For reasons I could not explain, the sight of them filled me with unease.
Cameron hated yellow roses. He said they looked apologetic.
I reached for the card with clumsy fingers.
The front was blank.
Inside, written in neat blue ink, were five words.
Congratulations. He looks just like him.
My skin went cold.
Not just like you.
Not just like Cameron.
Just like him.
I read it again.
And again.
My mother stirred. “What is it?”
I handed her the card.
She read it, and the last traces of sleep vanished from her face.
“Who brought these?”
“I don’t know.”
She was on her feet immediately, pressing the call button.
Maya arrived first, followed by a security officer.
The flowers were removed. The nurse checked the visitor log. No florist had signed in. No delivery had been recorded. No staff member remembered placing them there.
But someone had.
Someone had entered my room while I slept, left flowers beside my bed, and written a message that made no sense unless it was meant to make me afraid.
By nightfall, my room had been moved to a more private corridor.
My mother refused to leave. Elena arranged for a security presence without making it feel theatrical. Cameron was still not permitted inside, though I was told he had not gone home.
He sat somewhere beyond the locked doors, waiting.
I did not ask whether he had eaten.
I hated that a small part of me wondered.
Near midnight, when the hospital quieted into its strange after-hours rhythm, I woke to a soft knock.
Not the brisk tap of a nurse.
Not the confident knock of a doctor.
This one was hesitant.
Maya opened the door a few inches.
“Dr. Grant? There’s someone asking to speak with you.”
My mother woke instantly. “Absolutely not.”
Maya looked uncomfortable. “It’s Dr. Patel from Psychiatry.”
I frowned.
“Anil?”
Dr. Anil Patel had been my friend since residency. Gentle, observant, impossible to rush. He had once diagnosed a rare neurological reaction in a patient everyone else had dismissed as anxious because he noticed the man tapped his left fingers out of rhythm with his right.
He stepped inside carrying no chart.
That, too, told me this was not a normal consult.
“Amelia,” he said softly. “I’m sorry to come so late.”
My mother stood. “Why are you here?”
Anil looked at me, asking permission with his eyes.
I nodded.
He closed the door.
