But on the second page, under the section for emergency contact and billing, a clerk had crossed out the name Rita with a single blue line, and underneath it, in block letters, someone had written the true billing name.

Rowena Duncan.

The sister who had supposedly drowned in the ocean ten years ago was listed as a long-term resident of a private medical facility in Portugal, under a false name, billed every month to the brother who had wept at her memorial.

I stared at the signature at the bottom of the intake consent form, the shaky letters, the high elegant loops of the capitals that matched the old letters I had seen in the attic trunks.

Jonathan had not lost his sister to the sea.