Gerald stood behind her in the hallway, hands in his pockets. “You should stay a few days, Fay. Rest. There’s no rush to go back to the city.”
No rush. Because they needed seventy-two hours.
I smiled. “Thanks, Dad. I think I just need to be home for a while.” I watched his shoulders relax.
There was tea on the counter, cookies from the church bake sale. Everything looked like love. Everything sounded like love. I excused myself to my old bedroom upstairs. Same twin bed, same faded quilt, same Columbia graduation photo tacked to the wall with a single rusting push pin, four inches by six. Down the hallway, both walls were covered in Chloe. Prom, cheerleading, sorority formal, engagement party. Forty-seven framed moments. I counted those too.
I locked the door, called James Whitfield, got voicemail, and left a message. Then I sat on the edge of the bed and played the recording through my earbuds. Every word was clear. All three of them, calm and methodical, planning to erase me.
I didn’t sleep.
The next morning, there was a stranger in the living room. Patricia introduced him over coffee. “This is Dr. Voss. He’s an old friend of your father’s from college. I thought it might help to have someone to talk to, sweetheart. After everything.”
Dr. Raymond Voss was sixty-four. Silver hair, wire-rimmed glasses, the kind of cardigan designed to make you feel safe. He shook my hand like we were at a dinner party. “Your parents are worried about you, Fay.”
We sat in the den. Patricia positioned herself on the loveseat like a chaperone. Voss opened a leather notebook.
“Do you find it hard to make decisions right now?”
“No.”
“Do you sometimes hear Nathan’s voice, even though you know he’s gone?”
“No.”
“Have you had thoughts of harming yourself?”
“No.”
Each question was a brick in a wall being built around me. I recognized the pattern because I had spent the last three nights reading about involuntary guardianship proceedings on my phone at two in the morning. Voss wasn’t checking on me. He was constructing a diagnosis.
“Sometimes grief can make us feel like we’re not capable of handling our own affairs,” he said gently. “That’s perfectly normal.”
Patricia leaned forward. “She’s been like this since Nathan died. Shut down. Not herself.”
I answered every question clearly, calmly, without emotion. I gave him nothing. After twenty minutes, I excused myself to get water, walked to the back porch, and called James.