Chapter 12 - My Name in Her Handwriting
The second form carried the same false signature. Under the box marked RELATIONSHIP, Beatriz had written GRANDMOTHER in thick, careful letters. She had listed her house as Nicolás's permanent address and herself as an alternate caregiver.
"I didn't authorize any of this," I told the hospital advocate.
"We'll keep it out of your active permissions and preserve it for review," she replied.
Daniel stood by the window, looking as if someone had taken his photograph and left the outline behind. "She told me she was just helping with paperwork."
"You keep saying that," I answered. "It's becoming a list of everything you chose not to check."
He did not argue. Instead he called the school and removed Beatriz from Alma's authorized pickup list. He sent Ruth the codes to our storage unit so she could retrieve clothes and Alma's favorite stuffed rabbit without returning to the house.
I gave a statement to an officer assigned to follow up on Ruth's emergency call. I told him about the missing phone, the blood, the curtain rod, the way Beatriz had delayed getting help. He listened without telling me whether the case would end in charges.
"We will document what people say and look for supporting records," he explained. "You don't need to solve this tonight."
Ruth sent a photo of the phone she'd recovered from the kitchen drawer while collecting my folder with Daniel's permission and an officer present. The screen was cracked, but it turned on. Her photograph showed the lock screen crowded with missed calls I couldn't remember placing.
"You were trying," she said when she came to visit. "Whatever anybody says now, you were trying."
I cried for that sentence more than I had cried during surgery. In my mind I was still in the bedroom, listening to someone call me lazy while my hands went cold.
May you like
Then Ruth showed me one more thing from the drawer: a sealed envelope addressed to a family-law office. On the front, in Beatriz's handwriting, was a note.
ASK ABOUT TAKING THE CHILDREN IF MARIANA IS UNFIT.
