“I am. I am surprised by all of this.” She subsided into silence; it felt impossible to order her thoughts. “So why do you think you’re to blame for Mum’s stroke?”
“What if... ? What if it was caused by too much OxyContin?” Meghan’s voice was barely a whisper. “The last few weeks she’d been asking for more and more. I tried to fob her off, but...”
“So you do think she overdosed.”
“I don’t know,” Meghan cried. “But that’s what I’m afraid of. And I’m afraid of taking care of her now, of how much work it will be. You’ll just go on cleaning houses. I’m the one who will pick up the slack.”
“You’ve never picked up the slack,” Rachel retorted before she could stop herself.
“See what I mean? You’ve never believed I do anything around here.”
Rachel took a deep, steadying breath. “First things first. I don’t think the OxyContin caused her stroke.”
Wary relief flashed across Meghan’s face. “You don’t?”
“Mr. Greaves never mentioned it, and they’ve done loads of blood tests. Besides, she was a ticking time bomb, with her smoking and weight. But we can check. Have you looked on the Internet?”
“I didn’t want to.”
Sighing, Rachel heaved herself up and went into the sitting room. Nathan was curled up on the sofa, asleep. A CBeebies presenter was showing luridly colored birthday cards to the TV screen. Rachel turned the TV off and then booted up the computer in the corner of the room.
Meghan stood beside her, biting her already ragged nails and shifting from foot to foot.
Rachel clicked on the Internet browser and typed OxyContin overdose causing stroke.
“Isn’t that a little biased?” Meghan muttered.
“Do you want to know or not?”
“An Internet search doesn’t mean anything, anyway.”
Rachel didn’t answer as she clicked and waited for the results to come up. Hartley-by-the-Sea’s Internet was, according to the Westmoreland Gazette, the slowest in the county.
Finally the results came up, and she clicked on the first one, a question on one of the many self-help medical sites, and read the answer. “OxyContin is not associated with stroke, although it has a variety of side effects, including anxiety, sedation, insomnia, mood changes, et cetera. OxyContin in overdose gives pinpoint pupils, respiratory depression, and hypotension.”
They were both silent for a second, and then Meghan let out her breath in a rush. “So it wasn’t the OxyContin.”
“So now you believe the Internet?”
Meghan managed a wry smile. “It’s never wrong,” she said, and Rachel let out a tired laugh. She glanced up at Meghan, ashamed to see how relieved her sister looked, how little she’d known about what Meghan was going through.
“You can knock that off your worry list, I suppose.”
“Yeah.”
They were both silent, staring at the computer screen. “I’m sorry, Meghan,” Rachel said quietly. “I should have realized what you were going through. How hard it was for you.”
Meghan lifted one bony shoulder in a shrug. “I could have said. And I know you work hard.”
“Life’s been pretty crap for both of us.” Rachel sighed. “Maybe it will get better.”
Meghan glanced towards their mother’s bedroom door. “Maybe,” she agreed without much conviction.
“I mean it,” Rachel said, and she realized she was speaking the truth. “We’ve cleared the air and we can work together now. Things can get better. For all of us.” And for once she thought she believed it.
Chapter twenty-eight
Claire
