The plain admission left me facing what I had nearly lost.

Walter had come at my request.

He sat next to the advocate in a pressed blue shirt and kept his hands folded in his lap.

I asked him whether he had been afraid when he found me.

“Terrified,” he said.

“At first I thought I was imagining the movement.

Then you tried to pull at the sheet.

And then those people came asking when they could take you away.”