Chapter 14
I felt the life-affirming sun on my face, breathed the fresh air, and thought I was hallucinating. I opened my eyes and saw my worried father by my bedside, holding my hand, searching for the external damage done. Cynthia was there too, sponging my sweaty forehead or pouring the glasses of water I couldn’t drink fast enough to quench my month-long thirst. I was so cold, and my father covered me with another blanket. I hadn’t yet shaken off the delirium I existed in after the force-feedings began, I was running a fever, and at first they feared I had caught the influenza still bringing pneumonia and death across the country. But all I had caught was the blunt end of Wilson’s wrath.
In the Virginia hotel with my father and my aunt by my side, clinging to me as though they would
