“We received a report about the possible exploitation of an elderly woman. We need to speak with her privately.”
“Of course.”
I let them in.
When we entered Susan’s room, she was sitting upright against the pillows.
The officer approached her.
“Ma’am, are you staying here voluntarily?”
“Yes.”
“Has Jake forced you to remain here?”
“No.”
“Has he ever asked you for money?”
“No.”
“Has he ever pressured you to sign any documents?”
Susan gave a faint smile.
“That boy won’t even let me reimburse him for groceries.”
Tom interrupted.
“Ask her why he locks himself in here with her every night.”
The room went silent.
Susan looked at Tom.
“Do you really want to know?”
Tom didn’t answer.
Susan turned her eyes toward me.
“Jake comes in here every evening and tells me stories about my son, Mark.”
Lisa’s expression changed.
“Mark?”
“Yes. The same Mark whose funeral ended, after which all of you went back to your own lives and left me alone.”
Nobody said a word.
I sat down on the chair.
Susan continued.
“Mark and Jake were best friends. And the night Mark died, Jake was sitting beside him in the car.”
For the first time, Tom was silent.
I could feel the air in the room becoming heavier.
Five years earlier, Mark and I had been driving home from a friend’s birthday party.
He was driving.
I was sitting beside him.
We argued.
Over something completely stupid.
I wanted him to take another road.
Mark refused.
I got angry and said,
“Just once in your life, listen to me.”
Those were the last words I ever said to him.
A few minutes later, another car cut across our path at an intersection.
I woke up in the hospital.
Mark never did.
The police explained that the accident had been almost impossible to avoid.
But only one thought kept repeating inside my head.
What if we hadn’t argued…
What if I hadn’t distracted him?
What if we had taken another road?
What if we had reached that intersection ten seconds later?
Maybe Mark would still be alive.
That was why I began avoiding Susan after the funeral.
I thought that every time she looked at me, she would see the man who had walked away alive from the car in which her son had died.
Susan looked at me.
“And now I’m going to tell you the thing I never told you.”
She asked Lisa to take her phone from her purse.
Lisa hesitated but did as she was asked.
Susan said,
“There’s a recording on it. Under Mark’s name.”
I froze.
“What recording?”
“One of his last voice messages.”
Susan had kept it for five years.
Lisa pressed play.
At first, all I heard was Mark laughing.
I recognized it immediately.
Then came his voice.
He had sent the message to his mother that same evening, shortly before leaving the birthday party.
Mark told her that I was going through a difficult time.
That after my mother died, I had withdrawn into myself.
Then his voice became serious.
“Mom, Jake is like a brother to me. If he ever starts thinking he’s alone, remind him that he isn’t.”
The recording ended.
I couldn’t move.
Susan spoke softly.
