LITMIR.BIZ

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always the danger of blood clots. She’s in recovery and I don’t expect her to be awake and talking much for several hours. Maybe you can see her very briefly this evening.

      I recommend you go home for the next few hours at least. I have your contact information, in case anything develops. Go get some rest. I’ll check in on her during evening rounds, about six o’clock. The nurses will keep a close watch on her.”

      With this he turns and walks away.

      My mother and sister and I comfort one another with the fact that she is still with us and that’s a good sign. We make plans to meet back at the hospital at 5:45. Lucille calls home and tells the nanny that she’s on her way back. She calls her husband and brings him up to date then turns to me and, with a perfunctory hug, as if there had been no ugly scene earlier, she leaves with mom.

      I go to the nurse’s station and hand the duty nurse my card and underline my cell-phone number. I ask the nurse to call me as soon as my grandmother is awake, then I leave.

      I find a Starbucks in the neighborhood. It has WIFI. I order one of their healthy looking salads, although when I check the calories, I am taken aback. Healthy looking but 700 calories! I resolve to drink my coffee black, but don’t like the taste, so I use a “Sweet and Low” instead of sugar. Okay, so it only saves ten or twelve calories. I put the crackers back on the counter.

      The place is not too busy at the moment, so one of the plush armchairs is available. I turn on the I-phone.

      There are no messages except from Rudy. “Is everything alright? They said you’d be out of the office all week.” Rudy is a sweet guy and one of the few I’ve connected with at the office. I wish he were straight. I really like him.

      You’d think that in a forensic accounting office with mostly men, I could find someone interesting, or interested in me, but they’re mostly married and mostly too old for me.

      The young ones want action. I wouldn’t mind so much but I want at least the illusion that there is some interest in me as a person, not just as a one-night-stand. Also, they talk about the action they get, ad nauseam, and I don’t like the thought of being the subject of that kind of talk in my office.

      I text Rudy that my grandmother is in the hospital; it’s a matter of her heart. I assure him that I’ll let him know as soon as I know her prognosis and I thank him for thinking of me.

      I work in an office where we do research for litigation support and some investigation into crimes dealing with finance. I don’t carry a gun and most of my work is in the office, but some of my cases have been pretty interesting.

      When the stock manipulations in one case came to light, it caused a 500 Point drop in the stock market overnight, not to mention criminal charges and arrests of a number of people.

      More often, however, I deal with cases of divorcing couples where one, usually the husband, is trying to hide assets from the other, usually the wife.

      A suspicious nature is something my colleagues and I either come by naturally or soon develop in this line of work. It comes from seeing people’s greed, meanness and sometimes criminality at work on a regular basis. It doesn’t take much to set off my colleagues’ suspicions, that sense in the gut that something is up. It goes with the territory.

      I dig into my salad and promptly break the plastic fork. I guess I’m pretty tense. I get up for another, take a few bites of the salad and toss the rest in the trashcan. It’s one of those rare times when I don’t have an appetite.

      I look up the procedure for getting a new passport and decide to head for the Federal Building, but first I find a camera store where they take passport pictures. I figure I may as well get that out of the way.

      After spending a couple of hours at the Federal Building, I still have some time to kill. The Westside Pavilion is nearby so I head for it. I find a parking space and meander up to Macy’s.

      I pass the luggage department and spend a little time there. The suitcases I have are old hand me downs and they don’t even have wheels. Maybe I should get something new.

      I suddenly remember the bundle of cash in my bag but immediately stop myself. What a time for a splurge, with my grandmother lying in the hospital, I think guiltily! I thank the salesman and he hands me a brochure, which I slip into my bag. Maybe later I’ll come back. We’ll see.

      I may as well head back to Cedars Sinai. The traffic on Wilshire Boulevard is it’s usual mess but I’ve got time, so I settle down for the long drive.

      If I do take a leave, this might be a pretty good time to do it. I’ve just finished a major case. I’ve been with the firm for seven years. The idea of a break sounds pretty good, but will it be a break or another investigation? Is that why grandma picked me for this task?

      I’m sitting at a light and reach into my bag and feel around for the little picture. As I draw it out, I’m wondering if I can identify the military uniform and what country it’s from.

      I have a date to start with. It’s 1946, around the end of World War II. The military uniform doesn’t appear to be either American or German. I guess that figuring that out that will be step one.

      SALMA

      It’s cold and I’m only vaguely aware of the nurse at my bed, doing something, straightening my blanket, I think. Did I say something to her? I’ve been drifting in and out of a fitful sleep, losing track of where I am. The nurse asks me if I am in pain and I mumble an answer as I feel myself drifting off somewhere else, a place I remember.

      It’s cold and rainy. I’m in the woods. The smell of the wet ground, the dead leaves and the smoke of small fires all deluge my senses. There are people in little groups huddling together and a soft buzz of quiet conversation.

      Suddenly there’s noise, gunfire and shouting, a lot of it. Everybody scrambles. Someone grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet. Everyone starts to run. It’s like a stampede to get away. Yet, although I’m in a panic, I muffle the sound of my running footsteps, as I’ve learned to do. Even at a run, I’m careful where I step, using the soft, wet, rotting leaves to deaden the sound.

      I’ve come to recognize gunfire by now, and death too; the violent death of war and the slow tortuous death of starvation.

      I’m trying to remember, but it all dissolves and it disappears as I fall into a deeper sleep.

      I waken again and find myself alone this time. The pain isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, probably because of the medicine they’re giving me.

      I think of Clara and the letter I gave her, of drawing her into my unhappy past. It had to be her. If I can’t finish the task, she is capable of doing it. More than that, I trust her.

      Money doesn’t mean that much to her. The others, when I die they’ll turn greedy, as if they’re owed my money. Not Clara. She’ll honor my wishes. She’s never really asked me for anything. She’s done for herself, been self reliant, kind of like me. She’s not a grabber.

      I hope she’ll find them. Not Lisette, I know it’s too late for that, but whoever is left. God willing, someone is left! If it hadn’t been for me…she might have lived. I retreat to bitter memories, an old ache. I feel that I caused her death. That’s one thing you can’t ever undo. There’s no way. There’s no return from it.

      I know money can’t make up for it. How do you compensate for a loss like that? Restitution, compensation, how? That’s why I never applied for any of it. How can someone pay me for my losses, for the loss of my childhood, for my parents, for my lost innocence, for turning me into, a thief and more?

      Yet, somehow, I’m driven. I can’t explain it, neither to Clara nor to myself.

      ****

      I remember Lisette. She was a small wiry woman whose hands were always busy at some worthwhile task. They were never idle. She saved my life. When my aunt died, Lisette was without a job and times were tough for everybody.

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