speak with me, I find out the hard way what is going on with my daughter. He’s tall and thin, with thick glasses and a balding head. He sports a Christmas sweater and tweed slacks and isn’t at all what I expected.
He introduces himself, and while respectful, he dodges every question I throw at him. Throughout our conversation, he remains evasive, skirting around answering my many questions. But he doesn’t hold back at all in peppering me with his. Most of them revolve around some brownies Lucy is said to have consumed at my house. Had I made them? And if I had, where had I purchased the ingredients?
No, I had not. I explain Blair’s accident. Then I tell him about all the meals we had delivered by friends and neighbors.
According to the detective, Lucy posted a selfie to Instagram with a pan of brownies from our kitchen, captioning the photo with perks of the job. Not long after, while texting back and forth with her boyfriend, she mentioned that she felt sick. Then there was a bit of joking back and forth between the two of them. In her final text, she joked that it served her right for eating our food.
The detective explains that Lucy’s organs are failing one by one, and she has gone into sepsis. Arsenic was detected in both her blood and urine, and her prognosis is quite grim.
It suddenly becomes crystal clear, at least to me, what has happened. Blair despises brownies. She wouldn’t have touched them. But Naomi had been consuming small portions that Greg or I had doled out over the past several days. Lucy finished off the entire pan.
The point at which he asks if I have proof the brownies were delivered is the point when my cool facade fades. My back against the wall, I sink down into the hard plastic chair in the emergency room waiting area. Tears well in my eyes as I realize this is never going to end. There is no limit to the amount of damage that can be done. Through sobs, I relay everything, all the stuff about Mooney I can think of. I choke out words that all sound jumbled. Everything blends together. He’s ineffective, but he tries to calm me. He has obviously seen the police reports about the harassment, about Mooney delivering donuts to the girls’ school.
He plays good cop, explaining that he is here to help. Like Greg, he too seems to suffer an allergy against tears. It is clear when he firmly asks again how we might track the brownies. I give him Dana’s number and Sarah’s number and send him a link to the care calendar online.
I can see that he doesn’t believe me, and while I realize that is his job, the insinuation that I would—that I could—poison not only our beloved babysitter, whom I have known since she was a kid herself, but also my own daughter, is too much. It enrages me. And at the same time, I feel dead inside.
All along the police have been of little help. I offer this to him in explicit detail, explaining everything that I have been through, saying that it is next to impossible to get a restraining order in the state of Texas unless you have had a relationship of a sexual or romantic nature. Through gritted teeth, I ask him for an explanation as to why in most cases jurors’ names are not kept anonymous. He listens carefully, but offers no answers, and little to no sympathy. In the end, he seems eager to end the conversation. He tells me he plans to follow up on the leads I have given him, including the info about Jack Mooney, and that he’ll be in touch, and then he leaves.
Greg finally arrives. Just watching him come through the double doors provides a calming effect. Before he sees me, I note his expression. It’s pained and worried and tired. But when his eyes find mine, everything shifts. He offers a small smile, and I think, this is why I married you. This is why I am still married to you. This is why I cannot live without you.
Naomi is treated with Dimercaprol, and the doctors say as long as she doesn’t have any adverse side effects she will be able to go home as early as tomorrow. Once she was settled on a floor, Greg sends me to pick up Blair. He’s staying overnight with Naomi so I can