He answered honestly.
“Yes. She has an emergency key.”
The doctor looked at Emma.
“Is she using that key with your permission?”
Emma’s fingers tightened around the hospital blanket.
She barely shook her head.
That scared him more than anything his mother had said at the dinner table.
He finally understood that the dinner was not the beginning of the problem. It was the moment when everything became impossible to hide.
When he sat beside Emma, he did not call his mother. He did not call the relatives who had watched.
He put his phone face down.
“I’m not calling anyone yet,” he said. “Tell me what you need.”
Emma’s answer was quiet.
“Change the locks. Save every picture. And don’t let your mother know where they’re discharging me.”
