Chapter 8 - The Memory of FireLiam began seeing Dr. Mara Levin two days later.
Not because he was “bad.”
Sophia insisted on that language.
“You are not being punished,” she told him.
Liam sat in the back seat of the car.
“Then why do I have to go?”
“Because something frightening happened to you when you were little.”
“You mean the fire.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody told me.”
Sophia did not defend herself.
“Yes.”
That answer surprised him.
At the therapist’s office, Liam drew instead of talking.
A black car.
Orange flames.
A small boy behind a window.
A woman outside.
Dr. Levin pointed gently.
“Who is she?”
Liam shrugged.
“Mom.”
“What is she doing?”
“Watching.”
Sophia, sitting across the room, closed her eyes.
Dr. Levin asked:
“Is that what you remember?”
“I don’t know.”
“Or is that what you’re afraid happened?”
Liam gripped the crayon.
“I said I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.”
After the session, Dr. Levin asked Daniel and Sophia to stay.
Liam sat outside with Emma.
Dr. Levin folded her hands.
“His memories are fragmented.”
Daniel nodded.
“He was two.”
“Yes. At that age, sensory memory can survive without a coherent narrative.”
Sophia looked toward the door.
“He remembers seeing my burned face.”
“Possibly.”
“He screamed at me in the hospital.”
“That doesn’t mean he understood what he was seeing.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“We thought hiding it protected him.”
“It may have, temporarily.”
Sophia gave him a painful look.
Dr. Levin continued.
“But now someone has inserted an interpretation into those fragments.”
“The anonymous messages,” Daniel said.
“Yes.”
“They told him Sophia was dangerous.”
“Then his brain may be assembling memory around that suggestion.”
Sophia whispered:
“So when he remembers me near the car…”
“He may interpret you as the cause rather than the rescuer.”
Sophia looked away.
Dr. Levin’s voice softened.
“You cannot control what he remembers. You can only give him truthful context.”
Daniel asked the question he already knew the answer to.
“Should we tell him?”
“Yes.”
Sophia said nothing.
That evening, Eleanor called Daniel from another number.
“You’ve frozen me out of my grandson’s life.”
“For now.”
“You have no right.”
“I’m his father.”
“And I’m your mother.”
“That used to mean something.”
Silence.
Eleanor’s voice became colder.
“You’re letting Sophia turn you against your family.”
Daniel laughed.
“My family?”
“Daniel.”
“Did Ross Mercer work for the foundation five years ago?”
Silence again.
That silence mattered.
“What are you digging into?”
“You tell me.”
“Be careful.”
Daniel’s grip tightened.
“Is that a threat?”
“It is advice.”
She hung up.
Across the room, Sophia had heard enough.
“She knows.”
Daniel nodded.
“Or she knows we’re close.”
Sophia opened her laptop.
A new email waited.
No sender name.
Only an attachment.
She opened it.
It was a scanned invoice from five years earlier.
MERCER RISK CONSULTING.
Below the payment description was a handwritten notation.
VEHICLE ACCESS — S.C.
Sophia stared at her initials.
Daniel whispered:
“That SUV wasn’t random.”
May you like
Sophia’s scars suddenly seemed to burn again.
Five years after the fire, someone had finally put her name next to the match.
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