My brain was in that numbed, feverish state where you sleep as though you are drugged—heavily but without getting any rest. The tragedy of Louisa’s life kept playing itself out in my dreams, with Gabriella scolding me harshly in Italian for not having taken better care of our neighbor.
I woke for good at five and paced restlessly around Lotty’s kitchen, wishing I had the dog with me, wishing I could get some exercise, wishing I could think of a way to force Gustav Humboldt to listen to me. Lotty joined me in the kitchen a little before six. Her drawn face told the tale of her own sleepless night. She put a strong hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently, then went wordlessly to make coffee.
After Lotty had taken off for her early morning rounds at Beth Israel, I headed south once more to see Louisa. She was glad to see me, as always, but seemed tireder than the previous times I’d been there. I questioned her as gently and subtly as I knew how about the onset of her illness, when she’d first started feeling bad.
“You know those blood tests they used to take—old Chigwell the Chigger?”
She gave a scratchy laugh. “Oh my, yes. I saw where the old chigger tried to kill himself It was on all the TV stations last week. He always was a weak little man, scared of his own shadow. Didn’t surprise me he wasn’t married. No woman wants a little shrimp like that who can’t stand up for himself.”
“What did he tell you when he took your blood?”
“One of our benefits, they called it, getting a physical every year like that with the blood work and everything. Not the kind of thing I would of thought of doing. Didn’t know people went in for that sort of thing. But it was okay with the head of the union and the rest of us didn’t care. Got us off the floor with pay one morning every year, you know.”
“They never gave you any results? Or sent them to a doctor for you?”
“Go on, girl.” Louisa flapped her hand and coughed loudly. “If they’d a gave us results, we wouldn’t of known what they meant anyway. Dr. Chigwell showed me my chart once and I’m telling you, it was like Arab scrawl as far as I was concerned—you know those wiggly lines they put on their banners and all? That’s about what medical tests look like to me.”
I forced myself to laugh a little with her and sat talking awhile. She wore out quickly, though, and fell asleep in the middle of a sentence. I stayed with her while she slept, haunted by Gabriella’s accusations in my dreams.
What a life. Growing up in that soul-killing house, raped by her own uncle, poisoned by her employer, and dying slowly and painfully. Yet she wasn’t an unhappy person. When she’d moved next door she was frightened but not angry. She’d raised Caroline with joy and had taken pleasure in the freedom to lead her own life away from her parents. So maybe my pity was not only misplaced but condescending.
While I watched Louisa’s chest rise and fall with her stertorous breath, I wondered what I should tell Caroline about her father. Not telling her was a form of control, a seizing of power in her life I had no right to. But telling her seemed unreasonably cruel. Did she deserve so heavy a knowledge?
I was still chewing it over in my mind when she dashed in at noon to fix Louisa’s lunch, a light little meal with no salt and precious little food. Caroline was glad to see me but in a hurry, racing between meetings.
“Did you find the flyer? I left it by the coffeepot. I wish you’d tell me why you’re so excited about it—if it concerns Ma I have a right to know.”
“If I knew exactly how it concerned her, I’d tell you in a flash—I’m just picking my way through the forest right now.”
I found the flyer and studied it while she took Louisa’s lunch in to her. It left me more baffled than I’d been originally: all kinds of benefits Louisa got regularly were excluded. Outpatient care, dialysis, home oxygen. When Caroline came in I asked her who paid for all those things, wondering if she was somehow scraping the money together.
She shook her head. “Xerxes has been real good to Ma. They pay all these bills without asking. If you can’t tell me what’s going on with my own mother, I’m heading back to the office. And maybe I can find someone there who’ll tell me. Maybe I’ll hire my own investigator.” She stuck out her tongue at me.
“Try it, brat—all the PI’s in town have been informed that you’re a bad risk.”
She laughed and left. I stayed until Louisa had eaten her meager lunch and fallen asleep once more. Leaving the television on as white noise, I tiptoed out and returned the spare key to the ledge over the back porch.
I wished I understood the point of doing all that blood work years before anyone was interested in suing the company. Presumably it tied in with the insurance fiddle, but I couldn’t see the exact connection. I didn’t know anyone at Xerxes who might talk to me. Ms. Chigwell might, but her connection had been tenuous and not exactly sympathetic. She was all I had, though, so I made the long drive to Hinsdale.