Part 2 — What Gabriel Found at Dinner
I moved my mother back to the guest room before Gabriel came downstairs.
I changed the sheets. I replaced the nightstand. I organized her medications. I filled a glass of water from the kitchen and set it within reach. I helped her out of the basement slowly, one step at a time, because the stairs were steep and her body was working against itself in the way that chemotherapy forces a body to work against itself, fighting the disease by fighting everything else along the way.
Mom did not complain. She did not describe what the four days in the basement had been like. She simply held my arm and climbed the stairs and lay down in the bed that should have been hers the entire time and closed her eyes.
I asked her if Gabriel had given her meals.
She told me he brought food twice a day. She told me it was left on the top step of the basement stairs because he told her he did not want to go down there.
