Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
“Would you have? I’m not so sure Nick. But does it really matter? I couldn’t trust you with this, and at the time I felt I had to choose between you and my brother. I had promised our parents to look after him. It was a promise I took seriously. Anyway, I was in desperate situation as was Kenny. He had some suspicions about your mother.”
“What are you talking about?” It took me a moment for my head to jump back to the original conversation because I wanted to find out more about what had gone wrong between me and her, but I needed to remember the reason why I’d come.
“Kenny had trusted your mother up until she found out that she was lying to him about having complete control of his medical decisions. She’d had him so convinced that she had this control that he never questioned it. And it may have seemed like something very simple and easily disputed, but when someone has been taking care of you all their lives and telling you certain things, there’s a certain amount of brainwashing involved. Anyway, as soon as he knew he was free to seek treatment elsewhere, I got him an appointment as I said.”
“How did you manage to do that? I’m sure my mother couldn’t have made it easy for you. How did you pull it off?”
“As I mentioned, your mother had her weekly luncheons with her social group. Kenny knew she’d be gone for a few hours, so that’s when we scheduled his appointments. We made sure that any results would only be discussed with him. There were three appointments in all – two with the original neurologist and the third for a second opinion.”
“What are you getting at, Frankie?”
“Kenny’s Cerebral Palsy had masked his real condition. I didn’t want to be right because typically that kind of illness doesn’t occur until someone hits their 40s.”
“Just spit it out.”
“Kenny had ALS, and it was progressing pretty quickly. He knew he had about two, three years tops. That medication he was taking was what caused his seizure, and he’d been taking it so long that it probably exacerbated his condition. Your mother had to know that she was making him sicker. She wanted him to be sick so bad that she actually didn’t realize that he’d actually become sick. She’d been slowly poisoning him for most of his life. My instinct was to go to the police, but Kenny didn’t want that. He said she was a sick woman. There’s a term for what she has actually, Munchausen by Proxy. He just wanted to get away from her and live the rest of his days in comfort. That’s why we got married. So I could get him away from your mother, and he would help me with my brother. Only the money he gave to me for my brother, my brother ended up taking and disappearing. But I kept my end of the bargain because he needed me, and I’d already lost you.”
A lone tear slid down her cheek and had to ball my fists in my lap to prevent myself from reaching out for her. I doubted my touch would be welcome, especially now when I realized how much she’d sacrificed.
A long silence fell between us. It was a lot to process. All these emotions welled within me: anger at Frankie and Kenny for shutting me out when I’d loved them both; shame for feeling jealous of their connection; guilt for neglecting him and for treating her the way I had; and most of all, rage toward my mother for what she’d done. My sister’s cryptic words finally made since. Had my mother tried to make her sick as well?
I stood up abruptly.
“There are no words I have for you right now, Frankie. I’ve treated you so horribly. I let my brother down. I lost the last years with my brother because I was too blind to see what was going on. I…I don’t have the words right now to offer you the apology you deserve. But I’ll be back Frankie because you and I have unfinished business, and we both know it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Nick
I wasn’t a fan of the country club because it was full of pompous jackasses who had more money than common human decency. But I kept my membership to entertain clients for my business and for my mother who enjoyed having luncheons here. It was why I chose this location to meet her.
I fully expected her to put on a show and make a grand entrance as she normally did, so when I walked into the dining area and headed to our reserved table, I was surprised to actually see her sitting at the table. She casually sipped from a martini glass as she scrolled through her telephone. As I approached, she must have noticed me and put her phone away.