to her when she was only trying to help. “And then what?”
“I tried to keep an eye on Kenny, but your mother was always around watching like a hawk. It was like she didn’t trust me to be alone with him. Even though Kenny was an adult, he said his mother took care of all his medical decisions. It concerned me that Kenny didn’t have much input in his own care. He was very outspoken in all other things, but as far as the medical stuff, he just let your mother take care of him. I don’t know if you remember this, but he was displaying some troubling symptoms. A lot of them could also have been from the Cerebral Palsy, but the kind he told me he had didn’t lend credence to this.”
I was curious now because as I scoured through my memories, I vaguely remember a few times when something seemed off with Kenny, but I couldn’t quite figure out why. And every time I’d asked, he would wave it off and say he was fine. “Could you tell me what those symptoms were?”
“Facial tick, labored breathing, slurred speech. That’s just off the top of my head. There were other more subtle symptoms, but I couldn’t be sure unless he had proper tests, and it was just a guess even though in his age range it shouldn’t have been likely.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I believed that there was something else going on with Kenny besides the Cerebral Palsy, and he believed it too. So he asked for my help. He was starting to feel worse. Kenny felt helpless because his mother refused to listen, and he’d already figured out that Dr. Laski was a fraud. He says he even tried to tell you, but you brushed him off. Kenny did some digging into how much control his mother actually had over his medical decisions. With Kenny being in his twenties, I was surprised he hadn’t questioned her until then, but I get how difficult it is for some people to go against their parents.” Frankie paused to squeeze the bridge of her nose and released a sigh.
“Sorry, I’m going on a tangent. Anyway, when your mother was at one of her lunches, Kenny invited me over, and we went through the house searching for paperwork to see what kind of conservatorship she had over Kenny’s records. Basically, all we found were documents that Kenny signed giving the doctor permission to discuss his medical information with her. She always went to his appointments and always took over. Kenny let her because he thought at the time she was at least doing right by him, and it seemed to make her happy. At least that was the reasoning he gave me. Anyway, once we realized she didn’t actually have any say over his medical decision because Kenny was an adult of sound mind, I got an appointment for him with a neurologist at hospital where I worked.”
“When it came time for that appointment, Kenny convinced your mother to be out of the house around the time of his appointment, and I picked him up and took him to the doctor. Kenny called me as soon as he got the results. He was so upset, and he asked for my help. He wanted out of your mother’s house. At the time I had my own crisis with Adam. I think I told you that my brother had some issues which is why I didn’t see him often. The truth is, he was addict and had recently OD’d. I wanted to get him into a treatment facility, but the one I was considering was expensive. Kenny knew this and offered a proposal. We’d get married, and I would become his caretaker so that your mother wouldn’t be able to contest me being in charge of medical and financial decision. And in turn, I would get the money to get Adam into rehab.”
I knew there was still a lot missing from the story, but the fact that she had gotten money from my brother instead of coming to me with her problem hurt. I was really fucking hurt, and I wasn’t okay with this. I tried to bite my tongue so that she could finish, but I couldn’t help blurting out what was on my mind. “I fucking adored you! I would have given you anything you asked for. Why—”
“Why didn’t I come to you? Because every time I brought up Kenny, you