Publish Novellas 2 December 2022
EPISODE 2 – WHODUNIT
The only way to determine the true cause of his sister’s mysterious death is to confront those dear to Thomas in this short story conclusion.
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Switching Theories
Afraid of what he’ll find, Thomas begins a pursuit to locate the syringe, hoping if he was right and one of them did this, the person would not have destroyed it. Days transpire as he goes room to room He’s trying to be covert, starting with his most likely suspects. It is a big family. Eleven rooms in total. His mother’s room is the last to check.
No way! He hates that he suspects his dear mother. But she’s the last to be ruled out. If he finds nothing, and he hopes he doesn’t, he’d go on to follow other leads he may discover until he can confidently conclude Sheryl’s surprise kidney failure and heart attack were indeed natural.
But digging through dear mother’s personal items, Thomas doesn’t find the syringe. What he finds, however, knocks the life out of him.
“What in God’s name is this?” he mouths, holding a small bottle of a clear liquid. The label says: potassium chloride. Thomas gasps in shock then digs out his phone where he googles the chemical. Search results, quite tragically, come back with said chemical being a perfect recipe for kidney failures and heart attacks. Without a trace.
Thomas freezes to the spot, horrified with adrenaline flooding his bloodstream, wondering into the mystery of what exactly that means.
His heart thumping ruthlessly against his ribs, he feels it starting to hurt—the typical heartache a love of family ever so frequently births. This can’t be what I think it is, Thomas muses, carefully dropping the bottle on the nightstand and proceeding to keep searching through dear mother’s stuff.
It takes a long while, but he comes to a brown envelope containing medical receipts, receipts that indicate dear mother had for about a year, been suffering a severe potassium deficiency.
“Darn it!” Thomas now recalls her often being sick… all those symptoms. This must be why.
Apparently, her doctor had prescribed her Silyl potassium chloride, something that she’d been secretly injecting periodically, just like Sheryl did with her insulin.
But why hide this from me, mother? Mulling, the implication of this only inflating his anguish, Thomas wonders if perhaps, the vials had been switched by mistake, or did his mother discover a convenient way to end Sheryl’s incessant bickering?
Only one way to find out.
Familial Confrontation
Thomas storms out of the room, his nerves getting the best of him, and his fear making all of his decisions.
“Mom!” he hollers, climbing down to the kitchen where he finds her making pie with Gran.
“Poor boy,” Gran says in her frail voice, right on her feet as though they were insusceptible to the horrid joint aches that came with old age. “You look terrible. What’s wrong with you?”
Thomas holds up the bottle of Silyl potassium and the medical receipts. Dear mother, a tall, caffeinated woman with deep-set eyes, stands there looking grim. Gran doesn’t act surprised, and Thomas knows straightaway she already knew of her sickness.
Feeling somewhat betrayed, angst evident on his face, he says bluntly:
“This is the drug that killed Sheryl—mom…, Gran. It leaves no trace behind. It’s why the Medical Examiner found no evidence of foul play. I woulda bet heavily on it, and you had it all this time? Tell me this truth, did you kill Sheryl because she found out something she shouldn’t?”
Thomas feels like welling up but he’s barely got any eye moisture remaining; the tragedy has rendered his glands reluctant to produce anymore. “Or tell me this must be some sick accident!”
Dear mother suddenly begins crying, weakly leaning against the aisle for support. Thomas stands there, freezing again until Gran nears him and solemnly says:
“It was an accident, love. You figured it out… it was a wrongful switch that's brought us this tragedy. There’s no way in heaven my daughter will hurt her own daughter, do you understand that?”
“What are you saying? Are you—”
“Your mother made a mistake! One big mistake, child, and she’ll live with it for the rest of her life. As will I, for I’m privy to it.”
Thomas’ lacrimal glands finally make way for a few drops.
“You knew all this time?” he yells, “You knew she did this and lied to me? You swore to me Sheryl died of natural causes and here you are, your holier-than-thou attitude all stripped away!”
Gran frowns. But her compassion is crystal clear.
“I’m not perfect, I know it. Always have. You want your mother arrested for an honest accident? Go right ahead and call the cops. It was pointless. I kept the truth because it was just me your mother could trust and the last thing we wanted was to put the burden of such a secret on you. We—”
“That’s enough!” Thomas says, feeling like he’s just been hit by a truck.
His head is heavy from bearing the truth. Having thought he'd feel better if he finally learned the secret of what happened to Sheryl, he walks away, knowing at that very moment nothing could be further from the truth.
The End
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