“You drugged your own child?” I asked, the words tasting like copper in my mouth.

“I had to!” she hissed, her eyes widening. “If Arthur found him, he would have killed him. I did it to keep him quiet. I did it to keep him alive.”

She let go of my hand and began to rock back and forth on the sofa.

“I kept him in the dark,” she whispered. “Sometimes for two days. Until Arthur went back to the hospital. I thought I was saving him.”

“And now?” I asked, my voice barely audible over the sound of the rain.

Eleanor stopped rocking.

She looked at me, a tear tracking down the deep wrinkles of her cheek.

“Now Nathan thinks it’s a game,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“He puts the drops in my tea,” she said. “The same ones. He says I’m sick. He says my mind is going, and I need to sleep.”

“Is that why you’ve been so confused?” I asked, the pieces finally falling into place. “The memory loss. The falling.”