Anne left her examination room and walked down the hall to the information desk. She then turned on her heel before reaching the nurses’ station—asking for Peggy point-blank would raise suspicion. She located the directory by the elevator bank. Post Trauma. Recovery. Hospice. The last one sounded right, and Anne took the elevator to the third floor. From there a long hallway led her through two sets of double doors into an older, prewar wing of the hospital. The rooms were larger, with multiple beds in each, like a ward in a TB sanitarium. A nurse walked past with a handful of linens.

“May I help you?” She was young, with half-lidded eyes, maybe not a nurse, but more of a housekeeper.

“I was told Margaret Raleigh was down this hall.” Anne tried to sound like she had every right to be there.

“Yes, ma’am, last here on the right.” The maid walked her there. Anne followed and smiled a thank-you. She peeked through the porthole window in the door. There were other beds in the room but only one patient. Peggy lay there, her head and neck wrenched to the right on the pillow. Her nose and mouth were covered by a mask and tubing. There was no guard, no attendant. The monitors were muted. The only sound came from the bellows of the respirator.

The housekeeper disappeared down the hall, and Anne stepped into the room. The air was thick and stale, smelling of disinfectant. She noticed Peggy’s arms first, atrophied and bowed from disuse. Her hair was darker, overgrown compared to earlier pictures from the paper and the trial. The machine forced her to breathe slowly, in a mechanically labored way, and Anne studied her chest as it heaved and sank. An old bouquet of carnations lay drying out on the windowsill. Anne sat down in the drab green hospital chair. No more marks on her throat. Those apparently had healed.

Anne started to pray. She first said a Hail Mary. Then an Our Father. She was about to backtrack to an Apostles’ Creed and start a decade of the rosary, just like Sister Michael had taught her at Peter and Paul’s. What was the first Sorrowful Mystery? She had forgotten. All these years later she remembered so few prayers.

And then Peggy opened her eyes.