The doctor looked at me for several seconds.
Then he slowly pushed the laboratory report across the desk.
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t poison.”
I felt my entire body relax.
For thirty-five years, I had imagined that bottle as the weapon my husband had secretly used against me.
But the doctor’s next words made my heart stop again.
“It was medication.”
I stared at him.
“What kind of medication?”
He pointed to the report.
“Your husband was giving you a compounded mixture containing several prescription substances. Some were used to control your blood pressure. Another was a sedative. There was also a medication that can affect the heart.”
Emily grabbed my hand.
“Why would Dad give Mom something like that?”
The doctor hesitated.
“That is what we are trying to determine.”
I looked at the report again.
There was one substance I recognized immediately.
It was the same medication Victor had been prescribed after I suffered a severe illness more than thirty years earlier.
I remembered that period.
I had been weak for months.
I couldn’t sleep.
My heart raced constantly.
I was terrified.
Victor had taken me from doctor to doctor.
He had promised me everything would eventually be fine.
“Doctor,” I whispered, “could this have been prescribed for me?”
He nodded.
“Possibly. But not for thirty-five consecutive years, and certainly not without medical supervision.”
Emily stared at me.
“Mom, do you remember why Dad started giving you that drink?”
I closed my eyes.
Suddenly, a memory returned.
Thirty-five years earlier, shortly after our wedding, I had collapsed in our kitchen.
Victor had found me on the floor.
An ambulance came.
At the hospital, the doctors discovered that my blood pressure was dangerously high.
But there was something else.
My heart rhythm was abnormal.
They told me I needed further testing.
I never went back.
Because Victor told me the doctors had said everything was fine.
Had they?
I looked at the doctor.
“Can you access my old medical records?”
“We can try.”
He left the room.
Emily remained beside me.
Neither of us spoke.
Twenty minutes later, the doctor returned carrying a folder.
His expression had changed.
“We found something.”
He placed an old medical report on the desk.
The date was from thirty-five years ago.
I read the first page.
Then the second.
My hands began to shake.
There it was.
A diagnosis I had never been told about.
A serious cardiac condition that required monitoring.
And beneath it was a handwritten note from a physician.
Patient must return in six weeks for follow-up.
I never returned.
I looked at Emily.
“Your father told me the doctor said I was fine.”
Emily covered her mouth.
The doctor continued.
“There is more.”
He opened another document.
Victor had contacted the hospital shortly after my discharge.
He had asked questions about my medication.
He had apparently been terrified that I would stop taking it.
But there was something strange.
The medication listed in my original prescription was not the same formulation found in the bottle.
Someone had altered the mixture.
“Who prepared it?” I asked.
The doctor shook his head.
“We don’t know yet.”
Then Emily remembered something.
“Mom.”
She reached into her purse.
“I found this among Dad’s things.”
She placed a small envelope on the desk.
It had never been opened.
My name was written across the front.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Victor’s handwriting.
I recognized it immediately.
My dearest Margaret,
See more on the next page
