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“What?”
“Andrew.”
“What about him?”
“Mom wanted to see him, to apologize. I brought him here this morning so she could talk to him. He was coy about it with me, saying he couldn’t accept an apology when we didn’t really know what was happening. But he let her do it. I talked to her after. She apologized and he accepted it, the smug bastard.”
“Izzy—”
“No, no, something’s not right here. I eased up on him. I eased up on him too soon.”
“Christ, Izzy, let it go.”
“I’m going back in,” Isabel said, and with that pushed open the door and returned to Elizabeth’s bedside. Albert followed.
As they stood watch over her, Isabel said, “I don’t think she’s breathing.”
Albert leaned over, put his ear to within an inch of his mother’s mouth. “I don’t hear anything. Not feeling anything.”
“Mom?” Isabel said, her voice starting to crack.
Albert glanced at the monitor that hovered over the bedside table, hunted for the line that kept track of heartbeat.
It was flat.
“Mom?” Isabel said again, putting her face close to hers. “Can you hear me?”
Not so much as an eyelid fluttered.
The door opened and Dierdre and Norman stepped in. They read the room quickly, seeing how distressed their respective spouses looked.
“Oh, Mother,” Albert said.
As he laid his head on her chest and began to weep, Diedre stepped forward and looked ready to place a hand on his shoulder, but held back.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Norman didn’t move. He watched from afar as his wife began to sob, and appeared to sigh with relief.
Thirty-Five
Andrew
Seeing Natalie Simmons in the passenger seat put me into a momentary stupor, but the blast of a car horn woke me from it.
I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw another driver waiting to pull up to the self-serve pump I’d finished using a moment earlier. I keyed the ignition and drove out from under the canopy that hung over the pumps, then brought the car to a stop at the edge of the lot.
“Where’s your car?” I asked.
Natalie pointed to a low-slung Porsche Boxster pulled into a spot out front of the gas station.
“Just whipped in to buy some smokes,” she said. “Keep trying to quit, but hey, we’re all addicted to something and sometimes there’s no point fighting it.”
“Nice ride,” I said, giving a nod toward the car.
“I own the gallery now,” she said, and grinned. “Movin’ up in the world.”
“Congrats.”
