Chapter Thirteen
After I finished my croissant and coffee, which was difficult given how my appetite had all but disappeared, I drove back to the house, my feelings of anticipation already morphing to those of impotence.
Matthew and Vic were still in the kitchen, and had brewed a fresh pot of coffee. It was odd that Vic had expressed no feelings of grief at his mother’s passing, but appeared to be on tenterhooks awaiting her autopsy results.
Then again, it was hardly my place to judge Vic’s relationship with his late mother. Theresa herself had told me that Vic was more her son than Edith’s.
I made a cup of herbal tea and toasted a slice of bread. I supposed Theresa wouldn’t mind a little company given the freshness of her sister’s death. Vic and Matthew did not ask me any questions about where I had been or where I was going. Vic gave me a small smile when I entered the room, but I left them to their silence, waiting for a phone call which could be hours, even days away.
I loaded Theresa’s food and drink onto the same tray Margaret had used during her employment, before carrying it up to the attic.
There, I found Theresa sitting in her same chair, overlooking the backyard. She started when I approached.
“I thought I’d been forgotten,” she said. “Why didn’t Margaret come this morning?”
“She’s gone,” I said setting the tea and toast down on the table by her chairs. “I can’t imagine how difficult this time must be for you.”
She shrugged, drawing her shawl a little tighter over her elbows. “I was never that close to Margaret.”
“I meant about Edith,” I said.
“What about her?” Theresa asked.
My mouth fell open, but I quickly shut it.
“The accident…she’s dead,” I blurted out.
“What happened to Edith?” Theresa asked, standing up.
I shrugged, collapsing in on myself with impossible speed. “I don’t know. I think she was sleepwalking and fell down the stairs. The coroner said it happened quickly, and she didn’t suffer much.”
Theresa scoffed, before suddenly becoming thoughtful. “No wonder,” she said under her breath.
“What?”
“He was up here, drunk and crying,” she said, though mostly to herself. “I thought it might be a dream. He looked so much older.”
“Who was here?” I asked. “Vic?”
She took in a deep breath. “My boy, he finally came to visit me. He must have been so afraid, so alone. He sat at the foot of my bed, crying.”
“I’m so sorry about all of this,” I said. “Your sister was a good woman.”
Theresa seemed to brush the words off. “He came to me. The evening after she died, he came to me,” she whispered again. “He spoke of her death, but I thought it was a dream.”
“What do you mean the day after?” I asked, confused. “She passed away late last night.”
Theresa waved my words away. “It doesn’t matter why or when, only that he finally came.”
I took a deep breath, absorbing the way her aged, lined face expressed her pride, the way her eyes glittered, teary at the thought of the boy she had loved and nurtured seeking her protection and comfort once again.
“I’ll come back a little later, okay?” I said.
Theresa brushed me off, seemingly disconnected from the conversation as she relived that moment with Vic, real or imagined. He must have been older than she remembered him, but was perhaps still in many ways the same boy who had clutched at her skirts in his childhood.
I went downstairs, and was surprised to find only Matthew at the kitchen table, making notes in his journal.
“Have you heard anything?” I asked.
Matthew looked up, apparently openly surprised that I was speaking to him.
“Nothing yet,” he said, before lowering his eyes again to his notebook.
I turned to him, my back against the sink. I leaned a little, the cold metal lip of the basin digging into my wrists.
“I’m sorry all this is happening. I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now.”
Matthew looked up at me again, his dark eyes narrowing a little, as though unable to believe that I could possibly sympathize with his plight. He blinked a few times, though his dark eyes never released me from their intense study. When he finally turned back to his notebook, I felt my body flood with relief.
“It’s fine,” he said. “The professor overseeing the project has all my information. She told me there’s nothing more I could have done.”
So, Matthew didn’t know I had tried to verify his enrollment.
I sat down at the table in the chair opposite him.
“Just out of interest, what was it you were giving her?” I asked.
Matthew looked up. “It was a placebo. Just some neutral spirits that gave her the sense that she was being helped. Sometimes, with enough hope, the human body can heal itself. It worked miracles for Edith, though there is nothing a doctor can do to protect against those kinds of accidents.”
I thought back on the crazed look in Edith’s eyes, the way she had attacked me in the basement, before falling to heel the second Matthew took control of the situation. It was difficult for me to believe that a simple case of sleepwalking could cause a murderous rage in someone already so unconscious to the world.
“So, something like vodka?” I asked.
Matthew nodded. “I used diluted grain alcohol.”
I shrugged. “It’s incredible the improvement she showed.”
Matthew nodded. “This phenomenon is something I’ve dedicated my life to better understanding. I’m sorry about what happened to Edith for more than simple humanitarian reasons, I’ll admit.”
“I understand that,” I said. “Her death is a tragedy, but you also lost all the work you put in.”
Matthew almost smiled, and I supposed this was the most he and I had connected in the entire time we had known each other. It nearly warmed my heart.
“You went upstairs to see Theresa?” he asked. “How is she handling everything?”
“Okay,” I said. “She wasn’t aware that Edith was dead, although she said that Vic came to her room the day after to inform her of the death,” I said. “She chalked it up to a nightmare.”
Matthew nodded. “It was probably just a dream she filled in with the information you gave her. These kinds of sleep disturbances can have a genetic component, and Edith’s trouble with sleepwalking isn’t exactly something I have to tell you about.”
It felt strangely good to talk to Matthew. He seemed more at ease around me, and I wondered if Edith’s death had something to do with his lessened hostility.