Whisper Me This(31)
She looks like Tony, minus the crooked nose. She has huge blue eyes accented with black eyeliner and shimmery shadow, waves of nearly black hair falling over her shoulders, and an expressive face reflecting every emotional shift suggested by her rapid speech. I’m relieved to see she’s not a fashion plate and neither is she Goth nor punk, although the beaded bracelets at her wrists and the huge quartz crystal swinging from a chain around her neck hint at some New Age voodoo. None of that is likely to hurt Elle.
“I’m ready,” my daughter says, as if she has just accomplished this state of readiness and has not been fidgeting at the door for the last twenty minutes. She drops a kiss on my cheek. “Say hi to Grandma and Grandpa,” she says, and she’s out the door.
Mia lingers. “I’ll take good care of her, I promise. I’m more responsible than you’ll be thinking I am. Honest. Here’s my cell number, but you should know that around here sometimes I’m out of range, so leave a message and I’ll call back a-sap.”
She hands me a business card, and with that, the two of them are down the sidewalk and climbing into a Jeep of indeterminate age. When Mia starts the engine, it belches out a cloud of black smoke. I have one foot out on the porch, ready to run after them, but the vehicle is already moving. Elle waves enthusiastically.
Mia drives carefully, using a turn signal even though the street is empty, and I take a deep breath and try to let go of my worry. The business card is professionally done, advertising her services in massage therapy and Reiki. Maybe I’ll have to make an appointment. God knows I could use both a massage and an energy alignment, both on a cosmic scale.
Before I head up to the hospital to check on my parents, I swing by the bank—the grocery store can wait. There’s a short line, giving me just enough time to work up sweaty palms and an accelerated heart rate.
The bank teller has to call out twice, and when I step up to her window, my first thought is that she should still be in high school. Short spiky hair, vivid eye shadow, a tiny diamond lodged in her left nostril. There’s also a slight bulge in her cheek that makes me think she’s got gum stashed there, the way Elle does sometimes.
When I tell her what I need, she stares at me for a minute and then picks up her phone and speaks into it. When she hangs up, she points to an office cube behind me. “Bethany can help you. I can’t do safe-deposit boxes.”
Bethany is not still in high school. In fact, she went to school with me. She dated Greg before I did, which gives us way too much in common. Despite the fact that we were sworn enemies the last time I saw her, she sweeps me into an enthusiastic hug.
“Oh my God. It’s Maisey! How long has it been? You look fabulous!”
I know full well I look anything but. I’ve had a shower and donned clean clothes, but skipped the makeup. There are tears in the emotional weather forecast for today, and it would only end up smeared all over my face. I’m well aware that I’m pale and baggy, that my eyes are red and swollen. Bethany, on the other hand, does look fantastic. I’m trying to figure out what work she’s had done—that Invisalign thing to her teeth, maybe a little Botox—when her face assumes the expression of sympathy.
“I heard about your mother. How is she doing?” she asks, head tilted enough that her dangly earrings graze her shoulder, her penciled eyebrows lifted in the questions she has yet to ask. Her eyes have a gleam in them that is a little too avid for a question about safe-deposit boxes, and I can only guess what sort of stories are circulating around town about my parents.
“She’s in the ICU. She’s still unconscious. She’s got pneumonia.”
“Oh no. I can’t believe it! She was in here only two weeks ago. She seemed so healthy. I guess we just never know, do we?”
I don’t like being part of this we. I don’t like this conversation. I don’t even want to be here.
“Listen. I need to have a look in my parents’ safe-deposit box. Can I do that?”
“Let me see. Do you have the key?”
I produce a key, hoping it is the right one. It was in an envelope in Dad’s file cabinet, marked as important financial records, the name of the bank written across the front in Mom’s handwriting, not his.
Bethany approves the key with a nod, setting it down on the desk between us while she taps away at the computer with red lacquered nails. “Here we go,” she says, which sounds promising. A furrow appears between her eyebrows as she scrolls down the page, and that does not look promising at all.
“Oh dear,” she says. “You are not listed as one of the parties granted access. Only your parents.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“According to the law, you can only access the box if both of your parents die and you bring in the key and a death certificate.”
I stare at her. “No. There has to be another way.”
“Get your dad to sign for you. I’ll give you a form.” She catches my expression and leans forward, lowering her voice. “Or, if he’s not fit to sign, you might be able to get a court order.”
“No. You don’t understand. There isn’t time for this. I’m looking for Mom’s advance directive. We need it yesterday. Or last week. If we wait until she’s dead, that kind of negates the purpose of any directives she might have specified.”
“Oh dear.” Bethany stares at me, and this time there’s pity in her eyes. “Well. Bring your dad down, maybe?” But her tone of voice makes it clear she’s heard all the rumors about Dad.