He Sent Me the Green Dress, So I Took His Company novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: A Birthday Card

Joan says Gavin had her sign a card, and the card is a power of attorney; Odette walks in with flowers.

The night nurse met me at the locked door of Rosewood Gardens and looked relieved.

"She's been asking for you since nine," she said. "She won't take her pills. She keeps saying a man made her sign something."

"What man?"

"She says your husband."

I walked down the hall behind her with my bag still on my shoulder.

My mother sat up in bed with the lamp on and her cardigan buttoned wrong.

Joan Lowry was sixty-six, and for two years she had spent most of her days somewhere I couldn't follow.

Tonight her eyes were clear and angry.

"There you are," she said. "Close the door."

I closed it and sat on the edge of her bed.

"Mom, what happened?"

"Gavin came on Tuesday," she said. "He brought a cake and a card. He said it was my birthday."

"Your birthday is in June."

"I know when my birthday is, Matilda."

She had not called me that since I was twelve.

"He said I should sign the card," she said. "He held the pen. He said, right here, Joan, just your name, everyone's signing. I could see there was more writing on the page. I couldn't read it. The words kept sliding."

"Where's the card?"

"In the drawer. I hid it under my slips."

I crossed the room and opened the drawer.

Under a pile of folded slips was a pink greeting card with balloons on the front.

Inside it, tucked behind the verse, was a single stapled form.

I read the heading twice.

Durable Power of Attorney for Property and Health Care.

On the last page was my mother's signature, shaky and large.

Beneath it, in a different pen, a witness line had been signed by someone I didn't know.

The agent named on page one was Gavin Reyburn.

I sat down on the bed, because my legs wanted me to.

"What does it say?" my mother asked.

"It says Gavin gets to decide things for you."

"I thought so." She laid her hand over mine. It was thin and cold. "I don't like that boy, Tilda. I never did. I only said so once, at the wedding, and your father told me to hush."

"Mom, you told me you liked him."

"I told you what you wanted to hear. I wanted you happy."

I held the form in both hands.

My mother owned nine percent of Lowry Freight, left to her by my father.

With her share and his own eleven percent, Gavin would hold a fifth of the company's votes without needing me at all.

And with me declared unwell, he would hold mine too.

"Mom, I'm going to take this to a lawyer."

"Good."

"Will you tell a lawyer what you just told me?"

"If I remember." She frowned. "That's the trouble, isn't it. I might not remember."

"Then I'll record you now."

I took out my phone and held it between us.

She told it all again, calmly, in order: the cake, the pen, the page she couldn't read.

When she finished, she patted her hair.

"How was the anniversary?" she asked.

I almost laughed.

"He sent me a green dress," I said.

The hand on mine went still.

"A green dress," my mother said slowly.

"Mom, do you remember that day? When I was little?"

She turned her face away toward the window, and I saw her drift out of the room.

Her shoulders sagged, and she began to hum.

I sat with her until she fell asleep.

I slept in the visitor's chair with the form folded in my bag, and my coat over my knees.

The sky was gray when somebody knocked.

A pretty brown bun and a pair of bright eyes appeared around the door.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Odette whispered. "I didn't know you'd be here."

She carried an armful of white lilies wrapped in brown paper.

"I wanted to see Joan," she said, stepping in. "Gavin said she'd been upset. I thought flowers might help."

She set them on the dresser and straightened a corner of the blanket.

"Lilies are her favorite," she said. "She told me so last Christmas."

My mother had never told me that.

I looked at the lilies, and at Odette's careful hands, and at the small gap between her front teeth when she smiled.

"How did you get past the front desk at six in the morning?" I asked.

"I come on Thursdays." She said it gently, as if it were nothing. "Gavin asked me to keep her company."

I stood up and let the visitor's blanket fall.

"Every Thursday?" I said. "For how long?"

"Since June."

She was still smiling.

"Tilda, you look exhausted," Odette said. "Let me take you for coffee."

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