“He Asked Me If I’d Been Drinking”

“Mrs. Collins?”

The voice was so quiet I almost kept walking.

I turned around outside the neighborhood grocery store. A skinny teenage boy stood beside the shopping cart return, his hood pulled low over his forehead. He couldn’t have been older than sixteen.

He looked nervous.

“Your husband hired me.”

I tightened my grip on the grocery bag.

“I’m sorry?”

He glanced toward the parking lot before looking back at me.

“He pays me to watch you.”

For a second I honestly thought he had mistaken me for someone else.

My husband, David, was one of the most respected physicians in our county. We’d been married for twelve years. Patients sent him Christmas cards. Nurses called him the calmest doctor they’d ever worked with.

The idea sounded ridiculous.

“I think you’ve got the wrong person.”

The boy shook his head.

“Rachel Collins. Blue Subaru. Lake house from your dad. You stop for coffee every Thursday before volunteering at the library.”

He knew too much.

He swallowed hard.

“My name’s Marcus.”

He reached into his backpack and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.

It wasn’t a contract.

It was a handwritten list.

Monday—grocery store.

Tuesday—church.

Wednesday—visit neighbor.

Thursday—library.

Friday—lake house.

Each day had little notes beside it.

“Talked to cashier.”

“Forgot reusable bags.”

“Looked tired.”

Then I saw the last line.

“Possible memory issues.”

I stared at it.

“Where did this come from?”

Marcus looked embarrassed.

“Your husband tells me what to write.”

The Notes That Didn’t Belong to Me

We sat on a bench near the edge of the parking lot.

Marcus never asked me for money.

He kept apologizing instead.

“I sleep at the youth shelter most nights,” he said quietly. “Your husband said it was easy work. Just follow you around and text him what you did.”

I folded the paper carefully.

“How long?”

“Almost two months.”

Two months.

I tried to remember anything unusual.

David had started asking strange questions recently.

“Did you remember to lock the back door?”

“Didn’t you already tell me that story?”

“Are you sure you took your vitamins?”

At first I thought he was just worried.

Now those conversations felt different.

Marcus rubbed both hands together.

“Last week he asked me something else.”

I waited.

“He wanted me to tell him you’d been drinking during the day.”

I looked at him.

He lowered his eyes.

“But you weren’t.”

A long silence settled between us.

Then he added something I still think about.

“He said people believe things if they hear them enough.”

I felt the grocery bag slipping from my hand.

Inside it was a carton of milk and the blueberry muffins David liked with his morning coffee.

I set it on the bench beside me.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Marcus shrugged.

“Because he asked me yesterday if I’d be willing to lie in court.”

The Locked Drawer

David came home exactly at six.

He kissed my forehead.

“Long day?”

“Normal.”

I watched him loosen his tie while he asked about dinner.

Nothing about him looked different.

Nothing.

After he went upstairs to shower, I carried the groceries into the kitchen.

The blueberry muffins stayed on the counter.

For the first time in twelve years, I didn’t warm one for him.

Instead, I walked into his home office.

He normally locked the bottom drawer.

That afternoon, he hadn’t.

Inside were patient journals, tax folders, and a thick blue file with no label.

I opened it.

The first page stopped me cold.

Petition for Adult Guardianship.

My name appeared at the top.

Rachel Anne Collins.

Reason for petition:

Progressive cognitive decline.

Impaired judgment.

Inability to manage property.

My hands became strangely steady.

I kept turning pages.

There were pages describing conversations I’d supposedly forgotten.

Appointments I’d supposedly missed.

Times I’d supposedly become confused.

Some of them had never happened.

Others had been twisted just enough to sound believable.

Near the back sat a property appraisal.

Not our family home.

My father’s lake house.