Out of Time: The Family That Lost Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Waiting Room

Mal sends her cousin out, and her mother storms into the clinic waiting room to call her a thief in front of the clients until Abram shows her the door; at the last moment she tells Mal her father's bypass is on the 14th.

"Last Friday?" Dad said.

His hand was still on my elbow.

"Seven hundred dollars. Same as every month, Dad. I can show you the app."

He looked at my phone and did not take it.

"Your mother says the mortgage is covered by my disability check."

"Your disability check is eleven hundred dollars."

He knew that.

I watched him know it.

The restaurant door banged open behind him.

"Russ!" Mom stood in the doorway with her purse over her arm. "Come inside. You'll catch cold, and you know what the doctor said."

Dad let go of my elbow.

"Go home, Mal," he said. "Please. Let me think. I'll call you."

He walked back to my mother, and she put her arm through his.

She did not look at me once.

I drove home with the radio off.

Shelby was sitting on the stairs outside my apartment with her duffel bag between her feet.

Her mascara had run.

"Mal, I swear it's not what it looks like."

"It looks like a chat where you promised to keep me home."

"Aunt Di asked me to." She wiped her face with her wrist. "She said you were working yourself sick, and somebody had to look out for you."

"Look out for me or report on me?"

Shelby said nothing.

"What did you tell her on Sundays?"

"What you ate. When you got home. Who you talked to." She started crying again. "It felt like I was helping."

"You've been in my home for four months."

"I know."

"You fed my cat."

"I love Biscuit!"

"Then you can visit him," I said. "On the sidewalk. Through the window."

I picked up her duffel and handed it to her.

She took it.

"Where do I go?"

"Your mother has a guest room."

I shut my door.

Through it I heard her say, very small, "I'm sorry," and then her steps went down.

I did not sleep.

At five I gave up and drove to the clinic, because the clinic was the one place nobody in my family had ever visited.

Abram was already there, unlocking the kennel room with a coffee in each hand.

He is six foot one and wears the same navy fleece every day.

He held one cup out to me without a word.

"You said no," he said.

"I said no."

"Okay." He nodded once. "Good."

That was all he said about it.

In five years he had never asked why I took every weekend shift.

I drank the coffee and went to prep surgery.

At nine the waiting room was full.

A man with a beagle, two women with cats, a kid with a hamster in a shoebox.

Then the front doors opened and my mother walked in.

She had her good coat on and her pearl earrings in.

She went straight to the front desk and spoke in a voice built to carry.

"I'm here for my daughter. Mallory VanCott."

The receptionist glanced at me through the surgery door.

I came out, still in my scrub cap.

"Mom. I'm at work."

"I know you are." She turned to the room, with a hand pressed flat on her chest. "That's my daughter. She's been taking money out of her disabled father's accounts for years, and last night she ran out on us at his own dinner."

The man with the beagle stared at his shoes.

One of the cat women stared at me.

"Honey, is that true?" she asked.

"No," I said. "It's the opposite."

"We have records," Mom said, and her voice broke in the right place.

My face went hot, and I could feel every phone in the room tilt toward me.

"Mom, I will read every transfer out loud right now. Seven hundred, the first of every month. For six years."

"Mallory, you're embarrassing yourself."

"Ma'am."

Abram had come out of the back.

He did not raise his voice.

"This is an animal hospital, and there are patients in this room. You can leave on your own, or the receptionist can call the police."

Mom turned to him with her eyes wet and her chin shaking.

"I'm her mother."

"I know. And she's my employee, and you're standing in my waiting room accusing her of a crime."

He opened the front door for her.

Mom did not move.

She looked at me, and the tears were gone.

Her voice dropped so low only I could hear it.

"Your father has a triple bypass on the 14th."

I stopped breathing.

"The hospital wants an $8,200 deposit by the 7th, and I don't have it, because you cut me off."

She smiled a little.

"So go ahead, Mallory. Be petty. Let him die."

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