“What happened?”
She hesitated, as if she didn’t want to speak of it, and I couldn’t blame her.
“Where are my manners? Would you like some coffee? Tea? A soft drink?”
“No thank you,” I said politely, though I wanted to snap, Get on with it. I patted her hand awkwardly. “Just tell me.”
“All right. Mom was in a home. I couldn’t keep her here anymore. She’d take off in the night. She was always looking for Dad. Didn’t remember he’d been dead for a decade.” Her lips trembled.
I made noises of commiseration. At least my dad had gone quickly. There was something to be said for a massive coronary.
“I’d gone to see her after work. I always did.”
“Was she any better, or worse, than usual?”
“That was the strange thing—she was better. The doctor thought she’d last a few more weeks. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Her going was really a blessing.”
I nodded. She was right.
“I sat with her longer than usual, but she got agitated. Said there was someone in the room.”
An icy finger seemed to trace my neck. “Who?”
“She was paranoid, a symptom of her disease. I didn’t think anything of it until she screamed and began to thrash, clawing at her throat like she was fighting for breath.”
“How strange.”
“The doctor had warned me. Some of them forget how to eat, how to swallow, and literally starve to death. Some forget to breathe and—” She lifted one shoulder. “Struggling for breath sent her heart into overdrive, and it just couldn’t handle the stress. She died of a heart attack.”
We seemed to be having a rash of those, too.
Barbara took several deep, slow breaths. “Her face when she died ... She was so afraid.”
“Not being able to breathe would scare the crap out of me.”
Barbara gave a wan smile. “I don’t like to believe that in her last moments she thought someone meant to hurt her. I’d hoped that when she went, she’d do so peacefully. I guess that was too much to ask.”
I didn’t think so. Unfortunately, no one had asked me.
“Was there anything else about the night that struck you as odd?”
She cast me another quick, suspicious glance. If I weren’t careful, people would be whispering that I had the sight. Too bad I didn’t, because it would make interrogations a whole lot easier.
“There was a scream,” she said. “It didn’t sound—” She dropped her gaze to her lap, where she began to pick imaginary bits of lint from the black material.
“It didn’t sound what, Barbara?”
“Human.”
Uh-oh.
“Screams probably sound a whole lot different than a person’s voice,” I managed, “and if your mom was scared—”
“Maybe. I was in the hall, and then there was this horrible, blood-curdling shriek. I thought someone was in there with her, even though I knew no one could be.”
“You didn’t see her scream?”
“I was talking to the nurse, and—” She made a vague motion with one hand. “We both froze for a second, then ran in. Mom was gasping, choking, struggling.”