The last person I expected to find in a nursing home was the man who had once treated me like his own daughter.
By the time I was thirty-two, I had learned how to carry my past lightly. My divorce from Ethan Bennett had been finalized nearly three years earlier. I had rebuilt my life from scratch, working as a freelance accountant, living alone, and convincing myself that some chapters were better left closed.
That illusion shattered on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
I had been hired to conduct an annual financial review for a nursing residence on the outskirts of Brookdale Heights. It was supposed to be another routine assignment. I walked through the facility with a clipboard in one hand and a stack of reports in the other, barely paying attention to the residents scattered throughout the common areas.
Then I noticed an elderly man sitting alone beneath a dirty window.
