Were they talking about her illness? Her approaching death and his denial of it?
“But it’s not possible,” Paul said.
She laughed. “You have no idea what is and isn’t possible.”
He said something in a low, breathy tone, something I couldn’t make out, and my mother laughed again, but it was a wicked, cruel laugh. Then she whispered something that came out sounding like an extended, sinister hiss.
There was silence for a few long seconds.
“No,” Paul said firmly. “I won’t. I can’t.”
“Oh yes, you will. After all I’ve done for you, Paul? You have no right to deny me.”
More silence, then a whisper, followed by footsteps coming my way. I scrambled back out of the hall, toward the kitchen, still clutching the plate of cinnamon rolls.
Paul nearly ran into me.
“Paul?” my mother called from her room. “Come back!”
He looked at me—frantic, helpless—shook his head, and hurried for the front door.
“Paul!” my mother called from her room. “Don’t you dare leave!”
I set down the rolls on the dining table and followed him through the front door, not even bothering to close it behind me as I hurried out to the driveway, where he was unlocking his SUV. I shivered in the cold without a coat.
“Paul? What’s going on?”
He turned from the open car to me. “I don’t—I can’t—”
“Talk to me, Paul.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes teary. “I’m so, so sorry. It’s my fault. I should never…” He trailed off. “But I didn’t know. I swear.”
“I don’t understand. Please, come back in, have a cup of coffee, we can talk.”
He got into the car.
“Paul!” I could hear my mother yell from inside the house.
Paul looked from the house to me, his face full of anguish as he turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life.
Inside, my mother bellowed Paul’s name, then other words I couldn’t make out—was she yelling at him in another language?—followed by a low moan and a crash.
Paul looked at me, eyes wide with fear, as he shifted into reverse. He rolled down the window. “That’s not Mavis,” he said as he pulled away.
TWENTY
HOW ARE YOU FEELING?”I asked. My mother had been asleep for most of the afternoon. Now that she was up, I’d brought in some tea and one of the cinnamon rolls I had warmed earlier.
I’d found her on the floor when I ran back inside after Paul left. She’d gotten the railing down and stepped out of bed, losing her balance, grabbing for the bedside table and knocking everything on it to the ground: her cell phone, a glass of water, her stone. She’d banged her arm in the fall. It didn’t look broken, and she said she hadn’t hit her head, but I’d called Teresa and she’d come right away. Together we’d managed to get my mother settled, bandaged the scrape on her arm, and given her a heavy dose of Ativan. Teresa said we’d been fortunate—she was bruised but had no serious injuries—and suggested that it might be time to rethink the bed alarm. “If she falls again, we might not be so lucky next time.” I’d promised to be more vigilant, more careful. I didn’t want to do anything to make my mother feel like more of a prisoner than she did already.
“I thought you might be hungry,” I said to my mother now, setting my offerings down on the bedside table.
She didn’t look at me. She was staring instead at her arm, which was wrapped in gauze. Mummy arm.
“Mother?”
That’s not Mavis.
