Chapter 4 - The Memory Card
The pool party ended abruptly. Glen quietly helped our guests leave, apologizing while Uncle Richard took the children inside to play in the nursery under the care of my cousin.
In our living room, the atmosphere was stiflingly quiet. Clara sat on the sofa, wrapped in a dry blanket, staring at her hands. The waterproof pendant lay on the wooden coffee table between us, alongside Glen’s laptop and a memory card reader.
"Put the card in," I told Glen. My voice was eerily calm now, the numb shock giving way to a cold, relentless determination.
Glen carefully extracted the micro-SD card from the pendant casing and inserted it into the reader. A folder popped up on the monitor. It was filled with video files, text documents, and medical scans spanning six full years.
"Before you open those," Clara said quietly, not looking up, "you need to know what happened that day. Arthur was diagnosed with an aggressive, late-stage brain tumor. He found out two months before he disappeared. He didn't tell you, Maya. You were twenty-one, struggling in university, recovering from your mother's death years prior. He knew you couldn't handle watching him deteriorate."
"So he let me believe he was dead?!" I slammed my hand on the table. "He let me grieve a ghost for six years?!"
"It wasn't supposed to go like this," Clara sobbed. "He hired a private medical company to undergo an experimental neurological procedure in Vermont. It was off-the-record, highly risky, but it was his only chance at survival. He staged his disappearance so that if the operation failed, you would be spared the agonising month-by-month decline. He left a legal trust fund to pay for the facility."
"And the baby in the photograph?" Glen asked, pointing to the image on the screen. "Who is that?"
Clara looked up, her eyes filled with profound sadness. "That’s Ariel. Three years ago, when Ariel was born, I took a picture of her at the hospital. I brought a portable projector to Arthur’s room in Vermont. The doctors said his brain activity spiked whenever I played audio of your voice or showed him pictures of his grandchild. That photo... I edited Arthur’s face into the hospital background to remind myself why I was keeping him alive."
Glen clicked on the most recent video file dated just two weeks ago.
The screen lit up. It showed a dimly lit hospital room. On the bed lay my father, Arthur. He looked older, thin, and fragile, with medical monitors surrounding him. But his eyes were open. He was conscious.
In the video, a doctor in a white coat leaned over him. "Arthur, can you hear me? Nod if you understand."
Slowly, painfully, the man on the screen nodded.
"Do you know where you are?"
May you like
Arthur’s dry lips moved. No sound came out at first, but then a faint, rasping whisper echoed from the laptop speakers: "Maya... my daughter... I want to go home..."
I covered my mouth as tears poured down my cheeks. He was alive. He was awake.
