All Shall Be Well Read Free Page B

the flat, her hands twisting in her lap. Kincaid and Felicity looked at one another over Margaret’s head.
    Felicity knelt and took Margaret’s hands in hers. “Margaret, look at me. Jasmine’s dead. She died in her sleep last night. I’m sorry.”
    “No.” Margaret looked at Felicity in appeal. “She can’t be. She promised.”
    The words struck an odd note and Kincaid felt a prickle of alarm. He dropped down on one knee beside Felicity. “Promised? What did Jasmine promise, Margaret?”
    Margaret focused on Kincaid for the first time. “She changed her mind. I was so relieved. I didn’t think I could go through—” a hiccupping sob interrupted her and she shivered. “Jasmine wouldn’t go back on a promise. She always kept her word.”
    Felicity had let go Margaret’s hands and they moved restlessly again in her lap. Kincaid captured one and held it between his own. “Margaret. What exactly did Jasmine want you to do?”
    She went still and blinked at him, puzzled. “She wanted me to help her kill herself, of course.” She blinked again and the tears spilled over, and the words came so softly Kincaid had to strain to hear them. “Whatever will I do now?”
    Felicity rose, fetched a mug of luke-warm tea from the kitchen, stirred in some sugar, and carefully wrapped both Margaret’s hands around the cup. “Drink up, love. You’ll feel more yourself.” Margaret drank greedily until the cup was empty, unmindful of the tears slipping down her face.
    Kincaid pulled up a dining chair and sat facing her, waiting as she fished a wad of tissue from her skirt pocket and mopped at her eyes. Her pale eyelashes gave her a defenseless look, likea rabbit caught in a lamp. “Tell me exactly what happened, please, Margaret. I’d like to know.”
    “I know who you are,” she said, sniffing, studying him. “Duncan. You’re much better—” Then red blotches stained her fair skin and she looked down at her hands. “I mean …”
    “Did Jasmine tell you about me, then?” Jasmine had been very good at keeping her life compartmentalized, thought Kincaid. She had never mentioned Margaret to him.
    “Just that you lived upstairs, and came to visit her sometimes. I used to say she’d made you up, like a child’s imaginary friend, because I’d never—” the word ended on a sob and the tissues came up again, “seen you.”
    “Margaret.” Kincaid leaned forward and touched her arm, bringing her attention back to his face. “Are you sure that Jasmine meant to kill herself? She might have just been whistling in the wind, talking about it to make herself feel she had an option.”
    “Oh, no.” Margaret shook her head and hiccupped. “As soon as the reports came back that her therapy wasn’t successful, she wrote to Exit. She said she couldn’t face the feeding tube—all pipes and plugs, she called it—said she wouldn’t feel human any—” Margaret screwed up her face and pressed her fingers to her lips with the effort of holding back tears.
    Kincaid leaned forward encouragingly. “It’s okay. Go on.”
    “They sent all the information and we planned it out—how much she should take, exactly what she should do. Last night. It was to be last night.”
    “But she changed her mind?” Kincaid prompted when she didn’t continue.
    “I came as soon as I could get off work. I’d screwed myself up to tell her I couldn’t go through with it, but she didn’t even let me finish. ‘It’s all right, Meg,’ she said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve changed my mind, too.’ She looked … different somehow …happy.” Margaret looked at him with entreaty. “I believed her. I’d never have left her if I hadn’t.”
    Kincaid turned to Felicity. “Is it possible? Would she have been able to manage it herself?”
    “Of course, with these self-medicating patients it’s always a possibility,” she answered matter-of-factly. “That’s one of the risks you take with home care.”
    No one spoke for a moment.