It had been a simple gesture, but one that had imprinted itself on Emily’s heart.
A few days of visiting and the young boy had asked off-handedly about her preferred type of jewelry.
Being sickly and weak most of the time, she had never given such things any thought. She had not been expected to live past the age of five, and if not for the boy’s intervention on that rooftop, she would not have been alive to be asked that question.
She had snapped at him then, and he had fallen silent, but had not left her room, even as she turned her back to him on the bed.
He had stayed the full hour that had become his custom.
Two days later, he had visited late at night, after coming for his usual afternoon visit. He had said some words she had not heard clearly in her heavily medicated state, a l
