"What sort of facility?" Brenda asked.
"I looked it up just a few moments ago," she said. nodding at the computer.
"And? So?" Brenda pursued. "What is it?"
"A facility for the terminally ill," Mama told us.
No one spoke. It was as if we had all zone mute. Brenda finally stepped up to the desk and took the paper from Mama's hand to read. I stepped up beside her and read it, too.
"It's just outside Knoxville." Brenda said, and put the paper down on the desk,
"I don't understand," I said. No one spoke. so I whined. "I don't."
"None of us does. April," Brenda snapped at me. "so stop saying that."
I started to cry. I couldn't help it.
"I'll have to make some phone calls," Mama said.
Brenda and I sat on the leather settee and watched and listened.
Mama began by calling the facility. She asked if a patient named Matthew Taylor had been admitted. Whomever she spoke to didn't want to give her an answer immediately and passed Mama on to another person, who told her they didn't give out information about any of their patients over the phone.
"But I have to know if he's there. I'm his wife." Mama insisted.
"I'm sorry. That's our policy," she was told.
Frustrated, she hung up and thought, and then she looked up our family doctor's number. Of course, his office was closed, but he had an answering service. She told them it was an emergency and demanded that the doctor call her. The service told her they would contact our doctor. Dr. Brimly.
In the meantime, she called our financial manager and demanded to know how long payments had been made to this new health insurance company. He told her he had no information about it and that she would have to let him look things up when he got to his office in the morning.
"You know about it," Mama told him. "I know you know about it. Nick."
After she hung up, she nodded and told us he hadn't denied it.
"Why would he do this?" Brenda asked, shaking her head. "It's like some kind of conspiracy."
"A conspiracy of silence," Mama said. nodding.
The phone rang. It was Dr. Brimly. Mama immediately confronted him with questions about Daddy. She was crying as she asked the questions.
"What do you mean?" she cried, and just listened for the longest time. "I see," she said. "Thank you," she said, and hung up.
For a moment, we thought she wasn't going to tell us anything. "Mama?"
"He said your father first came to him
about having constant headaches. He started to treat him for migraines but very quickly realized it was more serious. He sent him to a specialist in Memphis, a Dr. William Kay, and that was the extent of his
knowledge of your father's problems. He said apparently your father ordered Dr. Kay not to give him any information. He said..." Mama hiccupped, trying to catch her breath. "He said he was sorry, but it all just fell through the cracks, and he never followed up. He said he had heard Daddy had left us, of course, but he didn't put it together with anything." "Headaches?" Brenda asked. Mama nodded.
"Well, what did he think was wrong with him? Why did he think it was more serious?" Brenda asked.
"He suspected he had a brain tumor,' Mama said.
She turned and looked out the window into the darkness. There was no moon, and the overcast sky had put a blanket over the stars.
"Mama?" I said. standing.