“Nobody would dare.”
“They don’t have to say it in front of you.”
That silenced him.
I turned toward the bedside table.
That was when my eyes landed on the small cloth sachet sitting inside his drawer.
My sachet.
Orange peel.
Lavender.
Cedar.
I had made it myself years ago.
I used one whenever I cleaned rooms where the air felt stale.
“You took that from my pocket.”
“You dropped it.”
“And sent it to a laboratory.”
“Yes.”
“For four thousand dollars?”
“Yes.”
I almost laughed.
“They found nothing because it’s dried orange peel.”
But Emilio didn’t smile.
Instead, he told me about forty-three blood draws, three machines, specialists flown in from Houston, and a private physician who earned more in a year than I would see in ten.
“In six weeks,” he said, “I slept eleven full nights.”
I frowned.
“You worked this wing every one of them.”
“Three evenings a week.”
“Eleven out of eleven.”
The room became strangely quiet.
“Why?”
I looked toward the tall window behind him.
The paint along one corner had been swollen for months.
I had mentioned it once.
Nobody listened.
“Open the window.”
Emilio stared at me.
“It was sealed last spring.”
