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Chapter Eleven
Mark stands in the doorwayto his grandmother’s bedroom, watching her sleep. It’s after ten in the morning, and this is the first time he’s been up before her. For a few seconds, he worries that she may have died in her sleep, and then where would he be? Because then for sure his father would put the house up for sale, and he’d be out on his ear. Unless of course Julia left him the house in her will, in which case they’d probably suspect he had something to do with her death.
Either way, he’d be screwed.
So he hopes she won’t go and die on him. Not yet anyway. Not till he has everything figured out.
He feels a jolt of shame, like an electrical charge. What’s the matter with him? His grandmother loves him unconditionally. She’s been the one constant in his life. Probably his only friend in the world. And he loves her. He would be devastated if anything happened to her.
“Mark?”
The disembodied voice catches him off guard and he jumps.
“What are you doing there?”
“Nana! You scared me.”
Julia Fisher sits up in bed, the white bedsheets falling to her waist, revealing the wrinkled skin above the scooped neck of her pink nightgown and a vague outline of the pendulous breasts beneath. “Is everything okay?”
“I was worried about you,” he says, entering the room and perching at the foot of her queen-size bed. “You don’t usually sleep this late.”
Julia glances toward the clock beside the bed. “My goodness. Is it really after ten o’clock?”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I took a sleeping pill around two,” she says without really answering the question. “Probably not a great idea.”
“It seems like you take a lot of pills, Nana,” Mark says. “How many do you take, exactly?”
“Well, let’s see.” Julia raises both hands into the air, counting down the number of pills on misshapen fingers. “There’s one for my cholesterol, one for my blood pressure, one for my thyroid, several for my arthritis, one for my bones, half a dozen vitamins, and the occasional Tylenol and sleeping pill as required.” She shrugs. “Ah, the joys of aging. It’s true what they say, you know—getting old is not for sissies.”
“You’re no sissy, that’s for sure.”
“Thank you, sweetie. Is that coffee I smell?”
Mark smiles. “It is. And I was thinking of trying out this recipe I saw on TV for lemon-ricotta pancakes. How does that sound to you?”
“Sounds like heaven. Let me shower and get dressed, and I’ll see you downstairs in about fifteen minutes.”
Mark moves quickly to her side. “Can I help you?”
“Not on your life,” Julia warns. “I’m still quite capable of getting out of bed on my own. Go on now, scoot. Get busy on those pancakes.”
Mark leaves his grandmother’s side and steps into the hall, where he stands, waiting, until he hears the door to her bathroom close and the shower start. But instead of going downstairs, he returns to the bedroom and tiptoes to the dresser opposite the bed. Glancing repeatedly over his shoulder, he begins rifling through the bureau’s three drawers, hoping to find anything of value, something he can pawn that won’t be missed. He’s already spent most of the money he stole from Poppy’s purse. Luckily, math isn’t Poppy’s strongest suit or she might have noticed earlier that the forty dollars he recently pilfered was the least of what he’s taken over the last six months. But now that bank has closed and he needs money to pay his dealer. What’s that old saying—“A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine”? More like a day without weed.
And his supply is running perilously low.
Too bad opioids aren’t part of Julia’s daily regimen. Painkillers like Percodan or Oxy would be worth a lot on the black market, whereas he doubts he’d get a whole lot for thyroid medication and pills to lower cholesterol. Still, the sleeping pills might be worth something and something’s better than nothing. He should be able to sneak a few out of their bottle without his grandmother being any the wiser. She’s probably better off without them anyway.
Except she doesn’t keep the pills in her dresser, he discovers, finding nothing but clothing in the top two drawers. “But what have we here?” he mutters, his hand hitting something hard beneath a tangle of undergarments. He pushes the bras and panties aside to reveal a cardboard shoebox.
Inside it, he finds a stack of papers and documents, including his grandfather’s death certificate, his driver’s license, and Social Security number. He might be able to get something for these. From what he understands, identity theft is a big business these days. Except then someone using his grandfather’s identity might just steal the house right out from under him. So, that’s not a viable option, Mark decides, returning the papers to the box and closing its lid.
“But what’s this?” he whispers, opening the bottom drawer to find another box, this one larger and made of leather. He lowers himself to the well-worn carpet, balancing on the balls of his feet, and opens it, then falls back in horror as the stirring chorus of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” fills the room. “Shit!” he says, snapping the box shut, silencing it. A goddamn music box! “Fuck!”
His eyes shoot toward the bathroom. The shower is still running, so there’s little chance Julia would have heard the unexpected outburst. “Goddamn it!” He needs to be more careful. If Julia catches him going through her things, he’ll lose the last ally he has.
Still, he saw something in that split second between opening the box and slamming it shut. What?
