Chapter 3 - The House Full of Borrowed Voices
The man downstairs had my father’s voice.
Exactly.
But nothing else belonged to him.
My father had silver at his temples and a soft heaviness in his face that came from years of reading late at night and falling asleep in armchairs. This man had a leaner, harder face. His eyes were icy and watchful. He held the paper like a stage prop.
“Ella?” he called gently. “Something wrong, sweetheart?”
The word sweetheart nearly broke me.
I had spent months depending on voices because voices were all I had.
Now every sound in the house felt contaminated.
“Nothing, Dad,” I said quickly. “I thought I heard Noah.”
He rose halfway from the couch.
Too alert.
Too ready.
Before he could say anything else, I sensed movement beside me.
I turned.
The red-lipped woman stood at the end of the upstairs hallway holding the empty soup tray, smiling like she had never left.
“I thought you were resting, dear,” she said.
The hall shrank around me.
I backed toward my bedroom.
“I was just trying to get my bearings,” I said, keeping my gaze soft and unfixed. “I forgot where the bathroom was.”
That smile widened.
“Of course,” she said. “Blindness can be so disorienting.”
Below us, the man folded the newspaper and set it down without taking his eyes off me.
Predators.
That was the only word that made sense.
Not because they were loud or violent.
Because they were patient.
Because they were acting.
Because they were waiting for me to slip.
The woman came closer.
I took one more step backward into my room.
Then I saw it.
A shadow shifted behind the half-open bathroom door.
Someone else was inside.
My stomach dropped.
The woman watched my face carefully. I forced it blank.
“Would you like me to help you back into bed?” she asked.
“No,” I said too fast, then softened it. “I mean—I’m okay. Just tired.”
She stood there another second, listening to me breathe.
Then she nodded and backed away.
“Rest, sweetheart.”
The man downstairs remained at the foot of the staircase until she joined him.
Only when both of them disappeared did I dare shut my bedroom door and lock it.
Then I turned toward the bathroom.
My heart pounded so violently I could hear it.
“Noah?” I whispered.
May you like
The door opened wider.
And my husband stepped out.
