Chapter 16
Years later, on a rainy evening in our Brooklyn kitchen, I sat at the table reviewing applications for a trauma-nursing fellowship.
The room smelled of coffee, tomato sauce, and the bread Emma had burned while insisting the smoke detector was “too sensitive.”
A blue ceramic bowl beside the door held three keys.
Mine.
Lorenzo’s.
Emma’s first house key, attached to a plastic panda.
Neither adult key opened the other person’s office.
Bunny sat on a shelf near the window.
The missing eye had been stitched closed with one line of gold thread.
Lorenzo had repaired it himself during the first winter after his release.
Emma was nine now.
She appeared in the doorway carrying a blanket.
“Mom, Lorenzo is asleep on the couch.”
“He had a long meeting.”
“He snores.”
“He denies that.”
“I have evidence.”
She held up her tablet.
I lowered it.
“We do not record people without permission.”
“I only recorded three seconds.”
“Delete it.”
She sighed.
Then obeyed.
From the living room came the soft sound of Lorenzo shifting in his sleep.
Emma walked toward him.
I followed.
He lay beneath the lamp with one hand resting near the scar on his side. Rain touched the windows behind him.
For years, sleep had been the one place his body refused to believe it was safe.
Emma pulled the blanket over his shoulders.
His eyes opened.
She pressed one finger to her lips.
“Shh,” she whispered. “I’ll protect you.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
Then at me.
No blood.
No gun.
No footsteps hunting through the halls.
Only a child beside a couch, a warm kitchen behind us, and keys resting where each owner had chosen to leave them.
May you like
He closed his eyes again.
This time, he slept.
