Chapter 5: She Came Back Early
"Who?" I asked.
Carol hesitated.
"She says it's a notary."
Walter's hand tightened around mine.
Lisa hadn't waited until tomorrow.
"Tell her I'm resting," I said.
"Tell her visiting hours are over."
Carol nodded and stepped back out.
I heard her voice in the corridor, low and even, and then another voice — Lisa's, climbing in pitch the way it always did when she wasn't getting what she wanted.
"I'm her daughter.
I have every right—"
"Visiting hours ended at eight, Ms.
Lisa.
I'm sorry."
"She's in a coma.
It doesn't matter what time—"
"She's not in a coma." Carol's voice didn't change.
"She woke up this evening.
And she's asked for rest.
You're welcome to call the ward in the morning."
Silence.
Then Lisa's voice, very quiet: "She's awake."
It wasn't a question.
I watched the door.
Walter watched it with me.
The handle moved — just slightly, just enough to show that someone on the other side had touched it — and then it stopped.
Footsteps.
Retreating.
Then gone.
Walter let out a breath that seemed to come from somewhere much deeper than his lungs.
"She knows," he said.
"Yes."
"What will she do?"
I thought about the folder in his backpack.
I thought about Gerald Marsh's face when I said the word *forgery*.
I thought about Lisa's voice — *I already did, sweetheart* — so certain, so finished, so sure the story was already over.
"She'll try to get ahead of it," I said.
"She'll call someone tonight.
She'll try to make this look like a misunderstanding."
"Is it a misunderstanding?"
"No."
He was quiet.
"Walter, I need to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth."
"Okay."
"In the eleven days I was unconscious — did Lisa ever bring anyone else into this room?
Anyone who asked you to leave, or who you didn't recognize?"
He thought carefully.
The way he always thought — slowly, seriously, like the question deserved the full weight of his attention.
"Once," he said.
"A woman.
She had a bag with her.
Lisa told me to go get a snack from the machine downstairs." He paused.
"I went.
But I came back faster than she expected."
"What did you see?"
"Lisa was holding your hand." He frowned.
"Not like she was being kind.
She was pressing it down against something on the bed.
The woman with the bag was watching."
My chest went cold.
"Did you see what was on the bed?"
"Paper," he said.
"But Lisa moved it before I could see properly.
She said you'd moved in your sleep and it startled her."
There it was.
Not just a forged signature.
A guided one — my unconscious hand pressed against a document by my own daughter, with a witness present.
I closed my eyes for just a moment.
"Granny?"
"I'm all right." I opened them.
"You did nothing wrong.
You couldn't have known."
"I should have stayed in the room."
"You were nine years old and your aunt told you to leave." I squeezed his hand.
"You came back.
That's what matters."
A knock at the door.
It was a woman I hadn't seen before — perhaps forty-five, with reading glasses pushed up on her head and a lanyard that read *Patient Advocacy Services.*
"Mrs.
Elaine?
I'm Ruth.
Carol called me." She came in and closed the door behind her.
"I understand you have some concerns about documentation that was prepared during your period of unconsciousness."
"I do."
She sat down in the chair across from the bed, opened a notepad, and looked at me steadily.
"Tell me everything," she said.
"From the beginning.
Take your time."
I glanced at Walter.
He gave me a small nod.
So I told her.
I told her about the folder.
About the power of attorney and the deed of transfer.
About the signature that looked like mine but wasn't.
About the woman with the bag, and Lisa pressing my hand against the paper, and Gerald Marsh standing in my doorway looking at an empty nightstand.
Ruth wrote without interrupting.
When I finished, she set her pen down.
"Do you still have the documents?"
Walter unzipped his backpack.
Ruth looked at the folder for a long moment before she touched it.
"Mrs.
Elaine," she said, "I'm going to need to make some calls tonight.
This goes beyond what I can handle alone." She looked up.
"Do you have a solicitor of your own?
Someone who has represented you before?"
"My husband's solicitor," I said.
"A man named Philip Harte.
I haven't spoken to him in two years, but he'll remember me."
"Can you reach him?"
"In the morning."
"Good." She closed her notepad.
"In the meantime, these documents stay with me.
I'll log them into our secure records tonight." She looked at Walter.
"Young man — you've been very brave."
Walter looked at his shoes.
"I just stayed," he said.
Ruth looked at me over the top of her glasses.
"Sometimes," she said quietly, "that's the whole thing."
She left with the folder tucked under her arm.
The room felt different without it.
Lighter.
Like something that had been pressing down on the air had finally been lifted.
Walter climbed back into his chair and pulled his jacket over himself.
"Are you going to sleep?" I asked.
"For a little while." He looked at me.
"You should too."
"I will."
He closed his eyes.
I lay back and listened to the monitor and the distant sounds of the hospital settling into its nighttime rhythm.
And then my phone — which a nurse had placed on the nightstand when I woke — lit up with a message.
It was from a number I didn't recognize.
*She's going to say you asked her to do it.
That you told her before the accident.
I was there.
I heard it.
— G.M.*
May you like
Gerald Marsh.
I stared at the screen until it went dark.
