Chapter 24: Dr. Ada Winslow

My mother's car came through the iron gates at nine that morning.

I had called her at dawn from Rocco's study and told her everything, in one long breath, with the door locked.

She had said nothing for a full minute.

Then she had said, "I'm getting my coat."

She drove down from Connecticut in her old gray sedan and stopped in the courtyard.

She got out in her good church cardigan, with her handbag over her arm, and looked at the walls, the guards and the house.

I came down the steps.

"Mom."

She didn't say a word.

She only held out her arms, and I walked into them.

She smelled the way she had always smelled, of soap and cold air and the peppermints she kept in her bag.

"Four years," she said into my hair. "Four years you let that man tell me you were tired."

"I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for. Not one thing."

She held me away and looked at my face.

"I bought the paper at the gas station. They printed your name, and they printed it right."

She pulled a folded newspaper from her handbag and put it in my hand.

I didn't need to unfold it.

I could see the headline through the paper.

Surgeon Cleared: Board Admits Altered Chart.

Under it was a photograph of me at the lectern, with my hand on the rail.

"Dr. Ada Winslow," my mother said. "I've been waiting to say that out loud."

"Say it again."

"Dr. Ada Winslow."

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