As a teenager, she wears her hair longer. But when younger, her hair barely reached her shoulders, and I remember struggling with those curls.

“It doesn’t matter how it looks,” Sophia told me, perched between my legs on the bed. “I like how it feels.”

“Ah, might you fancy a head scratch?”

“A what?” She’d giggled and grinned, and the metal on her braces gleamed. She’d gotten them at the youthful age of ten, or at least, that was what I deemed young.

She closed her eyes and eventually spread out on the bed, her head in my lap, as my nails scratched her scalp. The noises she made had me laughing.

“You sound like a purring kitten.”

“Just keep doing it, please.”

Cassie returned from her dinner with a friend to find her daughter passed out with my thigh as her pillow. She’d lifted her up and carried her away like a princess, settling her into bed with a stuffed bunny and a silk blankie. Yes, she had braces, but she clung to the things she loved.

CHAPTER 6

25 Hours Missing

Ryan

The woman sitting behind the reception desk peers up at me over the rim of her spectacles.

“I’m here to see Indigo Wolfgang.”

She pauses, glances down at her desk, then swallows. “You know, visiting hours are almost over.” The clock on the wall supports her statement. “You would only have ten minutes.”

“I didn’t expect to be in the area. Can I see her?”

“She’s probably already on her way to be seated for dinner. If we call for her now, we risk getting her off schedule.”

The clock behind the woman’s head tells me we are now down to eight minutes.

“Can I see Dr. Ortega?”

“Let me see if she’s in. She may have left for the day.”

“She texted me. Said she’d like to speak to me.”

“And your name is?”

“Ryan Wolfgang.”

She adjusts her spectacles and reads something on the desk. “You are on the list,” she says, more to herself than to me.

She picks up a phone and dials. Four clicks on the nineties-style keypad tell me she dialed an internal number.

“Yes, Dr. Ortega?” The woman eyes me as she speaks. “Mr. Ryan Wolfgang is here to see you. He’s on Indigo Wolfgang’s list. I mentioned you might be going home for the day.” There’s a beat of silence. “Yes. Thank you.”

She sets the handset down with a click. “She’ll be down in a moment. You can sit right over there while you wait.”

I choose to stand by a window that overlooks a lush lawn. Paths laid in brick crisscross the sloping land. From this location, you can’t see the fenced perimeter. This is Indigo’s third facility. Twice I thought we were through the worst of it. Twice I believed she conquered her demons.

Heels on tile announce a person approaching. I first met Dr. Ortega when my sister agreed to try another treatment facility.