James Grippando - Found money

“Amy, we’ve been over this so many times. Your mother was terminally ill with a very aggressive cancer. By the time she took her life, she had only weeks to live.”

“According to one doctor. Another gave her as long as three months.”

“Who told you that?”

“Marilyn. Years ago.”

“That’s not her place,” snapped Gram.

“Wrong. It’s not your place to keep things like that from me. The longer Mom had to live, the less likely it was she killed herself.”

“You’re grasping at straws.”

Her eyes blazed with anger. “Just because you’re convinced it was suicide doesn’t give you the right to hide the true facts from me.”

“I just didn’t want you to see your mother as a coward who left her little girl sooner than she had to. How can you fault me for that?”

“Because she’s my mother, that’s why. I have a right to know what happened.”

“And I had a responsibility. I didn’t want you to end up in counseling all your life. I was just looking out for you.”

“Well, damn it, just stop already. I’m twenty-eight years old. Stop treating me as if I were Taylor’s age!”

Tears welled in Gram’s eyes. “I’m sorry. It was a decision I made for your own good.”

“Let me make those decisions,” she shouted, rising from the bed.

“At least let me explain.”

Amy felt the urge to bolt, but the weary look in Gram’s eyes wouldn’t allow it. She sat back down on the edge of the bed.

“When your father was killed in Vietnam…” Her grandmother paused, struggling. “I had to know what happened to my son.”

Her voice was cracking. Amy touched her hand to console. Gram continued. “It wasn’t enough just to hear he’d been killed in action. I needed specifics. I asked everyone who knew him, other boys in his platoon. Most of them gave me vague answers. I wouldn’t stop until I found someone who would be completely honest with me. Finally, I found someone. To this day, I wish I never had. I thought it would give me closure to know exactly how it had happened.” She dabbed a tear, then looked her granddaughter in the eye. “There’s no closure in the details of violent death, Amy. Only nightmares.”

Amy leaned forward and embraced her. Gram squeezed back with all her strength, whispering in Amy’s ear, “You’re the child I lost, darling. I love you like my own.”

Amy shivered. It had surely come from the heart, but perhaps it was one of those self-evident sentiments that was awkward to articulate and best left unsaid. They hugged a little tighter, then Amy tried to pull away. But she couldn’t move.

Gram would not let go.

“Mommy?”

Amy broke away at the sound of Taylor’s voice. She was standing in the doorway, wearing Gram’s big pink apron. “What, sweetheart?”

“Are you coming to my tea party now?”

She smiled. “Mommy still has to shower.”

Gram grabbed her by the dangling apron strings.

“Come here, Taylor. Let me tie your apron before you trip and hurt yourself.”

It was too big to tie in the back, the way it was supposed to tie. She wrapped it around Taylor’s waist and tied it in the front. Taylor watched carefully, still at the age where something as simple as tying a knot was utterly intriguing.

“You tie funny,” said Taylor.

Amy said, “That’s because Gram is right-handed. You’re left-handed, like me. And like my mommy was.” She stopped for a second, as if struck by lightning.

Gram watched with concern. “Taylor, go check on Barbie. I’ll be there in a second.”

“Okay,” she said as she hurried from the room.

Gram asked, “Amy, what’s going on in that head of yours?”

“The knot.”

“What knot?”

“I was just thinking about the rope that was tied to my bedroom door — that kept me in the room the night Mom died. The theory is that Mom tied me in my room so I wouldn’t find the body after she killed herself.”

“Right.”

“If she tied the knot, then it would have been tied the way a left-handed person tied it.”

“Nobody ever said it wasn’t.”

“But did anyone ever say it was?”

Gram just sat there, silent.

“I didn’t think so.” Amy looked off to the middle distance, deep in thought. Finally, she glanced back at her grandmother. “I have to go back there.”

“Back where?”

“Our old house.”

“That’s crazy. You don’t even know who lives there now.”

“I have to try. Don’t you see? I’m not saying I’m going to go back and remember which way a little knot was tied. But this just drives home the point that I’m missing the details. If I could just remember more about that night, maybe that would resolve the questions I have. Going back there is the only way I can think of to jar my memory.”

“Amy, accept what I’m telling you. Your mother made a quick escape from a long and painful illness.”

“Lots of people get cancer and don’t kill themselves.”

“That may be. But doesn’t what I just told about your father mean anything?”

“Yes,” she said sincerely. “It means we’re all different. Some of us are better off not knowing. Some of us would rather die than carry on without knowing. You’ve known me all my life. Deep in your heart, which kind of person do you really think I am?”

Gram showed no encouragement, but the fight had drained from her eyes. “All right. But I’m going with you.”

Marilyn lacked focus. That was the consensus opinion of her prep session experts. They offered numerous explanations for her subpar performance. She was too serious. She was too flip. She was overprepared. She was underprepared. All of them were off the mark.

Way off the mark.

It was only midafternoon, and already Marilyn had been at it for a full eight hours. A fresh group of interrogators had replaced the morning team at lunchtime. The procedure had remained the same, however, and it was getting tedious. Each member of the mock Senate Judiciary Committee would ask a question. Marilyn would answer. The experts would critique. It was enough to fry a woman with a clear head. It was unbearable for someone as preoccupied as Marilyn.

“Let’s take a break,” said Marilyn.

“Second,” shouted one of the mock committee members. The chairman banged his coffee cup like a gavel, and the others eagerly shifted out of role. Some stood up and stretched, while the others drifted toward the leftover sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies at the lunch buffet table. Marilyn headed in the other direction.

“You’re doing great, Marilyn,” said her consultant.

Marilyn forced a smile. She knew she was lying. “Thanks. If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to lie down for about a half hour. Clear my head.”

“Excellent idea. We won’t go much longer today. I promise.”

“Good,” she said, then headed back to her bedroom.

The walk down the hall was her first real opportunity to think. The effect was immediate. Her headache was back before she even reached the bedroom door.

She stepped inside the master and closed the door. This time she locked it.

The bedroom was her sacred sanctuary, a place for retreat. More than any other place, it reflected her own tastes and preferences. Here, she didn’t need the power look of her corner office. She didn’t even feel the decorating constraints that governed the rest of the house, where furniture was arranged to accommodate party flow and rugs were selected on the basis of whether they were resistant to red wine and shrimp sauce. This was her space, and hers alone. There had been men, of course, some of whom she wished she had never invited. But that was the point. Pleasant or not, they had been invited. This morning’s fax was altogether different. In this room, nothing could have been more intrusive.