I pound on the door, which pops open the second my knuckles meet the wood.
“Mom?” I call, stepping inside the big open space. Living room and dining room to the left, kitchen to the right. “You left the door—”
Something’s burning. A saucepan is on the stove, the front burner blazing, the outside of the pot blackened from the flame. I rush over to turn it off, grab a dish towel to toss the pot into the sink, and turn on the faucet. A cloud of steam rises as tap water sizzles into the now-empty pot.
There’s an open box of couscous on the counter, next to a neat pile of chopped green beans. A half-empty glass of water on the island. “Mom!” I shout.
Popping and hissing noises are coming from the oven. When I open the door, I’m blasted by a wall of heat and gray smoke. The baking pan I yank out is filled with blackened rocks that I’m guessing used to be chicken.
“The food is burning!” The smoke alarm starts to screech. “Shit.”
I’m about to climb up on a stool to shut it off, when I hear a loud noise—thump, thump, thump. It’s coming from the direction of my mom’s office.Shit.
“Mom!”
The thumping stops.
I press my body against the wall as I make my way down the hall. But when I poke my head into the office doorway, it’s empty. My mom’s laptop, I think her work one, is on the floor near the door, which is weird. But otherwise, it’s immaculate as always.
The thumping starts up again. I realize it’s coming through the wall, from the adjacent brownstone. George and Geraldine’s house—or just George’s now, since Geraldine died. George was once a famous doctor, a neurosurgeon, but he has Alzheimer’s now. My mom tries to keep an eye on him, brings him groceries sometimes, that kind of thing. For sure, George does some weird stuff over in that house all alone. Right now, it sounds like he’s pounding on the walls. He used to do that sometimes when I was in high school and he wanted me and my friends to keep it down.
The smoke alarm is still going off. That’s probably it.
I return to the kitchen, jump up on the stool to hit the reset button. The alarm finally stops. A second later, so does George’s pounding.
I look past the kitchen island to the long dining room table, the living room beyond. Spotless.
“What the hell is going on?” I whisper. My mom is many aggravating things, but she’s not the kind of person to disappear.
I spy something under the sofa, then jump down from the stool for a closer look. It’s one of my mom’s standard-issue light gray canvas flats—very plain, very expensive. When I pull it out, I see that the side of the shoe is smeared with a reddish brown streak, a few fingers wide. Turning back toward the kitchen, I notice the broken glass on the floor, the shards fanned out, glittering in a pool of what looks to be water. There’s also another shiny circle on the hardwood floor. Closer to the end of the island, it’s aboutthe size of a dinner plate, the liquid a thicker consistency than what’s under the glass. When I head over and crouch down, I can see that it’s a similar reddish brown to what’s on the shoe.Oh my God.It’s blood.
I drop the shoe. My hand trembles as I tug my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans.
“Hey!” my dad answers. “Walking off the plane!”
And for a split second I think,Oh, good, Mom and I won’t have to eat alone after all.Like the world hasn’t just exploded. I look over at the puddle again. Blood. That’s definitely what that is.
“Dad, I think something’s happened to Mom.”
LITIGATION TODAY
MARCH 5, 2024
CASE NOTES
A multidistrict litigation was certified today against Darden Pharmaceuticals in the Southern District of New York on behalf of all pregnant patients who took the seizure medication Xytek between the date of its first manufacture, October 25, 2021, and the present. The bellwether complaint was brought on behalf of unnamed plaintiff Jane Doe, who alleges that Darden knew of and disregarded risks to pregnant patients and their unborn children. It is further alleged that the adverse impacts of Xytek in pregnant patients included “serious bodily damage to newborns and, in some instances, death.” The bellwether case seeks $20 million in actual damages and $200 million in punitive damages. Given the number of potential plaintiffs, the result could be one of the costliest pharmaceutical litigations in history. With regard to the lawsuit, Darden general counsel Phillip Beaumont said, “Xytek is a drug that has saved tens of thousands of lives and has made meaningful living possible for hundreds of thousands more. The data makes clear Xytek is both incredibly safe and enormously effective at eliminating debilitating, life-threatening seizures. We look forward to our day in court to prove that publicly.” Xytek sales in the last year alone topped $2 billion, though many of those who take the drug do so for off-label uses. When reached for comment, plaintiffs’ liaison counsel said: “Darden Pharmaceuticals ignored known risks. They prioritized profit over patient safety and hundreds of infants have paid the price. We expect this case to change the way the pharmaceutical industry does business and the way drugs are fast-tracked by the FDA.”
Katrina
EIGHT DAYS BEFORE
I opened my eyes to the glare of sun through the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. It took me a second to remember where I was, who I was with. Not an unfamiliar sensation these days. The first time it happened I’d panicked, thinking I’d blacked out, had something slipped in my drink. But no, I’d freely chosen to be there, in a strange bed.
Not that Doug was a stranger anymore—half a dozen dates, three nights together. In this brave new world of dating—where I had to google half the abbreviations, ENM, GGG—I think that counted as married. So far, it had been a steep learning curve. But I was figuring it out. And I knew that I liked Doug. That this could be the beginning of something.
I listened to him breathing deeply in bed beside me. This was the first time I’d stayed until morning. In fact, it was the first time since my separation four months ago that I’d shared the intimacy of a full night’s sleep with any man. And that felt weightier than sex. And so here I was, at long last watching the sun rise with someone other than Aidan next to me. I waited for the guilt to set in. But instead I was overwhelmed with relief at having made it this far.
Doug and I had met at a firm outing, both on the clubhouse porch avoiding the golf course and reading the same book:Thinking Fast and Slow,which made him appear thoughtful but, I’dworried, might make me appear cold and unemotional—one of Aidan’s routine complaints. But Doug had seemed only charmed by the coincidence. In fact, he seemed charmed by everything about me.
