Bones Never Lie Read Online Free PDF

bootfalls loud in the stillness.
    The woman didn’t turn.
    “Sorry I couldn’t make it last night.” Cheerful as Mickey’s Marching Band.
    No response.
    I dragged a chaise close and positioned it parallel. Sat sideways, oriented toward the woman. “I like your new haircut.”
    Nothing.
    “The drive was good. I made it in under two hours.”
    Still no acknowledgment of my presence.
    “You sounded upset last night. Are you feeling better?”
    A bird landed on the rail. A nuthatch, maybe a waxwing.
    “Are you angry with me?”
    The bird cocked its head and regarded me with one shiny black eye. The woman crossed her ankles. The bird startled and took flight.
    “I was planning to come for Thanksgiving.” Still speaking to her profile. “That’s next Thursday.”
    “I’m aware of the date. I’m not an idiot.”
    “Of course you’re not.”
    A fly dropped onto the rim of the mug. I watched it test its way around the perimeter, feelers and front legs working the substrate. Tentative. Unsure what to expect. I felt total empathy.
    “Did you know that Carrauntoohil is Ireland’s highest mountain?” The woman unclasped her hands and laid them on the armrests. The skin was liver-spotted, the nails perfect ovals painted dusty rose.
    “I didn’t.”
    “It’s in County Kerry. Rises thirty-four hundred feet above sea level. Not much of a mountain, if you ask me.”
    I reached out and placed my hand on hers. The bones felt fragile beneath my palm. “How are you?” I asked.
    One cable-knit shoulder lifted ever so slightly.
    “You said you have something you want to share.”
    The woman’s free hand floated up, held, as though unsure of its purpose in rising. Dropped.
    “Are you unwell?”
    Again the shoulder.
    “Mama?”
    Deep gusty sigh.
    They say a daughter becomes some variation of her mother. A different reading of an old script. A new interpretation of an existing character.
    I studied the face so vigilantly preserved by creams and lifts and injections. By wide-brimmed hats in summer and long cashmere scarves in winter. The flesh was looser, the wrinkles deeper, the lids a bit droopy. Otherwise, it was the mirrored reflection I’d seen at the CMPD. The green eyes, the set jaw.
    The air of tension. Of guardedness.
    I knew I resembled my mother physically. But I’d always believed the similarity ended there. That I was an exception. A contradiction to the rule.
    I was not my mother. I never would be.
    Physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists. So many diagnoses. Bipolar. Schizoaffective. Schizobipolar. Disorder of the moment. Choose your favorite.
    Lithium. Carbamazepine. Lamotrigine. Diazepam. Lorazepam.
    No medication ever worked for long. No treatment ever stuck. For weeks my mother would be the warm, vibrant person I loved, a woman who brought sunshine into every room she entered. Happy, funny, clever. Then the demons would claim her again.
    Bottom line: my mother is as loony as a bag of squirrels.
    Throughout my childhood, each time the blackness descended, Mama would pack her Louis Vuittons; kiss my sister, Harry, and me; and disappear in the old Buick with Daddy at the wheel. Later Gran.
    But there were no public hospitals for Daisy Brennan, née Katherine Daessee Lee. Over the years Mama visited dozens of private facilities, each with a name that promised healing in the bosom of nature. Silver Birch. Whispering Oaks. Sunny Valley.
    Mama never made an encore appearance. Always something was lacking. The food. The room. The attentiveness of the staff.
    Until Heatherhill. Here the menu suited, and she had her own room and bath. And after so many visits, she was now welcome to stay as long as she liked. As long as the Lee family trust ponied up.
    Mama spoke without meeting my eyes, voice low and honeyed as Charleston in August. “ ‘In that other room I shall be able to see.’ ”
    The quote sent cold rippling across my chest. “Helen Keller.” Mama loved Keller’s story, retold it often when Harry