A Mother Would Know (67)

I looked to where my sister had been standing, but the spot was empty.

“But, Mom, I didn’t—”

“Now!”

She stepped toward me, eyes flashing. I burst into action, racing into the hallway and up the stairs. When I passed my sister’s room, I caught a glimpse of her inside, lying on her bed, reading a book. Angry, I stopped running. Peering over my shoulder, I didn’t see Mom. I could hear her picking up the broken pieces of her vase downstairs.

There was time.

I stepped into my sister’s room. “Andie.” She opened her mouth to correct me, but I beat her to it. “Kendra.”

It was a difficult habit to break. I’d been calling her Andie since I was old enough to speak—when I couldn’t pronounce my Ks and Rs, and Kendra, softened to Endwee, morphed into Andie before anyone could convince me otherwise. Mom and Dad never got on board—they continued to call her Kendra—but that was okay. I liked that it was something between the two of us. It was really the only thing we had. Her letting me call her by a nickname was the only thing that made it feel like she might not hate me completely.

But Kendra had taken that away from me recently, insisting that I call her by her real name.

“We’re not babies anymore,” she’d said. “You can pronounce my name now. So say it right.”

“You could’ve killed me,” I said now.

She looked up from her book and rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”

“Mom thinks I did it.”

“And that’s my problem?”

I take another step. “I’m gonna tell her you did it.”

Shaking her head, she laughs. “She’ll never believe you. I was upstairs reading. You were next to the vase.”

Anger rose up inside of me, hot and intense like that boiling water she’d poured on my hand. I was so sick of her games. Of being manipulated.

“I hate you!” I yelled, lunging toward her.

Tossing her book aside, she pushed with her feet to try to scoot away. But it was too late. I was faster.

I pushed her down on the bed, my knees sinking into her thighs. She cried out in pain, and a shiver of triumph ran through me.

“Get off me, you fuckin’ loser.” She writhed.

Reaching out, I clamped my hands around her neck.

“Mom!” she screamed.

With all my force, I pressed down. Her eyes became wider than I’d ever seen them, but at least she’d finally shut up. Her arms shot upward, her fingernails raking over the skin on my wrists and hands. But I kept squeezing. So hard I felt her pulse bounce against my fingertips.

For once I was in control.

The tiger.

The predator.

I had the power.

Not her.

“Oh, my god. Stop. Get off of her!” Mom flew into the room. She leaped onto the bed, yanking my arms away from my sister’s neck.

My sister sat up, gulping in air. Her fingers ran along the skin of her neck, as if checking to make sure it was still there.

Staring at the red mark appearing on her pale skin, a slow smile crept over my face.





22





I roll over in bed and stare at my ringing phone in disbelief. Dr. Steiner’s number.

It’s 8:00 a.m. and I should be blurry with sleep deprivation, but the sight of the doctor’s office on my caller ID wakes me right up. The turnaround is so fast, it’s surely indicative of how dire the results are.

But I’m wrong.

“There’s no sign of early-onset Alzheimer’s or dementia in any of your tests,” Dr. Steiner says so breezily it leaves me speechless.

“Valerie?”

I blink. Bowie pants near my feet. “Um...yes, I’m here. I just... I don’t understand...there has to be some mistake.”

“I’m emailing your results right now. Feel free to look them over and then, if you still have questions, you can call back. And if you’d like to make an appointment, I can transfer you to the receptionist, or refer you to a neurologist for further testing.”

My head spins. It’s too much. I don’t know what to do. I can’t even form a coherent thought.

“Okay...yeah... I’ll look things over and get back to you.” I hang up in a daze, haul myself out of bed and go straight to my laptop.

And there they are—the results from my lab work, my MRI, the cognitive testing. All normal.

It doesn’t make any sense, and yet...

Still attempting to process, I pick up my phone and, with slick fingers, dial Kendra. She’s in nursing school, so maybe she can make sense of this for me. Explain how this could happen. Surely, my forgetfulness and cotton-brain wasn’t made up.

“Hey, Mom.” She sounds tired.

“You okay?” I ask.

“Just didn’t get a ton of sleep last night.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Theo told me Mason hasn’t been sleeping that much at night.”

“When did he tell you that?” she asked sharply.

“The other day when he dropped Mason off,” I say. “He said you’d been driving him around at night to try to put him to sleep. I remember doing that with you, too.”

“Really? With me?”

“Yeah. You liked the white noise and motion.”