Recognition hit me like a blow. It was Lucy Parker, the caregiver who had looked after my father during his final months at the assisted living facility. She had been kind to him, patient in ways my husband never bothered to be.
She stepped forward into the light, her eyes red and swollen.
“You scared me half to death,” I said, anger rising fast. “Why would you do this?”
“I did not know how else to reach you,” she replied quietly. “I found his phone yesterday. He asked me to keep it safe.”
“You could have called me normally,” I said sharply.
“I was afraid you would not answer,” she admitted. “And what I needed to tell you could not wait.”
A chill crept through me. “Tell me what?”
Lucy swallowed hard. “Your father told me someone was coming to see him. A man. Someone who frightened him. He said the man argued with him when staff were not around and warned him to stay quiet.”
My knees felt weak. “Why did no one say anything?”
“I reported it,” she said. “The director told me it was confusion and ordered me to drop it. I could not.”
She reached into her coat and pulled out a sealed envelope. My father’s handwriting covered the front.
“He wanted you to have this.”