“There’s something else.

Something I haven’t told you.”

I sat up at once and patted the bed beside me, and she came and sat, and she glanced back over her shoulder toward the empty hallway — a small, involuntary, heartbreaking gesture, the reflex of a child who has learned to check whether she is being overheard before she tells the truth.

“The first time the ambulance came,” she said.

“Three months ago.

Dad made me promise not to tell you why I really passed out.”