I stiffened, sound rushing into my ears, my hands balling into fists at my side.
Ruthie.
When I didn’t speak she continued.
“You should’ve thanked me when I recommended her father be brought in for questioning. Who knows what he was doing to the Germans stupid enough to see a Jewish doctor.”
My blood ran cold, my chest burning with hatred, tears welling in my eyes. Part of me had always wondered if she’d had something to do with Mr. Friedman’s arrest, but I hadn’t wanted to believe my own mother would do such a thing to my best friend’s father.
She waved her hand again, impatient with my emotions.
“What did I always tell you about those feelings of yours?”
“Bury them,” I murmured, wiping away the tear running down my cheek. “They have no place on one’s face.”
“Good girl. Now, tell me the real reason you’re here.”
“You know why.”
“You’ve come for Catrin.” As she said it, her eyes flicked over me again, a sneer lifting one side of her dry, thin lips.
“I have.”
“Well, you’ve just missed her and I’m afraid she won’t be back for some time. She can only come when her work allows.”
I wanted to ask what kind of work my sister did, but didn’t want to give my mother the satisfaction of having information I didn’t. Even though we both knew she did.
“I might be here a while,” I said. “Perhaps I’ll see her when she’s next in town.”
“Perhaps, though I wouldn’t expect a happy reunion.”
“And why is that?”
My mother’s eyes flashed.
“You left her. You deserted her. And when she finds out it was on purpose...”
“She was meant to come too. We had a plan.”
“She’d never have gone.”
“Of course she would have. To be with me.”
“I always knew you were foolish, Gisela, but I didn’t know you were downright stupid. Catrin is not you. She is made from something different. Something stronger. She is a Holländer. Unlike you.”
I didn’t want to believe what she was telling me. Couldn’t even fathom what she was hinting at, and so I turned my gaze elsewhere, refusing to let her pull me in and rile me.
“Tell me what you’ve done with your life in America,” my mother said, her voice taking on the familiar tone of disinterest. “I’m assuming that’s where you’ve been all these years?”
“I’m a nurse,” I said, ignoring her question.
Her cackle filled the room and I felt acute satisfaction when she began to cough and choke, Paulina running in to help her sit up and holding a glass of water to her mouth when the fit had finally begun to subside.
“Some nurse,” my mother gasped, spittle from her sip of water spraying the air in front of her. “Clearly, you’re no good at it, the way you just stood there as the dying woman before you choked.”
“You’re no woman,” I whispered. “You’re a monster.”
I watched her for a moment more, her frail frame seizing with another coughing fit, Paulina standing by with the water glass, waiting patiently. When the coughing stopped again, Paulina pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed my mother’s thin, dry lips and helped her back onto her pillows, tucking the blankets around her as she mercifully fell asleep. When Paulina pocketed the handkerchief once more, I noticed the blood on it.
