Chapter 4 - The Appointment She Refused
Mom refused to go.
She called the neurologist a thief, the hospital a prison, and me a traitor.
Then Noah asked why Grandma didn't visit anymore.
That question broke something inside me.
I knelt beside him.
“Grandma isn't feeling well.”
“Her eyes hurt?”
“Maybe.”
“Is that why she gave me the yucky drink?”
I swallowed.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
He thought about that.
Then asked, “Is Daddy's head better?”
From the couch, Daniel smiled.
“Getting there, buddy.”
Noah touched Daniel's bandage.
Then he whispered, “Grandma was mad.”
Daniel and I exchanged a look.
Children remembered more than adults wanted to believe.
Eventually, Mom agreed to testing only because I told her I would accompany her through every appointment.
The imaging revealed something unexpected.
The neurologist explained carefully that Mom's symptoms required more investigation and that there were several possible causes.
He refused to jump to conclusions.
So did we.
Additional testing followed.
For the first time, Mom stopped fighting long enough to admit something.
“I thought if I ignored it, I could stay myself.”
I held her hand.
“You don't stay yourself by hiding.”
She looked at me.
“You sound like your father.”
Dad had died eight years earlier.
Normally that comparison would have made me smile.
This time, Mom cried.
Because she finally admitted Dad had noticed changes before he died.
He had asked her to see a doctor.
She promised she would.
She never did.
But another revelation came when we returned home.
Daniel had been reviewing our doorbell camera recordings after Mom's disappearance.
He found footage from several weeks earlier.
Mom standing outside our house at 2:17 in the morning.
Alone.
Wearing slippers.
She stood at the front door for almost six minutes.
Then walked away.
She had never knocked.
She had never told us.
And none of us had known she had been there.
When I showed her the recording, Mom stared at herself on the screen.
“I don't remember that.”
Neither did I.
But the video didn't lie.
And now we had to answer a terrifying question.
May you like
How many other things had happened that none of us knew about?
---
