Chapter 1 - The Thirty-First Call
At 2:17 on a wet Thursday morning, Nora Ellis found her mother-in-law sitting alone beneath the emergency department’s blue-white lights, one hand pressed to her chest and the other gripping a plastic bag filled with her own medication bottles.
“Where is Adrian?” Nora asked.
June Mercer looked toward the automatic doors. “He said he was coming.”
The lie was gentle, almost protective. June had spent thirty years making excuses for her son in that same careful tone. He was delayed. He was overwhelmed. He had misunderstood. He had never meant it.
Nora crouched beside the wheelchair. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to learn the television weather map by heart.” June’s mouth twitched. “They’re saying rain.”
Nora glanced at the triage wristband. June had checked in nearly three hours earlier. Her skin was gray beneath its freckles, and the pulse at her throat fluttered like a trapped moth.
“Did Adrian bring you?”
“He drove me.”
“And then?”
June’s eyes shifted. “He received a call.”
Nora stood and pulled out her phone. Adrian had told her he was flying to Phoenix for a client emergency. He had kissed her in the kitchen at six that morning, promised to call from the airport, and left his coffee cooling beside the sink. Since then, every call had gone to voicemail.
She called again. Voicemail.
“That’s number thirty,” June said.
“I know.” Nora tried to keep her voice steady. “He’ll answer the next one.”
The next call rang until it stopped. Nora stared at the screen. A nurse hurried past with a crash cart. Somewhere behind the curtain, a child began to cry.
She called again.
This time, someone answered.
“What?” a woman said.
Nora’s breath caught. Wind rushed across the connection, followed by music and the bright, careless clink of ice in a glass.
“Who is this?” Nora asked.
“You tell me. You’ve called thirty-one times.”
“Where’s Adrian?”
The woman laughed. It was a soft, amused sound, the kind Nora had heard at charity dinners when strangers admired Adrian’s jokes.
“He’s in the shower. Or on the beach. I stopped keeping track.”
Nora looked at June. The old woman had gone very still.
“Put him on the phone.”
“You really don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“That your marriage is over.”
The music grew louder. A man’s voice called something indistinct in the background. The woman lowered her voice, suddenly intimate. “He says you’re difficult when you’re frightened. Is that why you’re calling so much?”
Nora felt the floor tilt beneath her. “Who are you?”
“Sloane. Sloane Avery.”
June made a small sound.
Sloane heard it. “Oh. Is that his mother?”
Nora said nothing.
“Tell her he sends his love,” Sloane said. “Actually, don’t. He didn’t mention she was sick. He said she was dramatic.”
June’s fingers closed around Nora’s wrist with startling strength.
“You’re in Maui,” Nora whispered.
“We are.”
“He told me he was in Phoenix.”
“Then he’s very committed to the story.”
Nora’s vision narrowed. On the other side of the curtain, a monitor began to beep faster.
“Put Adrian on.”
“He doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Put him on.”
Sloane sighed. “You sound exactly like he said you would.”
June tugged Nora’s sleeve. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. She was staring at the phone as though she could see through it to the ocean, the hotel balcony, the man who had left her in a wheelchair.
“What did he say about me?” Nora asked.
“That you’d cling to the house. That you’d make a scene. That you’d pretend to be the victim.”
The nurse appeared beside them. “Ma’am, we need to get her back.”
Nora rose. “My husband left his mother here alone.”
“Then we’ll take care of her.”
“He needs to know she’s having trouble breathing.”
“He knows,” June said.
The words were barely audible. Nora turned toward her.
June lifted the phone, found the red button, and pressed it. The call ended.
For several seconds, neither woman moved.
Then June reached beneath the collar of her blouse and drew out a thin silver chain. A tiny key hung from it, no larger than Nora’s thumbnail.
She placed it in Nora’s palm and closed Nora’s fingers around it.
“June, what is this?”
June’s breathing became ragged. Her eyes filled, but she did not look away. She pointed toward the doors, toward the storm-dark night, toward the son who had abandoned her.
Then she dragged one trembling finger across her throat.
Nora stared at the gesture.
“You want me to ruin him?”
June squeezed her hand once.
The monitor screamed. Nurses rushed in. Nora slipped the key into her pocket as June’s body arched beneath the fluorescent lights.
While they wheeled June through the double doors, Nora stood alone with Adrian’s lies ringing in her ear and the small piece of silver burning against her thigh.
May you like
For twelve years, she had believed the worst thing Adrian could do was leave her.
She was wrong.
