Saving Meghan(116)
“When Mom freaked, Nash’s plan got rolling. She got DCF to take me into custody, child abuse and all that, and then she’d poison me, just a bit every time Mom came to visit, by putting some heartbreak grass extract into the chicken soup. That was her way of establishing a pattern. Nash was going to tell the police that mom must have smuggled in the poison, you know like how they sneak drugs into prisons. She’d say there were plenty of chances for mom to have spiked the soup without anyone noticing. It’s also why Dr. Nash did the exam every time I got sick. I had plenty of real symptoms that could be measured by real medical instruments, but she lied and said I didn’t. She even forged the lab results so the bloodwork would come back normal. How crazy is that?
“Mom’s final visit, the one after you bailed her out, that was supposed to be my last day on earth. The soup would have killed me, too, but Mom ate it instead—and, lucky for her, the dose wasn’t fatal, because she weighed more than me.
“If it had worked out the way Nash wanted, if I’d died, the soup would have been tested and found to be poisonous. Eventually the police would have found the heartbreak grass Nash planted at our house, the same stuff she used to poison you, and Mom would have been put in prison for my murder. The motive? Munchausen by proxy. People cause illness or injury for their own weird needs, so that’s the only motive the prosecutor would need. They’d say that Mom messed up and put too much poison in my soup one day, and that’s why I died. She’d be charged with manslaughter, maybe. But Mom would be gone twenty-five years, I’d be dead, and then you and Nash could live happily ever after, because you weren’t going to leave us for her. That’s what you said to her. You couldn’t do that to your family. That’s why she took matters into her own hands.
“But you didn’t know what she was doing, did you, Dad? You didn’t know DCF was going to take custody of me. Which is why you broke it off with Nash. Which, by the way, was in Nash’s confession. It made me happy to hear, and it’s one of the reasons I’m still talking to you. I guess she figured you’d come around eventually, even though I know you wouldn’t have.
“But when Mom got sick, you got suspicious, so I’m proud of you, Dad. Nash told the police you invited her over to our house to confront her, but somehow, she got to your favorite whiskey and, well, you tried to warn us. Mom figured it out—Angi and all—but that came a little too late.
“Your Angi was going to tell the police that I’d broken away from her as she was taking me to see Mom, and that I’d run up the stairs like a crazy person and jumped off the hospital roof because I was emotionally damaged. She wanted me dead because she wanted Mom to suffer for messing everything up.”
Tears poured out of my eyes. My shaky breath came in sputters.
“But I want to tell you something else. Something Mom said was important to say. It’s something she needs to say to Grandma Cora, who miraculously is still alive.
“I want to tell you that I forgive you. I know you never meant to hurt me. I know that you loved me. And I love you, Daddy.”
I got up, brushed the dirt from my hands, and used them to wipe my eyes dry. I walked away feeling better until I realized there was one last thing I’d forgotten to tell him.
I got the results from that second biopsy.
CHAPTER 60
BECKY
Waves lapped against the sandy edge of the Pacific Ocean. Becky and Sabrina sat on a plaid blanket, sipping beer from red plastic cups, watching the shimmering sun descend gently into an endless horizon. Sabrina had on a white sweater and light-colored jeans, clothes Becky remembered borrowing a dozen years ago. With Sabrina’s dark hair and olive complexion, a passerby would have no reason to think the two were sisters. But hours earlier they had been at the Wayside Funeral Home, paying their last respects to Cora—dear Cora, who had clung to life far longer than any doctor had thought possible.
“What now?” Sabrina asked, taking a sip of beer.
“Now we treat her,” Becky said. “And hope for the best. There’s a drug that might help. We’re going to try to get her into a clinical trial.”
“‘We’?” Sabrina’s eyes twinkled.
“Yes, Zach Fisher and me.”
“Are you two…?” Her sister’s voice trailed off.
“Sabrina, please, I just buried my husband. The last thing I need is a man. But if I were to try one out again, I’m pretty sure it would be someone like him.”
“Take your time. You’ve been through quite a trauma, not to mention your husband’s betrayal. How did they meet, anyway, Carl and Amanda? I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Believe it or not, he renovated her apartment,” Becky said with notable sadness.
“Isn’t that how you two met—when you sold a place he built?”
“Yeah,” Becky said, now with a slight smile. “I guess I’ll have to talk to my therapist about that one.”
“She’s one crazy lady,” Sabrina said. “I read in the paper that she confessed to killing the psychiatrist—Dr. Levine, I think his name was. But the article didn’t say why.”
“She did it because Levine started to believe that Meghan might be sick with something, which would have screwed up everything,” Becky said. “If Levine suggested Meghan get treated for mito, and if the tests came back positive, it would have meant I didn’t have Munchausen, and Nash’s big plan would go up in smoke, so she took care of him by, you know, killing him. And then she got one of my earrings so the police would focus on me. I guess Carl had shown Nash where the damn key was and never changed the locks after the two of them broke it off.