There were twelve chocolates in the sapphire-blue box my son sent me for my sixty-ninth birthday.

Less than twenty-four hours later, two of my grandchildren were in the hospital.

And before I knew either child was sick, my son called me.

“Mom, how were the chocolates?”

I smiled when he asked.

That is the part I still remember.

I actually smiled.

“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t eat any.”

Thomas went quiet.

“What do you mean?”

“I took them to your house yesterday. Laura and the kids could enjoy them too.”

The silence lasted maybe two seconds.

Then he screamed.

“YOU DID WHAT?”

I pulled the phone away from my ear.

“Thomas?”

“Who ate them?”

“What?”

“The chocolates. Who ate them?”

His voice was so sharp that I sat down at my kitchen table.

The handwritten birthday card was still beside my coffee mug.

To the best mother in the world, with all my love, Thomas.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Laura kept the box.”

“Did you eat one?”

“No.”

He exhaled.

Not just an ordinary breath.

Relief.

I heard it.

Then he immediately asked:

“What about Anne?”

My fingers tightened around the phone.

“Why are you asking about Anne?”

“Mom, answer me.”

“Thomas, what is wrong with those chocolates?”

He didn’t answer.

“Thomas?”

The call ended.

I stared at my phone.

Then I called him back.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

No answer.

At 1:17 that afternoon, Laura called me from the hospital.

The Sapphire Box

The chocolates had arrived the morning before by courier.

I live north of Albany in the same house where my husband, Richard, and I raised Thomas.

Richard died five years ago.

After that, Thomas began calling less.

At first I blamed work.

Then marriage.

Then children.

Then myself.

Thomas was our only child. Richard and I adopted him when he was two after his biological parents were killed in a car accident.

I still remember his first night in our house.

At two in the morning, I found him sitting upright in bed, crying without making much noise.

When I picked him up, he grabbed the collar of my nightgown.

Richard stood in the doorway and whispered:

“Don’t put him down yet.”

So I didn’t.

I sat with Thomas until sunrise.

For the next forty years, I became very good at not putting him down.

That included times when perhaps I should have.

When Thomas needed money at twenty-three, we helped.

When he lost a job at thirty-one, Richard covered his mortgage for three months.

When he made mistakes, I found explanations.

He was stressed.

He was grieving.

He had children.

He needed time.

So when the blue box appeared on my sixty-ninth birthday, I wanted very badly to believe it meant something.

Inside were twelve dark chocolates decorated with tiny pieces of edible gold.

There was also a handwritten card.

“To the best mother in the world, with all my love, Thomas.”

I read it twice.

Then a third time.

Thomas hadn’t written anything like that to me in years.

I called him.

He didn’t answer.

So that afternoon, I drove to his house.

Laura opened the door wearing leggings and an old college sweatshirt.

“Dorothy. Happy birthday.”

I held up the box.

“Apparently I’m too old to be trusted alone with twelve chocolates.”

She laughed.

Then she saw the card.

Her smile faded slightly.

“Thomas sent those?”

“Yes.”

She looked at the box again.

“He didn’t mention it.”

“Maybe he wanted to surprise me.”

“Maybe.”

Anne came running downstairs.

“Grandma!”

She hugged me, spotted the box, and immediately asked what was inside.

I handed it to Laura.

“Share them after dinner.”

Laura smiled.

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Charles appeared behind his sister.

“Can I have two?”

“Ask your mother.”

That was the last ordinary conversation we had about those chocolates.

The next morning, Thomas called.

Two hours after that, Laura called.

Her voice was shaking.

“Dorothy, we’re at Albany Med.”

I stood so quickly my chair scraped backward.

“What happened?”

“Anne and Charles are both sick.”

I grabbed my purse.

“What kind of sick?”

“Vomiting. Severe stomach pain. Charles almost passed out.”

Then she stopped.

I could hear hospital announcements behind her.

“Dorothy?”

“I’m here.”

“The doctors keep asking what they ate.”

Neither of us said the next word.

Finally, I did.

“Chocolate.”

Laura whispered:

“Yes.”

“Where Is Thomas?”

When I reached the hospital, Charles was asleep with an IV in his arm.

Anne looked pale.

Laura was sitting between their rooms holding a paper cup of coffee.

I looked around.

“Where’s Thomas?”

Laura didn’t answer.

“Laura.”

She looked at me.

“He left.”

“His children are in the hospital and he left?”

“About forty minutes ago.”

I sat beside her.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Then she added:

“But he called me before I called him.”

I turned toward her.

“What?”

“Thomas called me this morning and asked whether the kids had eaten the chocolates.”

My stomach tightened.

“Before they got sick?”

Laura shook her head.

“After they got sick. But before I told him anything.”

I stared at her.

“How did he know?”

“That’s what I asked him.”

“What did he say?”

“He hung up.”

Laura looked down at her coffee.

Then she asked:

“Where exactly did those chocolates come from?”

“Thomas sent them.”

“How do you know?”

I reached into my purse and removed the birthday card.

She read it.

Her thumb stopped over the signature.

“That’s his handwriting.”

“I know.”

Laura looked toward Charles’s room.

Then she asked very quietly:

“Did you eat any?”

“No.”

She closed her eyes.

“That’s what he asked me too.”

That evening, a doctor told us they didn’t believe this was ordinary food poisoning.

The chocolate box was collected for testing.

I called Thomas eleven times.

He never answered.

At midnight, I drove home.

The sapphire lid was still on my kitchen table because I had kept it along with the ribbon.

I stood there looking at it.

Then I took a grocery bag from beneath the sink.

I put the lid inside.

Then the ribbon.

Then Thomas’s birthday card.

The following morning, I called Stanley Brooks, the attorney Richard and I had used for years.

“Stanley, I need you to look at everything Thomas has access to.”

“Your accounts?”

“My accounts. My estate documents. Anything with his name on it.”

Stanley paused.

“Dorothy, what’s happened?”

I looked at the grocery bag.

“I don’t know yet.”

Then I corrected myself.

“But I’m done waiting to find out.”

The Test Result

Three days later, Laura and I were sitting in a hospital family room when the toxicology results came back.

Arsenic.

Laura read the message twice.

Then she put her phone face down.

Neither of us spoke.

Anne and Charles were recovering. The doctors believed both would be okay.

That was the only good news in the room.

Laura finally looked at me.

“Dorothy.”