“Yes,” I said, confused. “My son Steven checked it just last month. He tested it himself.”
“And your car? Do you run it in an attached garage? Sometimes people warm up their vehicles and don’t realize—”
“The garage is detached,” I interrupted. “And I barely drive anymore. My license was suspended after I got confused and went the wrong way on a one-way street.”
The doctor frowned, making notes on his tablet. “We need to identify the source of exposure. Carbon monoxide poisoning can be very dangerous, especially cumulative exposure like you’re experiencing.”
Steven arrived at the hospital an hour later, still in his work clothes even though he’d supposedly been laid off six months ago—something I wouldn’t learn until later. He smelled of expensive cologne, the kind that probably cost more than my grocery budget. He looked appropriately worried, his brow furrowed with concern, playing the devoted son perfectly.
He talked to the doctor in the hallway where I couldn’t hear their conversation, their voices low and serious. When he came back into my room, he sat on the edge of my bed and took my hand in his.
“Mom, the doctor thinks maybe you left your car running in the garage and forgot about it,” he said, his voice gentle and patronizing. “Do you remember doing that? It’s okay if you don’t. Memory problems are common with CO exposure.”
I tried to think back, tried to pierce through the fog that seemed to have taken permanent residence in my skull. Had I? My memory felt like a sieve lately, full of holes where information just poured right through. “I… I don’t think so. I don’t remember doing that.”
“You’ve been confused lately, Mom,” he said, squeezing my hand. “The doctors say this kind of exposure can cause memory issues, disorientation. It’s okay. These things happen at your age. What matters is that we figure it out and keep you safe.”
Steven drove me home from the hospital that afternoon. He made an elaborate show of checking every carbon monoxide detector in the house, pressing the test buttons, nodding with satisfaction when they beeped loud and clear.
“See, Mom?” he smiled, patting my shoulder. “All the detectors work perfectly. The house is safe. You’re safe now.”
He’d even brought me soup from my favorite deli and made sure I took my medications, writing out a new schedule to help me remember. He kissed my forehead when he left.
But sitting in Owen’s truck now, watching my neighborhood disappear in the side mirror, I understood the horrifying truth with crystal clarity. I had never been safe. Not for a single moment.
Owen drove fast but controlled, not reckless. I sat rigid in the passenger seat with my hands folded tightly in my lap, watching the familiar streets of my neighborhood disappear behind us. Every house on my street held decades of memories—forty years of children’s birthday parties, summer block barbecues, borrowing sugar and returning casseroles, watching babies grow into adults. All of it was gone now, vanishing behind us in the span of five terrible minutes.
My hastily packed suitcase sat at my feet, containing the sparse belongings Owen had allowed me time to grab: three changes of clothes, my pill organizer with its rainbow of medications, my toothbrush still damp from this morning, and Walter’s photograph in its silver frame. I’d left everything else behind—forty years of accumulated life, memories in every drawer and closet, Walter’s tools still hanging in the garage.
We drove for twenty-five minutes in heavy silence before Owen finally pulled off the highway. A diner sat alone in a vast parking lot, one of those aging twenty-four-hour places with bright fluorescent lights visible through the windows, the kind of place that buzzes like angry wasps and smells of decades of accumulated grease.
“We need to talk,” Owen said, killing the engine. His hands were still shaking. “Somewhere away from your house. Somewhere they can’t hear us.”
Inside, the diner smelled like burnt coffee and bacon grease and industrial cleaner, an assault on my already queasy stomach. We slid into a red vinyl booth near the back, away from the handful of other customers. Owen ordered black coffee for both of us from a waitress who looked too tired to care why a young man and his elderly grandmother were here at ten in the morning looking shell-shocked.
