Chapter 14 - MY MOTHER NAMES THE VOICEShe told us privately two days later.
Louise.
Me.
Her own court-appointed attorney.
Maria.
No Andrew.
No Vanessa.
Mom sat at my dining table.
Hands around tea.
“The voice was Evelyn.”
My aunt.
Margaret’s younger sister.
Evelyn Shaw.
Seventy-one.
Retired labor-and-delivery nurse.
Living in Vermont.
I had not seen her in four years.
“Why was Aunt Evelyn in the house that night?”
Mom looked at me.
“She came because Robert asked her.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mom.”
“He told me he wanted to talk to her about the hospital where Andrew was born.”
St. Vincent’s.
Evelyn had trained there briefly in the late 1970s.
My stomach tightened.
“Why didn’t you tell us she was there?”
Mom looked ashamed.
“Because she left before the ambulance came.”
“What?”
“Robert collapsed after midnight. She had gone.”
“Why?”
“He told her to.”
“Why?”
Mom’s eyes filled.
“I don’t remember.”
That phrase again.
May you like
This time no one accused her of lying.
We wrote it down.
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