“I’m afraid,” John said, looking down at his hands, “that our motives for bringing you here weren’t entirely as Mr. Albright explained. The fact remains, obviously, that we want to provide you with a comfortable home, with people who care about you. We are committed to giving you the same life we are giving our own children—spending money, clothes, even paying for your college education. The debt of gratitude I owe your father is in no way diminished by the fact that this situation is slightly more complex than it seems at first glance.”

There had been a little tower of feelings inside me. Something small and fragile, a house of cards made of hope. I’d thought I might be okay for a while—

“But—” he said.

—but.

“But we are going to ask you for something in return,” he said.

The tower imploded. I stopped pretending not to look at them and faced Laura head-on. I could see, suddenly, every flaw in her impeccable facade: wispy hairs rebelling against her sleek mane, fine lines at the corners of her lips and eyes. The way she held her shoulders so primly square, so purposefully rigid.

“We’d like for you to be Agatha’s . . . companion,” Laura said. She bit her lip. “The doctors have said that, while she can’t be out in public, it’s not good for her to live in total isolation. She needs people around, and not just her parents, or even a nurse. She needs . . . a friend.”

“A friend?” I asked. “How can we be friends? She didn’t even notice I was in the room.”

Laura leaned forward. “Of course she noticed. I could tell how happy she was to meet you. She was thrilled to have a visitor her own age.”

“We don’t mean you have to spend all of your time with her,” John said. “We have other help, and Laura manages most of it on her own. But a fair amount of time, every day—when you’re studying, perhaps. Just for her to have the sense of not being without friends. That’s all we want.” His voice tightened, like there was a fist around it. “If you had known her before—if you had met her before she got sick, you’d understand. She could light up a room. She was so vivacious and charismatic.”

“She was very popular,” Laura added, sounding proud. “She had so many friends. Unfortunately, when she fell ill, her friends abandoned her. It only took a few weeks for them to stop calling, stop offering to visit.”

“To be fair,” John said slowly, “the calls and visits may not mean anything to her.”

“They tell us she’s still in there,” Laura said. “Trapped in her own mind. But for whatever reason, she can’t get out. And we can’t let her think we’ve given up on her.”