Chapter 9: One Bed

"Give me that phone," Leland said.

He had crossed the room in two steps and put his good hand out to the driver.

The driver looked at him with polite interest.

"No, sir."

"I said give it to me."

"Mr. Peverell said anyone who wants it can ask him."

My father's voice cut across both of them.

"Enough."

He had not looked at the black needle again.

He had not looked at Delphine, curled against my mother with her face in her hands.

He looked only at me.

"I don't know what game you're playing, Faye. We found you. We brought you home. We gave you a family."

"You gave me a room with a bolt on it."

"That was one night!"

"It was where you started."

He did not understand the words.

It made no difference.

"Whatever you've got on that phone," he said, "you will have it deleted by tonight. Or you are no daughter of mine."

"Edmund," my mother whispered.

"I will not have my family dragged through the papers over a pot of soup."

"There was poison in the soup," I said.

"A cook's mistake."

"Father." It was Tobias.

He had pulled the tube out of his hand, and he was swinging his legs off the bed.

A nurse hurried forward.

"Mr. Penhallow, please lie down."

"I'm not staying in this room."

"Tobias, you're sick," my mother said.

"I'm sick because somebody keeps making me sicker."

He stood up.

He swayed, and I caught his elbow.

He put his weight on my arm, the way you lean on a railing.

"Faye was the only one who came out to me," he said. "Your windows stayed dark."

"You were hysterical," Leland said.

"I was dying. You didn't even call the ambulance."

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