When Teresa could tolerate a longer conversation, she remembered leaving the pharmacy and finding Victor near the entrance.

He had approached her with a warning: drop the reimbursement complaint, or he would tell authorities she was negligent and ask that Eli be removed from her care.

“I told him to leave us alone,” she said, her voice thin.

“I was frightened.

I tried to drive away.”

She recalled a man coming toward the car but not what followed.

The doctors cautioned Lena that memory after a brain injury could be incomplete and unreliable.