Chapter 22: The Signature

Cora's POV

I looked at the page in Frederick's hand, and I knew the signature.

It was my father's. It had signed every school form I ever brought home.

"May I see it?" I said.

Frederick slid it down the table.

It was typed on letterhead, short, and dated the week I came home from the hospital at thirteen.

The patient has suffered permanent damage and will never conceive. The family has been informed. No further treatment is advised.

I read it twice.

"This is not what the doctor told me," I said.

"Cora," my mother said.

"A doctor stood at the end of my bed and said it was unlikely. He said most girls recover some of it. He said I should come back in a year."

"You were a child. You misunderstood."

"Then why did you never bring me back?"

She said nothing.

I opened my notebook, and out of the back cover I took a stapled set of papers.

"Ms. Chair, I have a record to enter."

"Go on."

"Eli's lawyer pulled this at six this morning. It's the discharge summary from the hospital that treated me. I signed the release myself."

I passed it down the table.

"Read the last paragraph."

The chair put on her glasses.

"Fertility is expected to partly recover," she read aloud. "Recommend follow-up in twelve months. Parents advised."

The man beside her said, very softly, "Parents advised."

"So the note Mr. Ellsworth is holding," I said, "was not written by that doctor."

"Cora, darling," my mother said. "Please."

I turned around.

My father was still against the wall. He had his hat crushed flat in both hands.

"Dad," I said.

He looked up.

It was the first time in sixteen years he had looked straight at me.

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