It was a sunny early autumn afternoon, but when Joseph found Mills, no sunlight reached his room.
He had moved back into the room he had lived in before adulthood, making it pitch-black like John Doe had. The air was thick with the smell of alcohol, and Joseph could not tell whether Mills's room smelled better or Richard's.
"How long has he been like this?" Joseph asked.
"Almost two years." Mills's mother held a handkerchief and discreetly pinched her nose with it. "Ever since he came back from the sanatorium."
Her husband had died first, and then her son had become like this. She had endured too much for one woman.
She was terribly old and thin, but her expression was calm, with stubbornness showing between her brows.
"Why didn't you take him to see a doctor?"
She immediately became as wary as a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
"My son isn't sick!" she declared with absolute conviction, as if proclaiming a truth. "He's only mourning his late wife. That's all!"
"Don't you think he's been grieving for too long?"
"I still miss my husband to this day," the old woman said forcefully. "Besides, the hospital sent him home. My son left perfectly fine, and he came back like this. I don't see any need to take him to another doctor. They're all quacks."
"Aren't you worried if he stays like this for the rest of his life?"
"Are you here to help, or to interrogate me?"
"Of course I'm—"
"If you hadn't cooked up those Seven Deadly Sins, none of this would have happened!" Mrs. Mills snapped before Joseph could finish. If he had not seen it with his own eyes, it would have been hard to imagine such a petite woman producing such a thunderous voice.