Chapter 2 - A Mother Who Wouldn't Let Go
The paramedics arrived in six minutes. It felt like an entire winter.
A woman named Tessa checked Elena's pulse, asked me about medications, and cut away part of the blood-soaked fabric so she could find the injury. “She has a head wound,” she said. “We need to rule out other bleeding. Is she pregnant?”
I stopped breathing myself. Elena was eleven weeks along. We'd heard the heartbeat on Monday. She had finally let herself buy a pair of tiny yellow socks.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Tessa spoke into her radio. I kept my eyes on Elena.
A police officer stepped into the room behind the stretcher. Alma moved toward him before I could speak.
“My daughter-in-law is unstable,” she announced. “She fell. My son walked in at the worst possible moment.”
“The stick?” the officer asked, looking at the floor.
“I was moving it.”
“With both hands over her bed?” I said.
Alma shot me a warning look, the same look that had kept me quiet at fourteen. This time it didn't work.
“I saw her holding it above Elena,” I told the officer. “I don't know what happened before I got here.”
He asked Alma to wait downstairs. She refused until a second officer appeared. Even then, she pointed at my fist.
“That envelope is private family property.”
I hadn't realized I was gripping it hard enough to crease the paper.
At the hospital, nurses took Elena through double doors. I followed until someone stopped me. Then I stood in a hallway that smelled of coffee and antiseptic while a doctor explained that Elena had a concussion, a scalp laceration, and bleeding that demanded immediate obstetric evaluation.
“Is the baby alive?” I asked.
“We're checking now.”
My phone rang. Alma. I silenced it. She called again. On the third call, she left a message.
“Noah, please. Your father wasn't well when he wrote that. Some things are better left buried.”
That was when I noticed the envelope had never been sealed. The flap had been folded inside, as though someone wanted it opened quickly.
There was one piece of paper and a brass key taped to it.
The note was short:
Your mother has kept the house on Alder Street locked for a reason. Ask Ruth Weller what happened on June 18. Do not go alone.
May you like
I read it twice.
June 18 was the night the old care home burned down—and the night everyone told me my father suffered his first heart attack.
