45

Piper went home. She had planned to be in court all day, but it looked like that wouldn’t be happening.

Lake was in the kitchen sitting at the breakfast table. She had a cup of tea in front of her and her hand on her forehead. As though in pain.

“Hi, Grandma.”

Her grandmother startled and said, “Oh! Sweetie. You scared me half to death.”

“Sorry,” she said, coming over to the table and setting her satchel down on the floor. “You feeling all right?”

“Just a headache, nothing to be concerned about,” she said, rising and turning away quickly from Piper. She took her teacup to the sink and ran the water. Piper could see there weren’t many dishes in the sink, but Lake started washing the couple there were. “How was your day?”

“That case I’ve been telling you about was crazy today. The defense attorney wouldn’t let the prosecutor get out a word edgewise. She may convince the judge that a former psychiatry professor at the top medical university in the world may not be qualified to testify about forensic psychiatry. She’s fierce.”

“You know,” she said, glancing back, “when I was younger, I wanted to be a lawyer.”

“Really?”

“I took the admissions test and did well, but back then women were discouraged from working in what were considered male professions. I went to watch a court proceeding and the prosecutor was a woman, and the judge told her that women need to wear skirts in court, not pants. I decided it wasn’t for me.”

“I’m not sure what I’d do if a judge said that to me.”

“It was a different world back then.”

Piper waited a moment. The sound of the water grew louder as it hit the bare metal of the sink. All the dishes had been washed and put in the dishwasher, but Lake cleaned the sink.

“Grandma, I want to ask you something.”

“Certainly.”

“Can you sit down, please?”

There was a moment’s hesitation and then Lake came over, drying her hands on a kitchen towel as she sat down and said, “What is it, dear?”

“You’ve been getting those headaches more frequently.”

“Have I? I think I’m just tired. The hot summers do that to me sometimes.”

“I’m not stupid, Grandma. What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing to worry about, sweetie.” She rose and kissed the top of Piper’s head. “I’m going to take a shower and lay down for a bit. Love you.”

“Love you,” Piper said absently.

Piper had gone to the doctor a few months ago for a sinus infection, and their family doctor had mentioned how her grandmother had come in. At dinner that night, Piper asked her grandmother about it, and she said it was something routine. But her grandmother came from a generation that didn’t go to the doctor until they were nearly on their deathbed. Piper knew she wouldn’t go in just for something routine.

Piper changed into jeans and a T-shirt before heading to her grandmother’s bedroom. She heard the shower running and quietly entered the bathroom. Inside, she opened the medicine cabinet, revealing a row of amber bottles on the second shelf. Familiar with her grandmother’s medications, she examined them.

There were six medications she knew she took, but there were eight bottles. She picked up the last two: donepezil and rivastigmine. She had never heard of them and quickly googled them. They were medications to help with cognitive decline, usually reserved for people with early-onset Alzheimer’s.

She put the medications back and left the room. She went to the breakfast table and googled the symptoms and progression of Alzheimer’s.

When her grandmother got out of the shower, she came out in a robe and got a glass of milk she filled from a carton.

“Grandma, have you been to Dr. Wilson lately?”

“Not for a few months. Why do you ask?”

“I saw some new medication in your cabinet.”

“How did you see that? Were you snooping in my things?”

“Grandma,” she said with a calm voice, “are you all right?”

“Yes. I am. Not that it’s any of your business. And if you go through my things again, you will regret it, Piper Danes.”

She stormed out of the kitchen, leaving Piper alone in the silence of the room.