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I stared at my mother in shock.
“Augustus!” she cried out, and reached out to me with her thin arms. “Augustus, where have you been?”
I knelt down beside her and took her hands in mine. “Mother, it’s me… it’s Connor.”
She was shaking now. Tears were rolling down her cheeks from behind her sunglasses. “Augustus, I’ve been waiting for you… why did you leave me?”
“Mother, I’m not Dad – it’s Connor.”
She looked at me in confusion, then pulled back in fear, like she had just realized I wasn’t who she thought I was.
“Who are you?” she wailed. “What have you done with my husband?”
I looked up at Johnny, who stared back at me helplessly.
I had no idea what to do, so I tried repeating it once more: “Mother – I’m Connor… your son.”
“I don’t…” She looked around in distress, as though searching a crowded room for someone, even though we were by the edge of the pond and there was no one else around. “Augustus! Augustus, where are you? Where are you?!”
The woman in black pushed me aside. She grabbed my mother’s arm and pushed the sleeve of her robe up past her elbow, exposing an IV taped to her forearm.
“Mrs. Templeton, it’s time for your medicine,” the woman in black said, her voice calm and soothing.
“No – I want my husband! Where is my husband?”
A small plastic tube appeared like magic in the woman in black’s hand. She popped off the light-blue cap, but there was no needle, just a blunt plastic nub. She held up the syringe, flicked it for air bubbles, and squeezed out fluid in a foot-long liquid arc. Then she inserted the plastic nub in the IV and slowly depressed the plunger. “There we go… everything’s fine…”
“No it’s not! Augustus? Augustus, where are you?”
“He’s not here right now, Mrs. Templeton… but everything’s fine… just relax…”
My mother stopped looking around, and her frantic cries gradually subsided in intensity. “Where is my husband? Where… where is he? …Augustus…?”
Then she settled back in her reclining chair, muttering “Augustus… Augustus…” over and over again, quieter and quieter, until she became silent.
The woman in the black dress stood up and pocketed the used syringe.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Dr. Houston.”
“How long has she been like this?” I croaked, my mouth dry, my nerves jittery.
“Since you were arrested at the funeral.”
“I didn’t kill my father,” I said.
She just stared at me accusingly.
“The DA dropped the charges,” I insisted.
“Congratulations,” she said coldly.
“I didn’t kill him,” I snapped.
“Regardless, your mother didn’t know that when she collapsed.”
