20. Oliver
Oliver
I’m later than I intended when I get to my mother’s house on Saturday afternoon. She’d offered to make me lunch, and I’d planned to go over to see her at midday, but work had gotten in the way.
The Reynolds case is so complex and constantly shifting.
Carmen’s husband has also hired Ingram Bennet as his lawyer.
We’ve sparred against each other before.
She’s ruthless and will try to get Richard Reynolds every penny she can.
I can’t afford to rest on my laurels on this one, and I had to spend most of the day delegating work to other members of my team.
I’m frustrated, not only that Tom Burton pushed this huge and irritatingly complicated case on me, but that Warren Sutcliffe was spared from having to do any work. Again. It’s as if having a family means he doesn't have to bring in revenue for the firm.
If I’m honest with myself, things have felt like this ever since I joined AGS. I’ve always been the ‘quiet one,’ the odd man out, receiving perplexed or fearful looks whenever I enter a room.
My intimidating image has served me well, and I have never wanted to become one of the simpering ass lickers who follow Burton around like a flock of idiotic ‘yes men’.
But I also want to become an EP.
There’s a line to be drawn between making connections with the right people and staying in my fortress of solitude. Sometimes you have to play the game to get what you want.
That goes for other things in my life as well, and I clench my jaw as I think about my time with Lissa the day before. There’s a line there, too. A far more frightening one that I haven’t crossed in a long time.
The thing that scares me the most is that I wanted her to touch me. My initial flinch reaction was instinctive and automatic, but afterward I found myself regretting it.
A little whining sound brings me back to the present as I pull the Chiron up to my mother’s house and look over at Truman pawing at the window.
The car is hopelessly impractical for a dog, and my mother has repeatedly admonished me for keeping him in the front seat, but the alternative is buying a larger car with a cage in the back, and I can’t bring myself to do it.
He pants at me, his big eyes excited, knowing exactly where he is and that he’s about to see his Grandma and get spoiled rotten. The cats don’t even seem to mind him since he’s an Italian Greyhound and not that much bigger than them. They just give him a warning look and move along.
I look out of the windshield at the soft leaves falling from the park, watching a young woman with long blonde hair cross at a jog as a light pattering of rain begins.
“Now look what you did,” I say to Truman. “You made it start raining so we have to stay longer with Grandma, didn’t you?”
He gives his little whisper bark that I love so much, and I chuckle as I get out of the car, going around to the other side and grabbing his leash.
He leaps out with a clatter of claws, his long legs bouncing effortlessly against the sidewalk. He has left scratch marks on the leather and a quantity of short gray hair across the seat.
The guy who cleans my cars is appalled that I let the dog inside them, and every time he comes by to clean one, he tuts under his breath and says something in Russian that I can’t understand.
I walk across the street, pulling the key from my pocket and opening the door. As soon as I do, however, Truman barks, a low, menacing sound that I’ve never heard before, and panic skips through my chest as he hurtles through the house at breakneck speed.
“Mom?” I shout loudly, stepping inside and shutting the door behind me as the cats swarm around my feet.
“Oliver?”
Her voice sounds strained, and before I know it, I’m running to find her, following Truman’s barking.
When I reach the living room, my heart in my throat, I find my mother lying on the floor, her walker several feet away from her, and blood on her head.
“Jesus, Mom!” I shout, memories storming my mind as I lurch toward her.
I found her like this so many times when I was young. My father never held back when he beat her, and every time I would walk into a room and wonder if I would find my mother’s dead body.
I fall to my knees beside her. “Can you get up? Are you alright?”
“Oh, Oliver, I’m such an idiot,” she says. She’s cold to the touch, and I drag a thick blanket from the back of one of the chairs and throw it over her.
“Don’t move,” I say urgently. “What happened?”
“Oh, I was walking to the stairs, I just needed a glass of water, and I tripped. The walker went flying, and I couldn’t get up. It’s my back.”
I swallow, throat tight with alarm as I glance around the room.
“Where’s Natalia?”
“She has the day off,” she says, and then her hand takes mine, squeezing gently. “It’s alright, Ollie, I’m okay.” It’s the same tone of voice she used when I was little. I knew back then she wasn’t okay just as surely as I know now.
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No, no, I don’t want a fuss.”
“Don’t argue, I’m calling them. You need medical attention. What happened to your head?”
“My head?”
“It’s bleeding.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I might have hit the chair on my way down.”
“Did you pass out?” I ask, my palms sweating as I dial 911.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s okay, Mom. We’ll get you looked at, it’s okay.” I say, but my voice is shaking, and I feel as if I’m fourteen again, the thud of my father’s footsteps stomping away from the damage he created as I creep into their bedroom and try to shake my mother awake.
Truman is sniffing around her gently, and as the phone starts to ring, he lies beside my mother, nuzzling at her neck, her wrinkled hand coming up to smooth over his glossy coat.
I sit beside her, holding her hand, and wait for the ambulance to arrive as anxiety spirals through me, consuming every cell in my body.
“Well, your mother had a bit of a tumble,” the doctor says as we sit in the hospital room.
The doctor standing in front of me can’t be much older than twenty and looks bored to tears. He keeps talking over my mother as if she isn’t there, and I’m biting my tongue, seconds away from demanding to see someone else.
“Is she alright?” I bite out.
“Oh, yes, I imagine so,” he says with a little inappropriate chuckle. “Quite the day you’ve had, Mrs. Heath.”
My mother says nothing. She’s dismissed him as quickly as I have, but the doctor doesn’t seem to be able to read the room.
“Could I have a quick word with you, Mr. Heath?” he says to me, pushing his glasses up his nose with one stubby finger.
I nod, squeezing my mother’s hand briefly, before heading out of the room with him and coming to stand in front of a huge painting in the hallway of what looks like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Interesting choice for a hospital.
“Has your mother been having any trouble remembering what pills to take?” he asks.
“Not as far as I know. Why?”
“Well, it looks as if she’s fairly confused. Has she ever had a fall like this before? We may need to consider getting her an emergency bracelet, so that she can ring an alarm in case it happens again.”
“She has a walker, but she tripped.”
“Mm, and you haven’t seen a decline in her cognition or decision-making skills at all?”
“She’s not senile,” I grit out.
“No, of course, but her lab work suggests she may not be taking her medications as prescribed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it looks like her evening medication has been taken already, which might have caused a dizzy spell, which is why she fell. Does she often get confused with her pills?”
“No,” I say. “She’s totally with it.”
“I see. Well, I’ll be back shortly with more details, but I think it would be best if we keep her in overnight, or even for a day or two. Her blood pressure is higher than we’d like it to be, and she may benefit from being monitored to see if there are any underlying causes.”
My heart skips as he glances back at my mother with a look of pity that sets my teeth on edge.
“I see, thank you, doctor,” I manage, as he turns away. Even his walk is irritating, with a little skip in it like he’s having the best day of his life.
I go back to her room, where she smiles at me. She looks exhausted. In the ambulance, she confessed that she was on the floor for four hours before I arrived. I’ve never felt so guilty in my life. I should have been there much earlier.
“Is Natalia still moving your pills around, Mom?” I say as I sit down. “They think you took the wrong ones this morning, and that might have caused you to lose your balance.”
She places her hand on her forehead. “Oh. Goodness. I’m causing such a fuss.”
My fingers clench. She always used to say that on the rare occasion she ended up in the hospital when I was little. She would sit in the ER covered in blood, making all kinds of excuses for my father.
“You’re not causing a fuss, Mom. You’re here because you need them to take care of you. It’s alright. You should just focus on getting better.”
Her hand comes up to my chin, touching me gently. This contact is rare. We aren’t all that affectionate with one another. But I like the feel of her skin against mine.
“I’m going to get better, Ollie. I just had a silly tumble.”
I nod, unable to speak, and pull out my phone. “I need to make some calls, okay? You try to get some rest. Is there anything you need?”
“Just some water.”
I pour her a glass and help her take a drink.
We get the bed at a good angle for her, and I stroke her cheek for a moment before I leave the room.
I don’t want to fire Natalia; she’s fantastic with my mother and has cared for her brilliantly since I hired her, but this thing with the pills is serious, and I need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
I go into the hallway intending to make the call just outside Mom’s room, but there’s a man on a gurney nearby screaming sporadically, and I can’t hear myself think.
Dialing the number, I walk through the hallway to the outer unit, lingering in the area near the stairwell where it’s a little quieter.
My conversation with the agency is short and to the point, and I lay down the law as best I can without making it sound like it’s Natalia’s fault. The way the doctor spoke about my mother frightened me.
Could she be having memory problems and I just don’t realize it?
There’s every chance that Natalia, a professional caregiver, wouldn’t ever move her pills like that. What if this is my mother’s doing, and I’m blaming the wrong person? What if she’s not doing well, and these are signs that her mind isn’t what it once was?
I can’t bear the thought of that, and once I hang up, I make my way along the hallway to the elevators, hoping to get some fresh air before returning.
Then I look up as I turn the corner and stop dead in my tracks.
Lissa is by the elevators. She looks beautiful in a much more comfortable outfit than she usually wears at the office, a navy sweater that complements her pale skin.
There’s a man standing opposite her. He’s leaning over her, his hand gesticulating at her angrily as she cowers back against the wall. It’s a stance I’ve seen my mother take many times, one that brings back so many bad memories.
Then Lissa’s large blue eyes move to me as they widen in horror, her mouth falling open even as the man leans in closer, his body language menacing and angry.
She flinches, and that’s all I need before I’m moving toward them, about to rip the guy’s throat out.