Page 295 of Mayhem and Minnie

My mother goes into a long monologue about how much Julien meant to her and how hard she’s taking his death. Minnie does her best to console her, hurrying through the conversation since I’m getting more feverish by the second.

“And then I couldn’t get in touch with Marlowe and I feared the worst. Oh, Minnie, thank you so much for calling.”

“Actually, I called because I wanted to ask you something,” Minnie says.

“Yes, go ahead, dear.”

“This might sound strange, but when Marlowe was a baby, or anytime during his childhood, did you take him to see a”—she pauses as she searches for the right words—“a mystic of some sort.”

“A mystic?” My mother echoes. “Of course not. We don’t believe in that sort of thing.”

“Then was he ever sick as a child? Something that the doctors couldn’t treat?”

There’s a pause on the other line.

“Now that you mention it, he was. I think he was around three. He got this awful fever that wouldn’t go down with any medication. The doctors didn’t know how to treat it. They even claimed he was not going to survive it. But why do you ask?”

“And how did he get better?” Minnie asks.

“It was such a lucky thing. There was a doctor from Boston who came all the way up to New York to see him. She’d been working on a new treatment for pediatric fevers, and she wanted to see if she could help him. The treatment was successful from the first try. That dear woman didn’t even want to accept any payment. She said she was just doing her duty. The funny thing is that after that illness, whatever it was, Marlowe was never sick again. Not even a common cold. It was a miracle.”

Minnie freezes. She meets my gaze and I know what she’s thinking.

The word duty is awfully familiar, is it not?

“And this doctor. Who was she? What was her name?”

“I don’t remember. It was twenty-five years ago,” Mother answers.

“Can you tell me anything about her? How did she look? Anything that you thought was out of the ordinary?”

“Why are you asking about this, Minnie? Is my son all right? Did something happen?”

“I’m fine, Mother,” I call out, struggling to keep the tremor out of my voice. “Please answer Minnie. This is important.”

“She was in her forties, I think. Lovely lady. But she only stayed in town for a few days. When Marlowe got better, she left.”

“Nothing strange at all?”

My mother takes a moment to think.

“Not really. I suppose it was a bit odd that she used a quill to write down her notes. I mean, who does that anymore?” She laughs. “Even twenty-five years ago, that seemed rather ancient to me.”

“A quill? I see. That was everything I needed to know. Thank you, Simone.”

“Thank you, Mom,” I say. Then, before I can lose my courage—or before this strange illness overtakes me, I say something I don’t ever remember saying before. “I love you.”

“Marlowe! Ah, my darling. I love you too, baby! Please come back to visit soon, all right?”

“All right,” I croak.

“We’ll talk to you later, Simone. Thank you for this, and I’m sorry about Julien. Please take care of yourself.”

Minnie hangs up and the phone falls from her hands.

“A quill,” she repeats. “As in a feathered pen.”

“You don’t think that…”

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