Rosalie looked at
the scar behind his ear.
A nine-year-old boy.
A supposed projectile.
A surgery performed by her father.
Twenty-nine years of pain afterward.
She wrote carefully.
Tell me everything you remember.
Gideon leaned back.
For several moments he stared toward the fire.
Then his pencil began moving.
I was riding with my father. Heard a shot. Horse threw me.
He paused.
Blood from ear.
Another pause.
Could still hear afterward.
Rosalie’s breath caught.
She pointed at the final sentence.
“You could hear?”
He read her lips.
Nodded.
His pencil continued.
Not well. But yes.
Rosalie moved closer.
After surgery?
Gideon’s hand tightened around the pencil.
Nothing.
The cabin seemed suddenly much colder.
Rosalie stared at the signature again.
Her father had operated on Gideon.
Before that operation, Gideon still possessed some hearing.
Afterward, he had none.
At least not in the damaged ear.
