Chapter 7 - The Stairs
The tea soaked my carpet. Mom didn't seem to notice.
"He told you it was my fault?" she asked the phone.
Nico was silent.
"What happened on the stairs?" I asked.
Mom pulled her sweater closed. "I tried to go to the front porch last month. Daphne had hidden the house phone again. She said I couldn't go outside until I signed some papers."
"What papers?"
"Something about a care facility. I wouldn't sign. I went for the door. She grabbed my arm on the stairs, and I fell."
Nico whispered, "I caught her before she hit the bottom."
"You caught my coat," Mom said. "You let me lie there afterward."
His breath crackled through the speaker. "I was scared."
"So was I," she answered.
He hung up.
June asked us to write down the account while it was fresh. Ms. Boone arranged to interview Mom privately again. Both were clear: allegations had to be investigated; anger did not replace evidence.
Later, the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Daley, returned a call I'd left. She told me she'd heard arguments but hadn't known what was happening inside. She'd noticed Mom stopped sitting on the porch, and she had seen a hired caregiver leave in tears in February.
"I kept her number," Mrs. Daley said. "Something felt wrong."
She texted it to me. The caregiver's name was Asha Reed.
Asha answered on the second ring. When I explained who I was, she went silent.
"Your mother still alive?" she finally asked.
"Yes. She's with me."
I heard Asha exhale. "Thank God. I was fired for refusing to leave her without supper. I wrote everything down."
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"Can you talk to our attorney?"
"I can do better," she said. "I kept the messages Daphne sent me. Including the one telling me to lie about your mother's fall."
