“A week? Why are we just now learning about this?”
A noise erupts from the hallway that diverts our collective attention; it’s Daniel, his body slamming into the doorframe. I see a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead, and he wipes it with the back of his hand.
“What is he doing here?” Cooper starts to stand, but I put my hand on his leg.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Not now.”
“We are typically equipped to handle these types of situations; as you can imagine, it’s fairly common in older patients,” the doctor continues, his eyes darting between Daniel and us. “But if it continues on for any longer, we’re going to need to transfer her to Baton Rouge General.”
“Do we know what the underlying cause is?”
“Physically, she’s in fine health. There is no illness we can identify that could be causing an aversion to food. So, in short, we don’t know—and in all the years that she’s been in our care, we’ve never once had this issue with her.”
I look back down at her, at the sagging skin on her neck, her collarbones popping out like two drumsticks.
“It’s almost as if she just woke up one morning and decided it was time.”
I glance at Cooper, looking for answers. My entire life, I have always found what I’ve been searching for somewhere in his expression. In the imperceptible twitch of his lip as he tried to stifle a smile, the way his cheek dimpled slightly when he chewed on the inside of his mouth in thought. There has only been one time I can remember when my gaze was met with nothing but a blank stare; just one time when I had turned to Cooper and realized, with sinking dread, that even he couldn’t help—that nobody could help. It was in our living room, our legs pretzeled on the floor. Our eyes illuminated from the glow of the TV screen, listening to our father talk about his darkness, ankle chains rattling, the drip of a rogue tear staining his legal pad.
But now I see it again. Cooper’s eyes, not meeting mine, but staring straight ahead. Boring into Daniel’s, both their bodies stiff as boards.
“Your mother is uncommunicative, of course,” Doctor Glenn continues, oblivious to the tension in the room. “But we were hoping, maybe by coming here, you could try to get through.”
“Yes, of course,” I say, peeling my eyes from Cooper and looking back down to my mom. I grab her hand, hold it in mine. She’s still, at first, until I feel a gentle tapping, her fingers moving slowly against the thin skin of my wrist. I look down at the tiny flicker of movement. Her eyes are still closed, but her fingers—they’re moving.
I look back at Cooper, at Daniel, at Doctor Glenn. None of them seem to notice.
“Can I have a moment alone with her?” I ask, my heartbeat rising into my neck. My palms start to feel slick with sweat, but I refuse to let go of her hand. “Please?”
Doctor Glenn nods, walking silently past her bed and out the door.
“You, too,” I say, looking first at Daniel and then at Cooper. “Both of you.”
“Chloe,” Cooper starts, but I shake my head.
“Please. Just a couple minutes. I’d like to, you know … just in case.”
“Sure.” He nods gently, placing his hand on top of mine and squeezing. “Whatever you need.”
Then he stands up, pushes past Daniel, and walks into the hallway without another word.
I’m alone with my mother now, and memories of our last meeting start rushing through my mind. The way I had told her about the missing girls, the similarities of it all. The déjà vu. And if Doctor Glenn’s time line is correct, that would have been around the time she had stopped eating.
I don’t know what I’m so worried about, I had said. Dad’s in prison. It’s not like he can be involved or anything.
The tapping of her fingers, frantic, before I had rushed out of the room, our visit cut short. I’ve never told Cooper or Daniel or anyone else about the way I believe my mother can communicate—the gentle movement of her fingers, a tap means Yes, I hear you—because, quite honestly, I wasn’t even sure if I believed it myself. But now, I wonder.
“Mom,” I whisper, somehow feeling both ridiculous and terrified. “Can you hear me?”
Tap.
I look down at her fingers. They moved again—I know they did.
“Does this have something to do with what we talked about the last time I was here?”
Tap, tap.
I exhale, my eyes darting from her palm to the hallway, the door still open.
“Do you know something about these murdered girls?”
Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap.
I pull my eyes away from the hallway and back toward my hand, at my mother’s fingers twitching frantically across my palm. This cannot be a coincidence; it has to mean something. Then I pull my gaze higher, toward my mother’s face, and immediately, my body flies backward, a jolt of adrenaline and fear that causes me to rip my hand away from her palm and cover my mouth in disbelief.
Her eyes are open, and she is staring straight at me.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Daniel and I are in the car again, silent other than the gentle pounding of the wind as it rips through our open windows, giving me a much-needed breath of fresh air. I can’t stop thinking about my mother, about the conversation that just took place in her room.
“Do you think you could spell it?” I had stuttered, staring into her wide, watery eyes. Tears were stuck to her eyelashes like beads of dew on grass, quivering. I looked down at her fingers, convulsing against mine. “Give me one second.”
I walked back into the hallway, poking my head into the waiting room. Daniel and Cooper were sitting with a few chairs between them, silent and stiff, their backs facing my direction. Then I shuffled across the hall, toward the living area, riffling through the table filled with old books that smelled like mothballs, pages stained brown. I grabbed a random assortment of DVDs, the donated rejects that nobody wanted to watch, and pushed them aside until I reached the board games. Then I hurried back to my mother’s room, pulling a small, velvet bag from my pocket. Scrabble tiles.
“Okay,” I said, feeling self-conscious as I dumped them onto her comforter and started flipping them over, one by one, until we had a full alphabet, each letter facing up. I couldn’t imagine this possibly working, but I had to try. “I’m going to point to a letter. We’ll start simple: Y means yes, N means no. Tap when I hit the one you want.”
I looked down at the rows of letters on her bed, the prospect of having an actual conversation with my mother for the first time in twenty years both exhilarating and mind-numbing. I took a deep breath, and then I started to talk.
“Do you understand how this is going to work?”
I pointed to the N—nothing. Then I pointed to the Y.
Tap.
I exhaled, my heart beating faster. All these years, my mother knew. She understood. She was hearing me talk. I just never took the time to let her talk back.
“Do you know something about these murdered girls?”
N—nothing. Y—tap.
“Are these murders somehow related to Breaux Bridge?”
N—nothing. Y—tap.
I stopped, thinking hard about my next question. I knew we didn’t have a lot of time; soon, Cooper or Daniel or Doctor Glenn would walk back in, and I didn’t want them to catch me like this. I looked back down at the tiles, then I asked my final question.
“How do I prove it?”
I had started with the A, my finger pointing to the tile in the top left corner—nothing. I moved on to B, then C. Finally, when I pointed at D, her fingers moved.
“D?”
Tap.
“Okay, first letter, D.”
Then I started back at the beginning—A.
Tap.
My heart lurched in my chest.
“D-A?”
Tap.
She was spelling Daniel. I blew the air through my pursed lips, slowly, trying to stay calm. I lifted my fingers and pointed to the N, my eyes drilling into her fingers … until a noise from the hallway jolted me into action.
“Chloe?” I could hear Cooper getting closer, feet from the open door. “Chloe, you doing okay?”