Far stronger than anything I’d recommend without close supervision.”
I felt sick.
“Could it explain his confusion?”
“Possibly.
Particularly if someone added more to his coffee.”
Gideon watched our faces, struggling to follow the conversation.
I wrote everything down.
When he understood, he stood so abruptly that the chair struck the wall.
He went straight to the medicine bottle.
For one frightened instant, I thought he might smash it.
Instead, he picked it up very carefully.
Then he handed it to Miriam.
He had spent almost thirty years believing his own body was betraying him.
Now someone had given him reason to suspect that at least part of his recent suffering was deliberate.
That evening, after Miriam left us with instructions and fresh bandages, Gideon opened a wooden chest beneath his bed.
He removed a photograph.
It showed a stern man standing beside a young boy.
The man wore a miner’s coat.
The child had dark hair, enormous eyes, and one hand resting against a wooden gate.
Gideon pointed to the boy.
Then himself.
Next, he wrote:
My father, Daniel Rook.
