Chapter 8

I don't remember deciding to take it.

I remember the drawer, and the toy in my hand, warm from the radiator, and the folder underneath it with the notary's name on the front. I remember the sound of the ambulance coming up the hill with its siren off, just the crunch of tires on the ice.

I remember Glen's voice in the mudroom saying my name.

And then Seth was behind me.

"Put it down."

I turned around with the walkie-talkie against my chest and the folder under my arm, and he came at me, and this time I didn't duck. I put my shoulder into him and I got past him into the hall, and he grabbed my braid and I screamed, and the paramedics came through the back door at exactly that moment, both of them, a woman and a young man with a bag, and everything stopped.

For about four seconds nobody moved.

Then the woman said, "Sir, step back," and Seth let go of my hair.

I gave the folder to Ms. Provost.

"Fourth page," I said. "The signature line."

She opened it. She looked at Glen's signature on the first three pages. She looked at the fourth page, which was blank. Then she took her reading glasses off and put them in her pocket and said, quietly, "Mr. Tilden's signature on this document was notarized by nobody, because it wasn't signed by Mr. Tilden."

"What?" Corinne said from the kitchen. "That's absurd-"

"Ma," Seth said. "Stop talking."

"I'd like everyone to stay in this room," Ms. Provost said.

Corinne's face had gone the color of the dooryard.

I pushed the button on the walkie-talkie.

Nothing. The light stayed dark. The battery was dead.

I pushed it again, harder, and shook it, and the static came up, weak and shredded, and then, faint under the hiss, a voice.

My husband's voice.

"...you hide those packs, buddy. Put them in the snowsuit. That's right. There you go. And when the lady asks you, you tell her Mama had the pills. You tell her Mama was taking them, because she was sad and she wanted to sleep."

The room was absolutely quiet except for Glen's oxygen mask hissing in the next room.

"And you don't say anything about the barn," Seth said on the recording. "You don't say anything about Nana."

Ms. Provost looked at Seth.

Seth looked at the floor.

Corinne said, "Turn that off."

The recording hissed on. Then, thin and clear, Corinne's voice: "...let her fall."

Corinne lunged.

She came across the kitchen at me with her hands out and her face wide open and I don't think she even knew what she was doing. Seth caught her around the waist and held her and she fought him like a cat and screamed something at me that I didn't hear, because Ms. Provost was on her phone in the doorway with her back to us, and her voice was steady, and she was saying, "Yes. Now. A Tilden farm on Route 9."

Glen went past us on the stretcher.

His eyes were open. He looked at me as they wheeled him by, and for one second I swear he knew me.

The ambulance pulled out of the dooryard at eight-fifty-one.

The notary's car came up the hill at eight-fifty-seven.