“What does that mean?”
The girl looked at him for the first time.
Not scared.
Not impressed.
Only tired.
“My mother used to bring me to your house.”
The father went still.
Because years earlier, before the wheelchairs and private specialists and carefully managed public grief, there had been a woman who worked quietly in the background of his estate. She came to cook sometimes, to help in the laundry, to fill in when staff didn’t show. She often brought along a tiny girl because she had no one to leave her with.
His son used to laugh when that little girl was there.
Really laugh.
Before the accident.
Before the long silence.
Before the specialists started speaking in measured voices about “permanent damage” and “limited response.”
The ragged girl looked back at the boy.
