Chapter 4: Visiting Hours

St. Anne's Hospice House had a garden, a fish pond and a hallway that smelled of lemon soap and boiled coffee.

My mother's room was the third on the left, with a window onto the pond.

When I came in at one o'clock she was propped on three pillows with her scarf slipping and a crossword on her knee.

"Well," Pris said.

"You made the news."

"Did I?"

"A nurse showed me on her phone."

"You looked very tall."

"I'm five-six."

"On a stage you were six feet."

She patted the bed, and I sat and put the cookie tin in her lap.

She ran a thumb along the lid.

"Did you say it?" she asked.

"Into the microphone."

"What did she do?"

"She called you a thief."

Pris nodded slowly.

"I suppose that's fair," she said.

"It isn't fair at all."

"No, baby, I took a child out of her arms."

"Fair is a fine word to use about me."

I opened my mouth to argue, and someone in the hallway said, "Aunt Pris?"

I knew the voice before I turned.

Annalise Kenworthy stood in the doorway in her camel coat, with a ring light clipped to a phone in her hand.

The two young men with phones hovered behind her.

"Ten minutes," she said to the nurse behind her, who looked doubtful and let it pass.

She came in and sat on the other side of the bed.

She picked up my mother's hand and held it.

"Aunt Pris, I'm so sorry about all this."

"Hello, Lissie," my mother said.

It was the nickname she'd had for her since the girl was a toddler.

Something flickered in Annalise's face and was gone.

"I need you to do me a favor," Annalise said.

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