I went back to the pharmacy and asked them to print every pickup record. The name beside the authorization was a woman I’d known for years from church. She had started bringing me casseroles every month after my husband died, always asking whether I needed anything from the pharmacy. I suddenly remembered how often she’d offered to “save me the trip.” I asked the pharmacist whether the woman had ever signed for my prescriptions. She said yes — twenty-two times. Every pickup was on the exact day my prescription became available.
I went home and opened the shoebox again. Every bottle still had the pharmacy label with my name on it, but the pills were missing. There were cotton balls stuffed inside several bottles, as if someone had carefully removed the tablets and wanted the bottles to look untouched. I called the pharmacy and asked when the authorization had been added. The pharmacist said 2023, but the signature authorizing it wasn’t mine. Then she told me something even stranger: the authorization had been submitted with a copy of my driver’s license. I hadn’t lost my license, and nobody in my family had ever had permission to use it.
The next morning the woman from church came to my house with another casserole. I put it on the table and asked her why she had been collecting my medication. She started crying before I finished the sentence. She said she hadn’t been taking it. She’d been picking it up for someone else who told her I had given permission. I asked who. She gave me a name, and my stomach dropped. It was my daughter’s name. Amy had told me for two years that she was helping manage my medication because she loved me. I called her immediately. She didn’t answer. Then the church woman looked at me and whispered, “Your daughter told me your doctor was worried you were taking too much. She said she was keeping you safe.”
