Page 35 of Forever We Embrace: The Later Years
“Not unless you ask to speak with them or there’s a legal requirement we can’t avoid. If that changes, we’ll tell you before anyone contacts you.”
“Will they know my name?”
“Not if you don’t want them to.”
“And if I say no?”
“You keep your room. You keep your care. Nothing changes.”
Her eyes move past me toward the hall.
I follow the direction of her gaze and see Josie standing near the open office door with a stack of supply forms in her hands. She isn’t close enough to hear every word, but she can hear enough.
I turn back to Philomena.
“You can also decide later,” I say. “You don’t owe anyone your story because it may help an investigation.”
Philomena asks who will receive the notes, how they’ll be stored, and whether she can approve the summary before it leaves Ember House. I answer each question. She agrees to an anonymized account but doesn’t consent to an interview, release of her medical information, or contact with law enforcement.
I write those restrictions at the top of the page and hand it to her so she can read them herself.
When I look toward the hall again, Josie hasn’t moved.
Something shifts across her expression when I repeat that Philomena can refuse without losing her place. The change is brief, little more than her lips parting before she looks down at the forms in her hands.
It could be guilt.
It could be confusion.
It could be recognition that has nothing to do with the network.
Before I can decide, Josie lowers her gaze and continues toward the supply room.
Philomena reads the consent limits twice before signing beneath them.
That evening, Wilson joins us at the house.
The children are already upstairs with Grayson, though their footsteps carry through the ceiling whenever one of them runs down the hall. Philomena’s anonymized account lies on the coffee table with her restrictions clipped to the front.
Wilson reads the terminology twice before placing the pages down. “These phrases came from Hearthstone’s internal placement system. They weren’t used in public donor materials.”
Maceo sits forward, his forearms resting against his knees. “Could someone have copied old records after Ward’s operation collapsed?”
“Possibly.” Wilson taps the sequence with one finger. “But the order matters. Intake category, sponsor review, compatibility match, transfer debt. Whoever built this service understands how the stages worked together.”
Blake rests his cane against the sofa and studies the summary from beside me. His shoulder presses lightly into mine, and his hand remains across my knee beneath the edge of the paper.
“So this isn’t money left sitting in old trusts,” he says.
“No.” I look at the phrases Philomena remembered copying by hand. “Someone is placing Omegas through the method now.”
The room stills around the distinction.
Luther stands near the fireplace with his arms folded, but he doesn’t interrupt. “Did she think anyone followed her?”
“She doesn’t know. She changed transportation twice and spent one night in a shelter before the advocate contacted us.”
“We’ll review the external cameras and adjust arrivals until we know more,” he says. “Nothing that changes how residents move inside the house.”
