With one last worried look, Victor walked away. I sat in the car for several minutes, holding the bag with the glass, feeling as if the world had collapsed on top of me. Tears streamed down my face, but they weren’t tears of sadness. They were tears of a cold, crystalline fury I had never felt before, a kind of rage that turns blood to ice and thoughts to precise, sharp-edged calculations.
I wiped my face, took a steadying breath, and picked up my phone. Nora answered on the second ring.
“You were right,” was all I said.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Nora knew. For months, she had tried to warn me about Rachel and Derek’s escalating financial problems, about how they had suddenly started getting closer after the sale of the hotels was announced. I didn’t want to believe it. I had preferred to think she was just a daughter rediscovering her love for her mother.
“How much time do you think we have?” Nora finally asked, her voice all business.
“Not much,” I said. “They’re going to try again.”
“What do you want to do, Helen?”
I looked at the glass inside the plastic bag, imagining my daughter’s hands, the same hands I had held as she learned to walk, pouring a substance into my drink. “I want them to pay,” I replied, my voice firmer than I ever thought possible. “Not with jail. That would be too easy, too public. I want them to feel every gram of the desperation they tried to force on me.”
The glass of juice was still with me, sealed in its plastic bag. The next morning, I took it to a private lab, the kind of place that doesn’t ask questions when you put a wad of hundred-dollar bills on the counter along with the sample.
“I want a full analysis, no questions asked. I need the results today,” I told the technician.
While I waited, I sat in a nearby cafe, the world feeling muted and distant. My cell phone rang. It was Rachel. “Mom, are you okay? You didn’t look too good last night.” Her voice dripped with manufactured concern, but now I could hear the falseness, the metallic edge behind every word.
“I’m fine, dear,” I replied, forcing a light, airy tone. “Just a little tired. I’m going to rest today.”
“Oh, good. I thought you might be… I don’t know, sick or something.”
Disappointed I’m not dead, I thought. But I said, “Not at all. I feel great.”