“Nothing.”
I stared at him.
He sighed.
“You’re right. That was a terrible answer.”
“What did you remember?”
Adrian looked toward the window at the far end of the hallway.
“Caroline once complained about treatment delays.”
My pulse quickened.
“What kind of delays?”
“Medication. Equipment. I
don’t know. At the time we assumed it was normal hospital bureaucracy.”
“Did she ever mention Northbridge?”
“No.”
“Did you investigate?”
“She was sick.”
His voice tightened.
“I was trying to be her brother, not the CEO of a healthcare company.”
That silenced me.
Regret passed across his face with such naked clarity that I felt ashamed for pushing.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be.”
“Yes, I do.”
He looked at me.
“I’m beginning to understand something.”
“What?”
“Everyone around this situation seems to have decided what other people should be allowed to know.”
The sentence settled between us.
Ethan protecting me.
Sam warning Ethan.
Adrian’s company making decisions he may never have seen.
Someone sending me a photograph.
Someone choosing what truth appeared when.
“I’m tired of that,” I said.
“So am I.”
This time, we agreed without hesitation.
Lily woke at six twenty in the morning and
announced that she wanted pancakes.
Not answers.
Not financial records.
Not explanations of why her parents had stopped living together.
Pancakes.
Her hair stood in every direction.
One sock had vanished.
She sat in the middle of the hotel bed holding her rabbit and looked at me with complete faith that breakfast would happen because breakfast always happened.
“Chocolate chips?” she asked.
“You ate chocolate chips yesterday.”
“So?”
I stared at her.
She stared back.
I laughed.
It was the first laugh that felt like mine in weeks.
