Chapter 4: The Rules of the Room
Dad’s fingers stopped inches from my phone.
Dr. Shah stepped between us—not touching either of us, just making the choice harder to pretend wasn’t mine.
“Ethan is answering for himself,” he said.
Dad’s hand dropped. For a second, he looked at me like I’d broken something that belonged to him.
Then he backed away from the bed.
On the phone, Mara had gone quiet.
“I’m still here,” I told her.
“I know,” she said. Her voice sounded far away now, though the phone was against my ear. “I’ll wait.”
Dad turned toward the hall. “This is exactly why she shouldn’t be here.”
“Then don’t make it worse by deciding what I can hear,” I said.
He left without answering. Nurse Ruiz followed him as far as the doorway, then stayed behind.
Dr. Shah waited until the sound of Dad’s shoes had faded.
“What do you need to know before tomorrow?” he asked.
The question was small enough to fit in the room. My fear wasn’t.
I looked down at the notebook beneath my hand. The old letter pressed against it, a hard ridge under the cover.
“What could happen to my memory?”
Dr. Shah pulled a chair close but didn’t sit until I nodded. He gave me the facts he could give me: memory changes were possible, but no one could promise exactly what I would remember or when. He wouldn’t pretend to know whether I’d forget a name, a stretch of time, or nothing at all.
“Could I wake up and not know my family?” I asked.
“I can’t rule that out,” he said. “I also can’t tell you it will happen.”
The machines kept their steady rhythm. It irritated me that they could sound so certain.
“If I tell you I want to go ahead, that’s my decision?”
“Yes.”
“And if I say I need a minute to think?”
“Then we give you a minute.”
He didn’t reach for my chart or use my fear as proof I couldn’t choose. That mattered more than I expected.
I thanked him. My voice came out rough.
When he left, Nurse Ruiz stayed by the door.
“I need to ask you something,” I said. “The woman who came in earlier. You saw her?”
“I did.”
“Was she dangerous?”
“No.”
Ruiz’s answer was immediate. She glanced toward the hall, then back at me. “Your dad asked me to mark her as a security concern. I won’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I saw someone enter, speak to you, and leave when I came in. I didn’t see a threat.” Her expression softened, but her voice stayed firm. “If you want her kept out, I’ll follow your instructions. Not somebody else’s.”
I looked at the phone. “She’s in the lobby?”
“She was. I don’t know if she still is.”
“I want to know if she leaves.”
Ruiz nodded once. “I can do that.”
After she stepped out, the room settled into its machinery and shadows again. My hand found the notebook. I opened it to the page where I’d written down the ordinary things I was afraid of losing: Dad grumbling at dinner, Mom giving me too much food, laughing with my friends until I couldn’t breathe right.
The handwriting in the letter looked like mine.
I’d known that already. Still, knowing and seeing were different things.
I took the letter from beneath the notebook and smoothed it beside the page. The paper had yellowed at the edges. My handwriting was steadier than it had been when I wrote in the notebook, but the lowercase r had the same short hook, as if I’d started to make a loop and changed my mind.
I checked it against my own notes. Again. Then once more.
The match wasn’t proof of when I’d written it. It wasn’t proof that the visitor had told the truth. But it was something I could hold in my hands, and Dad’s word—“forgery”—couldn’t erase it.
My mother came back a few minutes later.
She didn’t sit. Her coat was still on, and her purse hung from one shoulder. She looked first at the letter, then at my face.
“You’ve been crying,” I said.
“So have you.”
“I wasn’t trying to hide it.”
She gave a small, tired laugh that fell apart almost at once. “No. You never were very good at that.”
She moved to the side of the bed, careful not to touch the papers.
“Do you know about the handwriting?” I asked.
“I know it looks like yours.”
“It is mine.”
Mom’s eyes closed briefly. When she opened them, she didn’t argue.
“Did you know he kept mail from Mara?”
The silence that followed wasn’t surprise. That was what hurt.
“Yes,” she said.
I looked at her. “You knew.”
“I knew your father had stopped giving you some of her letters.”
“Some?”
“I don’t know how many.”
“Did you help him?”
Her mouth opened, but no words came. She sat down at last, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles paled.
“I told myself you were too young to be dragged into the fight between them,” she said. “Then time passed. And every year I didn’t tell you made the next year harder.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.” She looked straight at me. “I let him keep the letters from you.”
I felt the paper edge under my thumb. “You told me you let him decide.”
“I did.”
“And you still haven’t told me why.”
“I know.” Her eyes shone, but she didn’t ask me to comfort her. “I’m not going to make you listen to all of it tonight. You have enough to face.”
“You don’t get to decide what I can face either.”
Mom flinched. Then she nodded.
“You’re right.”
She reached into her purse and took out a small brass key. It lay in her palm, dull and worn, with a strip of blue thread tied through its head.
“What is that?”
“The key to the desk in your father’s study. The bottom drawer sticks unless you lift it while you turn the lock.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“Because I should have given it to you years ago.”
The key was cool when she placed it in my hand. I curled my fingers around it.
“Does the drawer have Mara’s letters?”
“It has mail your father didn’t want you to see.” She swallowed. “I don’t know what’s still there.”
“Then why keep it locked?”
Her gaze dropped to the floor. “Because I was afraid of what you’d find. And because I was afraid of what your father would do if you found it.”
For the first time, I heard the fear beneath her apology. It didn’t excuse anything. It did make the room feel smaller.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
Mom stood so quickly her purse slipped down her arm. She caught it and pressed it against her side.
“He went home.”
The key bit into my palm.
May you like
“Why?”
“He said he had to take care of the desk before you got there.” Her voice broke on the last word. “Ethan, he’s already gone home to destroy what he finds.
