“Does she live here?” Valerie waved a dismissive hand, the gold bracelet catching the light as she did.

“Downstairs,” she said.

“In the basement.

She has severe dementia, poor thing.

I have to give her extra sleep aids so she doesn’t wander around and bother the paying tenants.” I have to give her extra sleep aids.

So she doesn’t bother the paying tenants.

The words landed in me one at a time, each one colder than the last, and it took everything I had, every ounce of the professional composure I had spent a decade building, to keep my face still and my voice light and my hands from shaking.

Because my mother did not have severe dementia.