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You’re just the housekeeper, I remind myself. She thinks you’re just the housekeeper.

“What are you drinking?” She asks in a weak and raspy voice.

I look at the glass in my hand, having forgotten I was even holding it.

“Iced tea. Would you like some?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

She tilts her head to the side. “What happened to your scars?”

I frown. “What?”

“They’re gone. Where did they go?” She lifts a painfully skinny arm and taps the side of her face with her index finger. The loose skin around her bicep jiggles.

She thinks I’m her deceased sister, Prishna, who was once badly burned. She’s completely delusional.

“They faded.” I play along, recalling the scar ointment Prishna carried in her bag. “With the cream I used daily.”

“I like the scars better.”

An odd thing to say.

Valerie pulls out a thin gold chain from under her house dress. On it is the half-pendant of a broken heart. Her sister wore the other half around her neck.

Her face falls into deep sadness. “You understand, don’t you?”

The hair on the back of my neck prickles.

“Understand, what?”

Valerie looks down, her eyes filling with tears.

Desperate to know what she’s talking about, I step forward. “Understand what, sister?”

The beeps on the monitor become faster. Whatever she’s talking about is making her visibly upset.

“Understand what, Valerie?”

The nurse’s silhouette appears beyond shades that are drawn against the windows. She’s still on her call, but making her way back to the front door. She must have gotten an alert.

I back up, heart pounding. “What do I understand?” I whisper-hiss. “What? Tell me.”

Boots on the front porch. Dammit.

I turn to rush out of the room. When I reach the doorway, Valerie calls after me.

“Sabine?”

I freeze. She said my name.

My real name.

I turn.

Our eyes lock. What was once sadness is now ice-cold hatred.

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