…you’ll sleep through the whole party.”
For a second, nobody moved. Then my son, Michael, put down his fork very slowly.
“What did you put in it, Rachel?”
My daughter-in-law looked at the frosting as if it might answer for her. “Just her sleeping pills,” she whispered. “Only a few. I took them from her bathroom. I just wanted her to be tired.”
“Why?”
She didn’t answer. My granddaughter, Lily, did.
“Because the man is coming at eight,” Lily said in a tiny voice. “Mommy said if Grandma is sleepy she won’t ask questions, and she’ll sign.”
The man turned out to be a notary Rachel had found online. In her purse was a power of attorney giving her and Michael full control over my finances and my house. Rachel had planned to wake me after the party, groggy and confused, and have me sign it “for the insurance.” With a notary’s stamp, nobody would ever question it.
Michael looked like someone had hit him. “I told you no,” he said to her. “When you brought this up last month, I told you it was insane.”
That was the conversation Lily had overheard. She’d heard her mother’s plan and her father refusing it, but she was nine. All she understood was that the cake was dangerous.
I called the police myself. My hands were steady. I don’t know how.
The officers took the cake and the pill bottle from my bathroom. The lab confirmed that the frosting on my slice contained my prescription sleeping medication. It was enough to knock me out, and enough to be dangerous for a seventy-two-year-old woman with a heart condition. Rachel was charged with attempted elder abuse and tampering.
It turned out she owed more than seventy thousand dollars in credit card debt that Michael knew nothing about. My house had been her plan to pay it off.
Michael filed for divorce and asked for full custody. He and Lily moved in with me for a few months while everything settled.
The first night, Lily crawled into my bed and asked if she was in trouble for telling. I told her she was the bravest person at that party. She was the only one who spoke up.
For my seventy-third birthday, Lily baked the cake herself, with Michael’s help. It was lopsided, the frosting was purple, and she watched me take the first bite with enormous eyes.
It was the best cake I have ever eaten.
