Chapter 13 — The Police Saw Everything

The sirens cut off in our driveway, and there was hard, official pounding at our front door.

Beatrice, frantic now, told Christopher to go send them away — to claim I was disoriented from anesthesia, that I had fallen in the hallway and grown hysterical and locked myself in the garage in my confusion.

She had a whole story, delivered in a fast whisper, and I watched Christopher’s face as he heard it, and I watched him understand that no story on earth could survive what was on that camera.

He unlocked the deadbolt.

Two uniformed officers stepped into the garage, two paramedics behind them, and they took in the scene at a glance: me on the concrete floor, my crutches thrown aside, and my mother-in-law standing there with my prescription bottle in her hand.