The third time, Harper had asked for a drink of water with an urgency I remembered now.

The fourth time, Spencer had looked at his phone before telling me she’d wake eventually.

Each memory had an ordinary explanation when I examined it by itself.

Together, they formed a pattern I could no longer look away from.

I brought the notebook to Dr.

Okafor when she returned.

“I don’t know if these details matter,” I told her.

She pulled over a chair and said, “You don’t have to decide what’s important before you tell us.” She asked me to mark dates as accurately as I could, including school pickup records and any photographs I had taken.