don't you?"
Barbro tilted her head to observe me from another angle. "If my recollection is right, Emily, I think I've enjoyed writing greeting cards. No pressure. Few deadlines. And I've gained celebrity in a behind-the-scenes kind of way. Did you know I penned the saying 'Have a nice day'?"
"Mom mentioned that! Do you know how many languages it's been translated into? Do you receive royalties on foreign translations?"
But Barbro wasn't paying attention to me any longer. She was staring at my cell phone on the bed. "I suppose you'll have to call the police to report what I've done. I just wish I could remember all the details so I could give them a full confession."
Aw, that was so sweet!
"They won't prosecute if she's suffering from dementia, will they?" Britha asked me.
Barbro eyed her sister. "Why did we buy rubbing alcohol in the first place? I wanted to buy insect repellent, but you insisted we buy alcohol. Why was that?"
"We could use the rubbing alcohol to treat the bug bites if we got any," Britha explained. "And the alcohol was cheaper than the fly dope, remember?"
"What I remember is, we couldn't read any of the labels to figure out which bottles were the antibug ones. You just went straight for the rubbing alcohol."
Britha shrugged. "It's always a good idea to have a strong medicinal disinfectant at hand. It also comes in handy for removing adhesive from fabric and ugly water spots from mirrors."
"But the bottle is empty. I didn't use it up. Did you?"
Unease flitted across Britha's face. "I told you yesterday. I knocked the bottle over and accidentally spilled it."
"Where?" Barbro shot back.
"On...on the bathroom floor!"
"Liar!" Barbro gasped. "There was a full bottle sitting on the shelf over the sink when I got up to use the john last night!"
Unh-oh. Could it be Britha who was suffering the stage one dementia?
"Oh, my stars!" screamed Barbro. "It was you! You did it! You've broken the Sixth Commandment!"
"I have not!" Britha screamed back. "I would never commit adultery!"
Oops. Wrong Commandment.
"The Fourth Commandment!" cried Barbro.
"I always obeyed our parents!" Britha flung back.
I rolled my eyes. Catholics might be notoriously unschooled in Bible verse, but we made up songs to help us remember the Commandments. "Try Fifth Commandment," I urged Barbro.
"You've broken the Fifth Commandment!" she wailed.
"You killed Philip Blackmore!"
"I did not! You have no evidence. You can't prove a thing! All you have to go on is what Emily says, and she thinks everyone is guilty!"
"That's not true!" I protested. "I never accused Nana. Or Mom. Or George. Or Jackie." But hold on. Barbro was claiming that Britha killed Philip Blackmore? That made no sense. That made no sense at all.
I raised a finger in the air. "Excuse me? Why would Britha want to kill Philip? I don't quite understand the motive."
Barbro made a wild gesture toward her sister. "Because he...!" She hesitated. "Because she...!" She lowered her arm and stared curiously at her sister. "Darned if I know. Why'd you do it, Brit?"
Britha Severid's face flushed red as a cinnamon bear. Her eyes popped wide. Her mouth started to twitch. She glowered at her sister and screeched in a voice like an insane Teletubby, "Because of you! I did it because of you!"
Barbro looked stricken. "Oh, my Lord! What have you done? You didn't have to kill him because of me! I haven't suffered mental distress because of his rejection. He didn't ruin my life!"
"Your life? You idiot! He ruined my life!"
Okay, now I was really confused.
"What do you mean he ruined your life?" Barbro challenged. "You didn't send a manuscript to him. He didn't reject you!"
"But he rejected you, didn't he?" Britha crowed. "And then I had to live with you all these years! Do you know what it's been like? Listening to you try to rhyme every goddamn word in the dictionary?"
Barbro clapped her hand over her mouth. "Blasphemy!" she scolded. "Third Commandment! Third Commandment!" She looked at me for confirmation. I shook my head and held up two fingers. "Second Commandment! Second Commandment!"
"You couldn't just talk like everyone else, could you?" Britha reproached. "Noooo. You had to rhyme everything. Mumma and Papa thought you were so cute. Well, you're not cute! You're a raving lunatic! An aberration! A freak of nature! And Philip Blackmore made you that way! If he'd bought your book, you might have ended up normal. But you're not normal, and it's all his fault! He's to blame. I'm not sorry I killed him! He