Her to-do list took hostage of her brain, and she mentally sorted through her duties as she organized her day. She would clean inside before tackling the yard, saving the bill paying and grocery shopping for the afternoon.
But first she needed some coffee.
She popped two Advil, slipped on her robe, and stumbled to the kitchen. She set her Keurig to brew the largest-size mug, then went to the refrigerator for bacon. As she watched the bacon sizzle in her cast iron skillet, she thought back to Sundays before the accident.
With the rare exception of a day at the beach, Jamie and Sam typically ate a big breakfast, attended the early service at church, and then embarked on their chores. Early on, Jamie had claimed the yard as his territory—mowing and blowing and trimming—leaving the indoor duties for Sam. In the afternoons, she went to the grocery store while he finished his homework. When the weather cooperated, they cooked dinner on the grill. If it was rainy or cold, they made chili or spaghetti or lasagna. They occasionally invited her mother for dinner, but Sam preferred her quiet time with her son before the chaos of the week began.
Sam glanced at her bulletin board where she’d pinned Jamie’s new list of chores. She’d incorporated some of his old household responsibilities—tasks he could easily accomplish like doing the laundry—with a list of new duties she hoped he would take an interest in, like planning the week’s meals. The list had been up for two days, and he’d yet to complete a single job.
She flipped the bacon, let it cook for a few minutes on the other side, then forked it out of the pan onto a paper towel. Jamie wheeled in and, without so much as a grunt, went to the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of orange juice.
“Would you like pancakes or eggs with your bacon?” Sam asked.
“I’m not hungry.”
When is the last time he ate? she wondered. Certainly not the last three nights. Judging from the contents of her refrigerator and pantry, he ate very little, if anything, during the day while she was at work.
In the overhead light, his skin appeared gray. His eyes looked sunken and bruised, and he’d lost even more weight, progressing from gaunt to emaciated. In the past few days, he’d abandoned his Xbox and spent long hours in bed, staring up at the ceiling with his headphones blasting his eardrums toward premature deafness. To make matters worse, Moses had pulled Sam aside again, after Jamie’s therapy session on Friday, to warn her of his increasing lack of motivation and despondency.
Frustrated and worried and strung out from her hangover, Sam did what she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do. She lost her cool. She lifted the cast iron pan and banged it down on the stove. “Not eating is no longer an option.”
Jamie started to wheel away, but she caught up with him, grabbing the handles of his chair so he couldn’t move.
“That’s not fair, Mom.”
She spun his chair around to face her. “You want to talk about not fair? I’ll tell you what’s not fair. What’s not fair is me having to watch you starve yourself to death. You are wasting away and there’s nothing I can do about it.” A sob caught in her throat and tears spilled from her eyes. She staggered over to the nearest bar stool and lay her head down on the counter where she wept for a good five minutes. When she finally raised her head and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her robe, she was surprised to see Jamie sitting quietly beside her in his chair.
“I guess I’ll have the pancakes.”
Sam forced a smile. “Is it asking too much for you to talk to me while I make them?”
“Yes.” He turned and wheeled across the room. “Call me when they’re ready.”
She drew in an unsteady breath. Remember, Sam. Baby steps. At least he agreed to eat.
But agreeing to eat was not the same as actually eating. Despite her efforts to fix Jamie a nice breakfast, he barely touched his pancakes.
“We have a lot to do today, Jamie, if we want to get all our chores done. What say we splurge and cook a steak for dinner?”
He shrugged.
She got up from the island and set her plate in the sink. “I’ll get started on the laundry, if you’ll take care of the dishes.”
Mother and son had a long-standing house rule—the person who cooks does not do the dishes. But when Sam returned ten minutes later, the dirty plates and pans were still in the sink.
Later on that afternoon, Sam was carrying a load of groceries in from the car when she received a call from her mother’s next-door neighbor. Glenda had the reputation for being a notorious busybody, but the genuine concern in her voice caught Sam’s attention.
“Sam, dear, I’m worried about your mother. She’s been out back for over an hour, wandering from one deck to another, rummaging through everybody’s stuff.”
Sam dumped her grocery bags on the island. “What do you mean, she’s rummaging through people’s things?”
“She’s lifting up planters and looking under doormats. When I asked her if I could help find whatever it was she’d lost, she seemed confused.”
Where the hell is Jackie? Hadn’t she promised to take their mother shopping for a new cell phone today?
“I’ll be right there,” Sam said.
She knocked on her son’s bedroom door. “Jamie, I need to run to Lovie’s. Please come put these groceries away for me.”
He mumbled something unintelligible.
“Now, Jamie. I bought some things that need to go in the freezer.”
Glenda was waiting for Sam in front of her mother’s townhouse. “Thank goodness you’re here. The front door is locked. She’s around back.”
Sam fell in step beside Glenda as they rounded the corner toward the creek side of the complex.
“I tried to get her to come inside for a glass of iced tea. Lord knows it’s hot enough. And she seems so agitated. I’ve never seen anything like it, rooting around in everyone’s private space the way she’s doing.” Glenda grabbed Sam’s arm, pulling her to a halt. “Tell me, is it Al’s hammer?” she asked in a hushed voice, tapping her head with her index finger.
“Al’s who?” Sam asked.
“Alzheimer’s. Does your mother have Alzheimer’s disease?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” Sam started walking again, quickening her step, making it difficult for an out-of-shape Glenda to keep up.
Each townhouse unit had a separate deck attached, all of which varied in size. Some held only a couple of chairs and a potted plant, while others, like her mother’s, accommodated a grill, an eating area, and a garden of sorts—herbs, as was the case for Lovie. Sam found her mother trying to cram that same old rusty key in the lock on her glass door.
Sam turned to Glenda. “I appreciate your help, but I’ll take it from here.”
She waited for the nosey neighbor to leave before she tiptoed up beside her mother, careful not to scare her. “What’re you doing, Mom? Did you get locked out?”
“Oh, hi, Sammie.” Lovie glanced up at her daughter, then went back to work on the lock. “I’m trying to figure out what this key belongs to.”
“But the key that fits this door doesn’t look anything like the one in your hand.”
Lovie’s eyes narrowed in confusion, her brow beaded in sweat.
“Your house keys are on the same ring with your car keys and the keys for the market. Do you have them with you?”
Lovie reached in her pocket and removed a set of keys, dangling them in front of Sam.
“Then let’s go inside and get a cold drink. Maybe I can help you figure out the mystery behind the key.”
When they were settled in the sunroom with tall glasses of iced tea, Sam held her hand out and asked to see the key, promising to give it right back. Lovie reluctantly complied.
Without straying from her mother’s direct line of sight, Sam wandered around the townhouse, trying the key in any lock that looked like a possible fit—keepsake boxes, the drawers on her secretary, the corner hutch in the dining room. When nothing worked, she returned to the sunroom and dropped to th
e chair beside her mother.
“You’re wasting your time,” Lovie said. “I’ve tried every lock in this house. The key fits something outside.”
“How do you know that, if you can’t remember what it goes to?”
“I have a strong feeling, is all.”
Sam inspected the key carefully. “It’s plenty rusty, like it belongs to something outside, but I can’t imagine what type of outdoor structure it might fit.”
“Maybe a shed door?”
“I don’t think so, Mom. It’s too small for that. How long have you had the thing?”
“Your father would know what it fits, if only he were alive.”
“Wait, what, you’ve had this key that long? How come I’ve never seen you with it?”
“Because I usually keep it in the top drawer of my bedside table.”
Sam returned the key to her mother. “Then why are you suddenly so desperate to figure out what it fits?”
Lovie sat back in her chair. “I don’t know how to explain it. Just knowing I had the key if ever I needed it has always given me comfort. Now is the right time. I feel it in my bones, the way my arthritis acts up when it’s going to rain.”
“Like woman’s intuition?”
“Well … more like a mother’s intuition.”
“If we put our heads together, maybe we can solve the mystery.” Sam stood up. “In the meantime, why don’t you come home with me for dinner. I bought two New York strips on special at the Harris Teeter, and I can’t eat a whole one by myself.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice. I haven’t eaten a steak in ages.” Lovie dug a thin silver chain out of her pocket, slipped the key on the chain, and fastened it around her neck.
On the drive over, Sam filled her mother in on Jamie’s increasing bad attitude and continued weight loss. Lovie stared out of the window for most of the way, fingering the key around her neck, showing no sign that she was listening.
A melted container of butter pecan ice cream greeted them in a puddle of goo on the kitchen island. And Jamie was nowhere to be found. He didn’t respond to her texts, and her calls went straight to voice mail. Sam was ready to call the police, when the sound of a car horn—two quick beeps followed by an impatient blast—got her attention. She raced to the window and saw Jamie pumping his chair across the road in front of a jacked-up pickup truck.
Sam dashed out the door and across the front lawn. “What’s wrong with you?” she yelled at the driver. “Can’t you see he’s in a wheelchair?”
“That’s what the sidewalk’s for, lady!” the angry driver shouted through his open window.
Sam maneuvered her son’s chair up and over the curb. Once on the sidewalk, she kneeled beside him. Perspiration covered his face and his hair was damp with sweat. “What were you thinking, honey? You could’ve been killed.”
Nineteen
Samantha
All thoughts of taking a mental health day vanished when Faith called in sick with another migraine headache on Monday morning. After Jamie’s run-in with the angry truck driver the night before, Sam had polished off a bottle of wine by herself. Despite her throbbing headache, she dragged herself to work.
“It’s just as well Faith didn’t come in today,” Sam said to her mother later that morning. After another stellar Saturday at Sweeney’s, business had come to a screeching halt.
Donna Bennett’s write-up in the Prospect Weekly had damaged their reputation with the locals. The townies peered through the window as they drove by, hoping to catch a glimpse of the too-uptown-for-small-town renovations, but few bothered to come in. Seeing an empty showroom did little to gain their confidence. Sweeney’s couldn’t survive on Saturday sales alone. If business from the locals didn’t improve, they would be filing for bankruptcy by Christmas.
Sam found the stack of fliers Faith had made on the desk in the back office. Printed on plain white paper, the seaweed-green logo appeared in bold across the top with the week’s homemade lunch specials listed below—a variety of items packaged in easy to-go containers, everything from Caesar salads to cucumber gazpacho to fresh tuna salad.
Sam left her mother alone to run the market, but with strict instructions to call Roberto out from the kitchen if a rush of customers came in.
Lovie waved her on. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine.”
Sam stopped by the marina store first and left a stack of fliers with the clerk, hoping their premade sandwiches would attract the charter-fishing crowd who might need a boxed lunch. Her next stops included the hospital office building and two construction companies where she knew some of the workers. On her way into the police department, she ran into Eli, the handsome young police officer who had befriended Jamie at physical therapy two weeks ago.
He held the door open for her on his way out. “You’re Jamie’s mother, right? I met you at the rehab center. I’m Eli Marshall.”
“Good memory. I’m Sam. Sam Sweeney.”
“Your boy’s a nice kid. How’s he doing?”
“He’s hanging in there.”
Eli took a step inside and let the door close behind them. “Is there a chance he’ll walk again? I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry. It’s just—”
“Not at all. I appreciate your interest in my son.” Trust did not come easy for Sam, but she sensed this handsome police officer with the pale-gray eyes genuinely cared about Jamie’s well-being. “His back has healed, and the doctors are convinced he will walk again, but Jamie seems to think he’s stuck in that chair forever.”
“If there’s anything I can do …”
“Thanks, but the only person who can do anything about any of it is Jamie. I only hope he figures it out while he still has choices.”
Eli eyed the fliers in her hand. “If you’re advertising food, you’ve come to the right place.”
Sam handed him a flier. “My family operates the seafood market on the corner of Main and Creekside. We’re promoting our new line of take-out lunches. You’ll see from the menu here, we have a variety of items. Sweeney’s would be a nice break for you from McDonald’s.”
“Hey now. I take offense to that.” He stroked his tight abs. “If you’re insinuating I should be on a diet …”
Sam swatted him with her rolled up stack of fliers. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
He scanned the menu items. “What, no sushi?”
“I’ve never eaten sushi, if you can believe that.”
“Never eaten sushi? That’s a crying shame. It’s my favorite.”
“I’ll have to try it sometime.” She held her stack of fliers out to him. “Can I give these to you to distribute?”
He pointed at the heavyset officer at the front desk. “Actually, Bud Carter is the take-out expert around here. He’ll be sure to spread the word.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.” She saluted him before heading over to meet Bud Carter.
When all fliers were distributed, Sam stopped by the post office and found their mailbox crammed with bills and junk mail. She dumped the catalogs and advertisements in the trash can, and then stood at the counter in the lobby sorting through the bills. She opened the entire stack, one after another, surprised to find every bill stamped Past Due.
A wave of nausea hit Sam’s empty stomach like a tsunami.
During the past three years, she’d worked hard juggling their finances in order to save for the renovations. When they began construction back in April, the money they needed was in the bank. As with most construction projects, they’d gone over budget in certain areas, but not enough to strap them for cash.
Faith had surely known about the overdue bills. Why had she never mentioned them?
Sam stuffed the bills in her bag. She was headed toward the parking lot when her calendar alarm chimed reminding her of Jamie’s appointment with Moses. A confrontation with Faith would have to wait.
She noticed Jamie’s blinds were still drawn as she rounded the back corner of the house. Panic rose in her chest. Her apprehension
had been on heightened alert since the incident with the angry driver in the jacked-up pickup truck. Opening Jamie’s bedroom door, she found him sound asleep with his mouth wide open and his body perfectly still. She ran her fingers across his cheek, relieved to feel the warmth of his skin.
She snapped open the blinds, allowing the bright midday sun to flood in. “Get up and get dressed, Jamie. Or you’ll be late for your appointment with Moses.”
Jamie rolled onto his side, facing the wall. “I’m not going to PT today.”
“I don’t have time for this today, son. I have a crisis at work I need to deal with.”
“Then go deal with your crisis and leave me alone.” He pulled the blanket over his head.
Sam whipped the covers back. “Get up out of that bed, brush your teeth, and let’s go. You can’t cancel on Moses at the last minute. He has a long list of patients waiting for the opportunity to see him.”
He glared at her, his dark eyes cold and hard. “What part of I’m not going don’t you understand?”
Sam lowered herself to the edge of the bed. “Jamie, I know you are going through a rough time.” She rubbed his back through the blanket. “But I refuse to allow you to live a dead-end life.”
He jerked the blanket off his head. “Dead-end life. That’s good, Mom. At least you are finally acknowledging the truth.”
“Maybe that was a poor choice of words, but—”
He scooted his body over, nudging her off his bed. “Please. Just go away and leave me alone.”
Fresh out of words of encouragement, Sam turned and left the room. She couldn’t make him go to physical therapy anymore than she could make him walk again. Jamie had always been an easy kid, kind and happy and considerate of others. His behavior now surpassed teenage surliness. It was dangerously volatile, and she had absolutely no control over him.
Alone in her Jeep in the driveway, Sam punched the steering wheel and kicked the dashboard, bawling hysterically. When her well ran dry, she pulled out a packet of tissues and wiped her face before backing out of her driveway.
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