Chapter 8 - My Mother Said Frank Had Frightened Her Before
I visited Elaine at rehabilitation two days later.
No uniform.
No aides.
No command staff.
Just:
daughter.
Her first question:
“Is Frank okay?”
I almost laughed.
“Physically?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Then:
“What happened?”
She knew only fragments.
I told her.
Not graphic.
Enough.
She started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I knew he was getting worse.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does worse mean?”
She looked toward the window.
Then told me.
Three months earlier, during an argument over the classic car, Frank had punched:
the garage wall
beside her.
Not:
her.
Two months earlier:
he took her phone during an argument and put it in his patrol bag because she was:
“calling people to gang up on him.”
He returned it twenty minutes later.
Then:
a month before the stroke,
Frank became furious when Elaine said she wanted to speak with a financial adviser alone.
He opened his gun safe.
Not threatened:
her.
Just stood there checking weapons while arguing.
My mother said:
“I knew what he was doing.”
“What?”
“Reminding me he was the one with the gun.”
My entire body went cold.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She looked at me.
“I did.”
No.
Then I remembered.
Her text:
Frank is being impossible again. Can you call when you have time?
I called:
three days later.
We talked fifteen minutes.
Mostly about:
her blood pressure.
I asked:
“Everything okay with Frank?”
She answered:
“You know how he gets.”
I said:
“Yeah.”
Then changed:
subjects.
She had told me.
Not clearly.
But she had reached.
May you like
I had not listened long enough.
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