nurse bustled in. “I’m afraid our time’s up,” she announced with exaggerated cheer. “Doctor made us promise to keep our visit short this evening, and now we need our nap.”
Carolyn rose from her chair, and picked up her purse, while Tracy leaned over to kiss her grandmother. Abigail accepted the kiss, but her eyes remained fixed on the nurse. “I made no such promises,” she announced. “Furthermore, I have no intention of taking a nap. I intend to talk to my son for a few more minutes. ”
“Mrs. Sturgess—” the nurse began.
“It won’t work, Nurse,” Phillip said, sighing and lowering himself into the chair his wife had just vacated. “Better to give her a few more minutes than waste your time arguing with her, and end up giving in to her anyway.”
“But Doctor said—”
“Doctor was a stupid child, and I can’t imagine that he’s grown into a much brighter adult,” Abigail announced. “Now please leave me alone with my son.”
The nurse hesitated, then gave up. Besides, she privately agreed with Abigail Sturgess’s assessment of the doctor, and from what she’d seen of Mrs. Sturgess in the two hours since she’d arrived in the hospital, she suspected the old woman was a lot stronger than the doctor thought. “All right,” she said. “But please, Mrs. Sturgess, not all night, okay?”
Abigail nodded slightly, and offered her hand to Carolyn when the younger woman made as if to kiss her on the cheek. “I expect to be home in a few days,” she said. “I shall have to trust you to supervise Hannah until then. Please tell her—”
“I’m sure Hannah knows exactly what to do, Abigail,” Carolyn interjected. “Just try to relax, and get well, all right?”
Abigail’s lips tightened, but she didn’t speak again until Carolyn and Tracy had followed the nurse out of the room and the door was shut. “As if she really wants me to get well,” she began, but this time Phillip cut her off.
“Of course she wants you to get well, Mother,” he said. “But sometimes I can’t imagine why, considering the way you treat her. Now, what is it you want to tell me that you wouldn’t say in front of Carolyn?”
“And Tracy,” Abigail pointed out.
“Indeed?” Phillip asked. “Somehow I thought it was mostly Carolyn you wanted to be rid of.”
Abigail shook her head. “Not this time. What I have to say, I shall say only to you.” Her head turned, and her eyes fixed on her son with an intensity Phillip had rarely seen. “Phillip, you must close the mill.”
Phillip groaned. “For God’s sake, Mother. This is absolutely ridiculous. I thought when Father died, we could be done with all that nonsense. Please don’t you start in on it now. Besides, it’s far too late to change our minds. The investment is too big, and the contracts have been signed. I couldn’t cancel them, even if I wanted to, which I don’t. There’s no way—”
“If you don’t close the mill, more people will die there,” Abigail interrupted. “It isn’t going to stop, Phillip—don’t you see? It happened to Conrad Junior, and now it’s happened to Jeff Bailey—”
“Jeff Bailey’s death was an accident—nothing more. It’s been investigated, and there’s no evidence of anything other than the fact that he tripped, and fell on a pick.”
“Which is almost exactly what happened to your brother,” Abigail replied.
“And that was more than forty years ago, Mother. We’ve been through all this before.”
Abigail reached out and clutched Phillip’s hand. “And what about me?”
Phillip eyed her impatiently. “You? Mother, you yourself said that what happened to you could as easily have happened at home or anywhere else.”
“I lied,” Abigail said softly.
Phillip leaned forward. “You lied?”
“I didn’t want to frighten Tracy, or talk about it in front of your wife, but something happened today.” She looked at Phillip again, and he thought he saw something in her eyes that he’d never seen there before.
Fear.
“I saw something down there, Phillip. I can’t tell you exactly what it was, because I can’t truly remember it. But I know that this afternoon, when I was in the basement of the mill, I was in the presence of death. I could see it, and I could hear it, and I could feel it. It’s there, Phillip. Death lives in the mill, and if you don’t close it, it will kill us all.”
Phillip sat still, wondering what to say to his mother. Was it possible that her age was finally catching up with her, and she was beginning