My mother pulled an old hospital record from the envelope. My name and a date were printed at the top.
I had been thirteen years old.
“This is from the day you supposedly fell down the stairs at school,” my mother whispered.
I stared at her in confusion.
I barely remembered the incident. I had hit my head, my nose had been bleeding, and my mother had always told me that I had slipped.
“What do you mean, ‘supposedly’?”
My mother clasped her hands together.
“You didn’t fall.”
Silence filled the room.
“Your nose wasn’t naturally shaped that way,” she continued. “It had been broken. The doctors wanted to operate, but I refused.”
“Why?”
My mother didn’t answer.
I picked up the medical document. Near the bottom, it read:
“Facial trauma was most likely caused by a forceful impact.”
“Who hit me?”
Michael suddenly sat down as though his legs could no longer support him.
