Chapter 3

I sat in the sterile silence of my office, the city lights of Singapore glittering outside my window. But I wasn't seeing them. I was seeing a slideshow of my own failures.

I remembered Mark' s casual complaints over the years. "Eleanor's tastes are so expensive." "This house is a money pit." I had dismissed it as idle grumbling, the harmless whining of a man living a life he didn't earn. I had tolerated it. I had paid the bills, sent the money, and assumed that was enough. I had bought their comfort, but I hadn't ensured her safety. The guilt was a heavy weight in my gut. I had been so focused on my work, on providing, that I had outsourced her care to the very people who were now preying on her.

My hands shook as I dialed my aunt, my mother's sister, Sarah. She lived two states away, but they spoke every week. Or at least, they used to.

"Chloe? Is everything alright?" Sarah's voice was tight with worry.

"Sarah, I need you to be honest with me. How is Mom? I can't get a straight answer from Mark."

There was a long, hesitant pause. I could hear her take a shaky breath.

"I... I haven't been able to speak with her for a few weeks, Chloe," she finally admitted, her voice barely a whisper. "Mark always answers. He says she's sleeping, or in the garden, or not feeling up to talking. He said her memory is getting bad, that she gets confused on the phone."

"And you believed him?"

"He's her husband," she said, her voice defensive and scared. "But... Chloe, the last time I did speak to her, she sounded... off. Not herself. She said... she said the tea Brenda makes her tastes funny."

The tea. The words hung in the air between us, charged with unspoken fear.

"Something is very wrong, Sarah."

"I know," she whispered. "I just didn't know what to do."

That was it. I couldn't wait. I couldn't manage this from across the world. I swiveled my chair to my computer, my mind made up.

I cancelled my meetings. I sent a one-line email to my board of directors: "Family emergency. Returning to the US immediately." I didn't wait for a reply. I booked the first flight out of Singapore, a seventeen-hour journey that suddenly felt too long.

The entire flight was a blur of anxiety. I landed at JFK, didn't even bother going to my own apartment in the city, just got in a rental car and drove straight to the suburbs.

As I turned onto my mother's street, the street I grew up on, my heart pounded against my ribs. The manicured lawns and big, silent houses looked alien. I parked a block away and walked, my footsteps loud in the quiet afternoon.

And then I saw her.

She was near the edge of their property, by a large oak tree. She looked smaller than I remembered, lost in that oversized coat. Her hair was a mess, and her face was smudged with dirt. She was holding a half-eaten sandwich, the kind you get from a gas station.

My heart broke.

I took a breath and called out, trying to keep my voice steady.

"Mom?"

Her head snapped up. Her eyes, which used to be so full of life and intelligence, were wide and frightened, like a startled deer. She saw me, and for a second, a flicker of recognition crossed her face.

Then it was gone, replaced by panic. She quickly tried to hide the sandwich behind her back, a childlike gesture of shame that destroyed me.

"Chloe," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "What... what are you doing here? Your trip..."

She looked down at her dirty clothes, at her chapped hands, and tried to pull the coat tighter around herself, as if she could somehow disappear. She was trying to protect me from the sight of her own suffering.