“A latte is fine, thanks,” I said, taking a seat. “How’s Norman?” I decided not to mention that he had tried to call me the night before.
She looked downward. “Oh, you know. Norman’s Norman.”
“So tell me what happened with Elizabeth.”
I had always liked Brie’s mother. A straight shooter, spoke her mind, but at the same time knew when to hold her tongue. She never stuck her nose into other people’s business, kept her opinions about how her children lived their lives to herself. But, not surprisingly, we had become estranged after Brie’s disappearance, which I attributed largely to Isabel persuading her that I was the cause of it.
Isabel’s chin quivered slightly. “She doesn’t have all that much longer. She has cancer. It’s all through her.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “I didn’t know. I’ve always liked her.”
“She wants to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
Isabel said, “You know about what happened yesterday morning. On Mulberry. Where you used to live.”
Word was getting around, but I wasn’t surprised to learn that she’d very likely been talking to Detective Hardy.
“I know.”
“After we found out about that, Albert and I went there and talked to the people who live in the new house that got built where yours used to be. And to your old neighbor, Max.”
Just to confirm my suspicions, I asked, “I guess it was Detective Hardy who called you.”
“Not exactly. Albert and I called her before we’d talked to Max.”
I was getting confused by the timeline here. “So Max called you? After he’d been in touch with me and Hardy?”
Isabel shook her head quickly. “No, shit, I’m leaving out the most important thing.” She took a moment. “When we were visiting Mom yesterday, from her room, looking down at the parking lot, we thought we saw Brie, or someone who sure looked like her. She waved to us, like she knew who we were.”
It was coming into focus now. Hardy had hinted that this woman who looked like Brie had been seen someplace else.
“I don’t know who or what we saw,” Isabel said. “But then last night — early this morning would be more accurate — Mom saw her again.”
“Okay,” I said slowly.
“She says Brie came to her hospital room. I think she imagined it. The nurses, no one saw anything. It was the middle of the night. Visiting hours had ended at nine. Mom’s on all sorts of medications. I blame myself, well, myself and Albert, for getting her all hyped up. We brought Max in to tell her what he’d seen because, well, you know Mom. She takes some convincing on things. She’s not what you’d call a fan of conspiracy theories. I realize now it was a huge mistake. It put the idea into her head that Brie was... alive... and so then she has this vision in the middle of the night.”
“Sounds like that’s what it was,” I said.
Isabel drank from her cup. A little smidge of foam settled on her upper lip and I licked my own, trying to send her a signal. After a moment, she stuck out her tongue and got rid of it.
“You and I have had a pretty strained relationship since it happened,” she said.
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“I’m not sorry for anything I’ve done. Any actions I took were to get justice for my sister.”
I said nothing.
“But my mother, she thinks some kind of apology is in order. That if who we saw, and who she saw in the night, is really Brie, well, then, you didn’t do what we — well, me for sure — thought you did.”
“I see.”
“Just so you understand, it’s not me who’s apologizing, because I don’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t know, for certain, any more than I did a week ago, about whether my sister is alive. Maybe we just saw someone who looked, at a distance, like Brie, and she waved at us because we were looking at her. I don’t know. But Mom has come to a more definite conclusion.” She took another sip, this time avoiding any foam. “She asked me to get in touch with you, to ask you to come and see her so that she can tell you she’s sorry.”
I thought about what she was asking of me.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“What?”
“I don’t know whether I should do it. I might be accepting an apology under false pretenses.”
Isabel’s eyes went wide. “Christ, what are you saying? Are you admitting it? Are you confessing to me that you did kill Brie?”
“No, of course not. I’m not confessing to anything. But I don’t know who your mother saw, if she even saw anything. It’d be wrong to let her apologize to me based on a delusion.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Isabel said, looking fed up and frustrated. “Tell me you didn’t do it. Tell me you didn’t kill Brie.”
“I didn’t kill Brie. But I’ve told you that a hundred times since she disappeared and you’ve never believed me before.”
“Christ, just let her apologize for thinking you did do it.”
“Maybe the one who should apologize is you, since you’re the one who made her think that.”
“Look,” Isabel said, composing herself and bringing her voice down. “Albert thinks — we both think — that Mom needs this. Her prognosis is bad. She could go today, tomorrow, maybe a month from now. God, she could pass on before we get to the hospital. She’s got some reason to hope her daughter isn’t dead, and maybe it’s okay if she goes to her grave with that. Even if it turns out not to be the case. And part of that involves making things right with you.”
I drank some more of my latte, finishing it.
“Okay,” I said.
I followed Isabel’s car to the hospital and went up to the room with her. Elizabeth was awake when I walked in.
I hadn’t seen her in person in nearly six years. In the early days of Brie’s disappearance, I’d been in regular contact with Elizabeth and both of Brie’s siblings, comparing notes, sharing what few leads there were, making joint appearances on the local news pleading for information.
But as Detective Hardy narrowed her list of suspects to, well, me, and she let it be known I was her prime suspect, Elizabeth distanced herself from me. She’d take my calls at first, but as Isabel continued her attacks, my mother-in-law stopped having anything to do with me.
I couldn’t really blame her. It’s hard to be nice to your son-in-law when you’ve been brainwashed into believing he killed your daughter.
My memory of her was of a strong, vibrant, independent woman, so it was something of a shock for me to see her today, how the disease had ravaged her. She’d lost probably sixty pounds, and she never had a lot of meat on her to begin with. The skin on her arms looked more like crepe paper, and her cheeks appeared to have melted around the bone. But there was still something very Elizabeth about her, and that was her eyes. She’d always had beautiful blue eyes, and they hadn’t changed. Still that lovely aqua color, piercing and insightful.
She smiled when she saw me, and that brought back memories, too. Her smile, always genuine, radiated affection. Even now.
“Andrew,” she said. “It’s so good to see you.”
I knelt over her as she lay in her bed, and slipped my arms around her frail, emaciated body.
“Elizabeth,” I said. “I’m glad you asked me to come.”
She looked over my shoulder and eyed Isabel. “Thank you, Izzy. You can go now.”
Isabel blinked. “You don’t want me to stay?”
“It’s okay,” Elizabeth said. “Andrew and I have some catching up to do.”
Isabel didn’t look pleased about being dismissed, but after a second or two she turned on her heels and exited the room.
“You think she’s hiding behind the door, listening?” Elizabeth asked, a hint of mischief in her eye.