“The food’s shocking. Just shocking.” He pronounced the sh like ch. Chocking.

“Dad, have you heard from Mom at all? Ha Suran, your wife? Where is she?”

He looked blank. “I don’t have a wife.”

“You did have a wife. I’m her daughter. Where did she go?”

He shook his head, and a tear trickled out of the corner of his eye. Val wondered if he was crying, but decided it was just his eye watering, because he didn’t seem emotional. There was a blanket on his lap and he rubbed the satin binding, back and forth. Val watched his hand with its funny raised scar like a red slug nestled between thumb and forefinger.

“The nurse told me you keep saying ‘I didn’t want to kill her.’ Who did you not want to kill?”

He turned to gaze out the window and mumbled the words. “I had no choice.”

“Was it Mom? Is she dead?” She wanted to shake him, force him to tell her what had happened when she was thirteen.

He shook his head. “There was so much blood. So much.”

“Whose blood, Dad?”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Where is she then?”

“There was so much blood.”

“Did you stab her?”

“I had no choice.” He shook his head sadly. “I didn’t want to kill her.”

For a while they went around in circles, but he just repeated the same phrases over and over, without seeming to have any understanding of their meaning. Whatever memories had been in his brain had faded, like a blackboard wiped almost clean, leaving just a few traces of words but no sense of their context. They could have come from a movie he’d seen.

“Do you know who I am?” she tried.

“Of course. You’re . . .” He scratched his wrist. “You’re a visitor.”

“I’m your daughter, Val.”

“I don’t have a daughter,” he said. “You’ve got the wrong person.”

“Do you remember Ha Suran? She had shiny black hair, so long she could sit on it, that she wore piled up on her head.” Val demonstrated with her own hair.

There was no sign of comprehension, not a twitch. Anything he knew about her mother’s disappearance was long gone. He was a senile old man, and Val became aware that he smelled of urine. Had he wet himself as they sat there? It hadn’t been obvious when she first entered the room.

She tried to find a vestige of affection for the man who had raised her, but felt nothing but distaste. She wasn’t going to get any information out of him and suddenly couldn’t bear to stay a moment longer. She rose, hesitated. Should she kiss him goodbye? The thought made her feel sick.

“See you, Dad,” she said, secretly hoping she wouldn’t.