by the time the two uniformed officers approached her door. She told them the only thing that made sense in that moment, the one thing that explained the chain of events.

“I had to do it! She was contagious!”





EPILOGUE


Grace had quickly become Silas’s favorite patient. He met with her almost every day and only rarely had she been too morose to communicate. Most of the time she was eager to tell the next chapter of her story, keen that he—“someone, anyone”—should understand the entwined chain of events. “I’m not crazy” was one of her frequent refrains—a message with a double edge for someone who might otherwise be in prison. Torrance wasn’t exactly a spa, but it offered more liberties and compassionate care than the alternative.

Today she sat with a plastic bowl of apple slices. He hoped eventually she’d gain a little weight, make more of an effort with her overall health, but for now she was still eating mostly fruit. She was in an especially good mood because her friend Miguel had just moved into her house. Silas would dissect that relationship at a later time; he wasn’t sure what it said about Grace’s best friend that he’d come around to accepting her explanation so readily.

“Thank you for sharing so much with me,” he said, as the story finally reached the moment of her arrest. It had taken several weeks for Grace to tell the whole thing from beginning to end.

“Thank you for listening.”

Another reason he liked her: she was capable of performing all the societal rituals of polite interaction. The fact that in her everyday appearance and behavior she showed no signs of overt deviance made her case all the trickier. She was either profoundly delusional or a cunning sociopath. He was leaning toward the former, primarily because her emotions seemed more spontaneous and genuine than what he typically witnessed with the sociopaths.