Whisper Me This(22)

“I’m fine. Really. Just a little tension-breaking laughter—”

“On your father, Maisey. Focus.”

“But he’s not rational at all right now, Greg. Fighting restraints, trying to climb over the rails of a stretcher—”

“That’s the point, Maisey. We want him to be confused.”

“We do?”

“If you can prove he didn’t have the capacity to know right from wrong, that would be helpful. Also, if your mom really did fill out an advance directive, then we can argue that he was just following her wishes. Maybe it was ill-advised to keep her at home for so long, but if he was confused and unable to make decisions, then they can’t convict him of anything. See if you can get a dementia diagnosis.”

I want to smack my forehead with the phone. Greg has unleashed the monster by speaking its name out loud.

“Maisey?”

My throat feels too tight to squeeze words through, but I manage, although I sound squeaky. “I’m here.”

“Action plan. I’ll make it simple enough for even you to follow. Although maybe you should write this down.”

“Okay. Writing.”

In reality, I’m not writing anything.

Greg’s reminder that I’m incapable of focused, goal-directed activity has triggered my obstinate streak, and in this moment I’m not about to do anything he tells me.

“Are you ready?” he asks. “Do you even have a pen?”

“Just give me the fucking plan, Greg. I’m not completely stupid.”

“I hope you are not swearing in front of our daughter. First, find the advance directive if there is one. Second, find a psychologist to do psych testing.”

“The mental health guy did a mini mental status exam on him already.”

Greg sighs, his superior, do-I-really-have-to-explain-this sigh. “A mini mental status test isn’t going to be sufficient to prove that he’s not competent. You need a battery of tests. Administered by a psychologist. You got that?”

“Got it.”

“Write it down. Psychologist, not psychiatrist. There’s a difference. Third, call me the minute cops start talking to either you or Walter. The very minute. Okay? No more free interviews. I’d think you’d know better than that by now.”

His scolding showers over me in a familiar pitter-patter. I don’t need to hear the individual words. I know the message, which generally boils down to “all the ways Maisey has screwed up again.” I set the phone in my lap and pull back out onto the street, waiting for the change of intonation that signals he’s moved on.

“Maisey? Maisey! Let me talk to Elle.”

I pass the phone over. Elle talks for a few minutes. “Dad says to tell you to remember to charge your cell phone,” she says when she hangs up.

Words that I resent all the more because he’s right. This is a thing I would never have remembered.



My parents’ house is a much bigger problem than I am prepared to deal with.

It’s empty, for starters. Not the sort of emptiness you get when people are gone for a couple of hours on a trip to town. It’s the same echoing emptiness I felt sitting beside my mother’s bed and realizing that whatever it is that makes her my mother is missing. Every noise we make, from turning the key in the lock to wiping our feet on the doormat and obediently removing our shoes in response to the little wooden sign that says Shoes that remain by the door will be blessed, seems like an intrusion.

In case the desire for blessing might be missing in some rogue human breast, there’s a picture of a tiny black demon with a pitchfork eyeing the tempting buttocks of a cartoon man who is walking into a house with shoes still on his feet.

If the curse exists, my friendly fireman and a whole slew of ambulance and legal personnel are in for some pitchfork jabs. The new carpet that Mom is so proud of is trampled with muddy footprints and ashes. I stick my head into the kitchen with some thought of finding Elle something to eat and draw it right back, like a startled turtle. More footprints. A dried pool of blood by the island. A buzz of flies, busy with a frying pan on the stove. The stink of something rotten.

“Not hungry,” Elle says from behind me.

My stomach squeezes in on itself, pushing a wave of nausea up my throat, and I back away, breathing through my mouth.

“You didn’t eat breakfast,” I tell her. It comes out as “You diddun ead breagfasd,” and she does that snort-laugh thing, and again we’re giggling, only this time even through the insane laughter, I can feel a noose tightening around my throat.

“Too tired to eat,” she says. “Also, ewww. What was in that frying pan, besides flies?”

I don’t want to know. But I know damn well I’m the one who is going to have to clean it up. First, I tuck Elle into bed. My old bed. It doesn’t look like my room anymore, and I’m glad of that. Mom has repurposed it. Impersonal modern computer desk. Ergonomic chair. A couch/daybed that might have come from Ikea. In the closet I find blankets and a pillow, and Elle snuggles down and is well on her way to sleep before I make it out of the room.

With Elle off to dreamland, the next thing on my agenda is to look for Mom’s advance directive, a document that is beginning to seem as mythical as the holy grail. Still, I make my way to Dad’s study, which is mercifully neat and orderly, all as it should be. I sit down in his chair, gathering warmth and strength from my memories of his steady, gentle presence.