The kettle whistles behind her and she stands up, makes a cup of tea, and returns to the home office she and Sam shared. Sam insisted on having everything custom-built: one side for her files, one side for his. She’s been going through his side for the last hour, page by boring page, amazed by the things he saved. A receipt for a computer he bought in 2001. The user manual for a vacuum cleaner, filed away in its own file labeled VACUUM CLEANER USER MANUAL. Tax returns for the last twenty years, on which he listed every single item he donated to Goodwill, trying so hard to be the good guy who plays by the rules, nothing at all like his dad.
She returns to the open drawer and continues, still not sure what, exactly, she’s looking for, coming across two expired passports, one with a stamp from a trip to Honduras he apparently took in high school, a trip he never mentioned. Maybe this is what she’s looking for. Confirmation that Franklin Sheehy is right, that she never knew Sam Statler at all.
MOM, MEDICAL
She spots the folder at the back, the words in thick Sharpie letters. Inside is a stack of Margaret’s medical records. The early symptoms. Deteriorating personal hygiene. Difficulty planning the day’s schedule. Frequent mood swings. The official diagnosis last March. Disease progressing quicker than expected; having hard time managing daily tasks.
Patient has stopped speaking. Mutism may be the result of progressing disease.
He can’t deal with it. That’s why he hasn’t been visiting his mother: a perfectly innocent explanation. He isn’t a pathological liar, he’s a scaredy cat, unable to bear seeing his mother in the state she’s been in—silent, expressionless—and too ashamed to tell Annie the truth. So he hid it from her, probably hating himself for being such a coward.
You’re doing it again, Sam’s voice chides from inside her head. You’re believing in me when I’ve given you every reason not to.
She pages through the rest of the papers in the file—insurance letters, six issues of the facility’s monthly newsletter, printed entirely in Comic Sans. She’s about to return the folder to the drawer when she sees an envelope tucked into the back, addressed to Sam. She pulls out a letter. Three pages from the attorney at Rushing Waters, “Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney for Margaret Statler” printed along the top.
I hereby designate Sam Statler of Chestnut Hill, New York, my attorney-in-fact, in my stead and for my benefit. As my attorney-in-fact, Sam Statler shall exercise power as fiduciary, including the power to receive and deposit funds in any financial institute, to withdraw funds by check or otherwise pay for goods and services. If necessary— Alarmed, she flips to the last page, seeing Margaret’s signature at the bottom, next to a notarized stamp, dated two weeks ago. Signed, executed, and immediately in effect.
No, she thinks, her skin suddenly clammy.
His mother signed the papers. He got $2 million of his father’s money. And then he left. She laughs and then drops the folder and reaches into her back pocket for her phone. The call goes straight to voice mail.
“Hello, dear husband,” she says, her voice breaking with anger. “You’re probably occupied at the moment, toying with whatever unknowing victim you’ve seduced this time, but I wanted to call and congratulate you. You did it, Sam, the one thing you tried so hard to avoid. You ended up just like your father.”
Chapter 41
Fuck.
Sam stares at the patches of torn wallpaper clinging to the wall.
Fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck.
He’s losing his mind.
He can’t lie here anymore under the weight of these casts, confined to what he’s been told is the number-one-ranked mattress-in-a-box two years in a row. He can’t stand how badly his legs itch or one more day of pretending to love frozen crinkle-cut french fries, sweet-talking Albert to save his own life. But he especially hates the sorrow he feels, missing Annie like this.
Well, maybe it’s time for Sam Statler to stop whining like a girl and do something about it.
Sam opens his eyes and laughs out loud. Well, look who it is. Teddy from Freddy, talking down to him from a glass booth. “Gee, Dad, what a great idea. I’ll just stand up and walk out of here. Why didn’t I think of that?” Sam listens. It’s quiet. “What am I supposed to do?” he whispers.
What any self-respecting man would do, his father whispers back. Man up and find a way out of that house.
Sam takes a deep breath. “Hey!” he shouts at the hallway. “Creepy dude! You home?”
You know he’s not home, Teddy says. You heard him leave in his car a half hour ago.