“We were playing,” she said, her voice dropping.

“It was just an accident.”

“They sat by my hospital bed,” I continued, my voice steady.

“The skin on my left side was still raw and bandaged.”

“Father told me that your life would be ruined if you knew the extent of it.”

“He said you were too fragile to carry that weight.”

“He said we had to protect you from the reality of that night.”

I looked at my mother.

Mother was staring at the man in the gray suit, her breathing shallow.

Her hands were shaking so badly that she dropped her napkin onto the wet stone.

She looked terrified, not just of me, but of the folder the man carried.

“Maya, please,” Mother whispered, her eyes wide with a deeper, hidden panic.

“There are things you don’t understand.”

“There are things we had to do.”

Father glared at her, his jaw clenched tight.

“Silence, Helen,” Father hissed under his breath.

He turned to the man in the suit.

“I don’t know who you are, but you need to leave my property immediately,” Father said.