In Sickness and in Lies novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: Not My Patient

Gwyneth's POV

The car from the storage lot had pulled out before Bruce reached it.

All he got was the first three characters of a plate, and he wrote them on his hand.

I knew whose camera it was.

I did not yet know what Desmond would do with the pictures.

Tuesday morning the transport van backed up to the hospital doors with its ramp down.

My mother sat in a wheelchair with a blanket over her knees and her good hand gripping the armrest.

I had her purse, her slippers and a folded page in my coat pocket.

"Mom," I said, crouching in front of her. "I went to the storage unit."

Her eyes came up fast.

"I found Dad's box. The one marked for me."

She breathed in, and her mouth worked on a word.

I took out the letter and held it where her left hand could reach.

She read it with her lips moving.

When she got to the last line, tears ran down the good side of her face and the slack side both.

"Sor," she said. "Sorry."

"Mom."

"Des." Her tongue fought the word. "Said... loan. Pay back."

"You believed him."

"Walter. Gone. I... signed."

"I know."

"Sorry." She gripped my wrist. "Sor-ry."

"You're not the one who has to be sorry."

I kissed her forehead.

The rehab nurse came to say the van was ready.

Bruce came down the hall behind her in his white coat, with my mother's chart under his arm.

He stopped at the wheelchair, and he spoke loudly enough for the nurse, the orderly and the man holding the door to hear him.

"Mrs. Snyder, as of nine o'clock this morning I'm no longer your doctor. The rehab team has you."

My mother looked at him.

Then she looked at me.

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