Read Online The Life You Longed For by Maribeth Fischer - Free Book Online

abstract theory based on what? A twenty-something-year-old girl thinking she’d seen Grace’s name in some file?
    She shook her head. “God, Stephen, do you have any idea how much you scared me when you walked in here?” She looked at him, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes, wouldn’t smile. “Come on. This is crazy. I can’t believe you punched a wall.”
    â€œLook, I laughed too when Jeff first told me, but—”
    â€œAre we even sure that Mandy saw my name? I mean, I like her, I told you that, but she’s a child who’s in love with a forty-year-old man who’s never had a relationship last longer than six months.” She would just keep talking until Stephen realized how silly he was being. “I love your brother, Stephen, but he’s not the smartest choice, so you have to question Mandy a little, don’t you think?”
    â€œLook,” he sighed. “All I know is that Jeff was really upset about this, I guess because Mandy was—”
    â€œOh, please. Don’t tell me she thinks this is true?” A wave of anger washed over her. “So that was the reason for all her questions about Jack the other night? How dare—”
    â€œWait a minute, Grace. She had the decency to tell Jeff about this, so I doubt she thinks it’s true. She’s just worried, and I guess she thinks we should be too. Apparently, there was a big Munchausen’s case in Philadelphia a couple of years ago that made national news, and ever since then—”
    â€œWait a minute. Marie Noe? Is that the case?”
    Stephen looked up. “You’ve heard of her?”
    Grace nodded. Of course, she’d heard of Marie Noe. Everyone in Philadelphia had heard of Marie Noe, anyone with a sick child had heard of Marie Noe. Marie Noe, now in her seventies, had been charged, arrested, and eventually convicted on eight counts of murder for the deaths of her own children some thirty years before. The week of her arrest, the nurses on the sixth floor of Children’s talked of nothing but Marie Noe. Grace had asked Rebecca, Jack’s favorite nurse, if she’d ever had a patient whose mother was guilty of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, and Rebecca had told her that it made her sick to even think about, but she probably had. Only it was impossible to tell, she said, because the Munchausen mothers were often the nicest ones, notorious for becoming friends with the staff and bringing gifts for the nurses. Grace had joked, “Well, remind me not to be nice to you guys anymore,” but now she recalled that even then, two years ago, she had felt a stab of fear.
    She wanted to laugh this off too, but her face felt stiff and rubbery. How could anyone think that she—my God, Marie Noe was a monster. All ten of her children had died. Ten . And Marie Noe had confessed.
    Grace felt as if she were going to throw up. “Did Mandy also tell Jeff that Marie Noe’s lawyer tried to prove that the children had a rare metabolic disease?”
    â€œAre you serious? A mitochondrial disease?”
    â€œI don’t know.” She couldn’t stop shaking. “I can’t believe this, though. I can’t believe anyone would think—do you have any idea what Munchausen mothers do to their kids? They suffocate them with Saran Wrap. They inject their own menstrual blood into their kids’ IV lines. They starve them. I mean, what do they think I’m doing? Do they think I’m putting something into Jack’s blood samples, do they think—”
    â€œNo, no, Grace, come on, stop. Come here.” He reached to hold her, but she pushed him away.
    â€œI don’t want comfort,” she snapped. “I want to know who said this.”
    â€œObviously someone who doesn’t know you very well.”
    â€œBut who ?” Her voice cracked.
    â€œI don’t know.” He raked his hand through his hair.
    She felt herself