Naomi’s medical social worker also provided records showing repeated missed appointments because of transportation and payment problems.
Every document built the same picture.
Money had been available.
Naomi simply hadn’t been allowed to touch it.
The hardest evidence arrived from somewhere I didn’t expect.
A neighbor named Mrs. Holloway saw me outside one morning.
She was seventy years old and lived two houses away.
She hugged me.
Then she whispered, “I’m glad you came home.”
The way she said it bothered me.
“Why?”
She looked toward our house.
“Because your wife needed you.”
Mrs. Holloway had seen Naomi walking to the bus stop while sick.
She had sometimes given her rides to treatment.
She had also heard Kendra screaming at her in the backyard.
One afternoon, she had even recorded part of an argument on her phone because she was afraid Naomi was being abused.
She showed me the video.
