After what happened at the hospital, Rosette's curiosity hardened into something sharper. She wanted answers — about her sisters, about Dranred, about whatever it was that made Estelle treat him like a stranger. A few nights later, after Red's basketball game, she and Estelle had walked out of the stadium, staying just long enough to overhear scraps of conversation that deepened the mystery. They couldn't forget what they'd heard.
Back at home, the air felt heavier than usual. James stopped in the doorway and stared at the two of them. "Why do you both look like that? Did you fight?" he asked, noticing the silence between Rosette and Estelle.
Estelle was in the kitchen, preparing dinner; Rosette sat in the living room, listening. James's voice echoed slightly against the tile.
"You went to the hospital today, right?" he continued. "What happened? What did the doctor say?"
Estelle wiped her hands on a towel and answered, "They said there's a chance Rosette can see again. We only need a compatible cornea, and then she can have the operation."
"That's good news," James said, but his brow remained furrowed. "Then why do you both look like you've seen a ghost?"
Rosette spoke up then, surprising him with the steadiness in her voice. "James, I've been wanting to ask you something."
James turned toward her. "Go on."
"What happened between you and Red?" Rosette asked, blunt and calm. Her blindness made her senses keener in other ways; she trusted what she felt in the room. There had been a strange tension around her brother and Red since they reconnected, and she wanted to know why.
For a moment James's face hardened. "Where did that question come from?" he snapped.
Rosette didn't back down. "I'm not stupid because I can't see. One advantage of being blind is that I notice when something about my surroundings is wrong. I can tell when people aren't honest."
James's jaw tightened. "What do you mean?"
She leaned forward, the corner of the rug under her feet familiar and steady. "Ever since Red came back into our lives, there's been tension. You and Estelle treat him like a stranger. What happened between you two years ago? Why is everything changed?"
James looked at Estelle, then away. For the first time in the room there was a sharp, brittle edge to his voice. "You really want to know?" he said.
Estelle opened her mouth to stop him — she didn't want Rosette to hear some things yet — but James went on, the words tumbling out raw and unfiltered.
"I'm not his friend anymore," he said. "Not after what he did. He stole my dream."
Rosette's fingers tightened around the arm of the chair. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"You know how much I love basketball, right?" James's anger flared, hot and jagged. "That was my dream. I worked for it. But because of what happened — those… incidents — he used them to take it from me. He took my place, my chance. How can I call someone a friend after that?"
His voice rose. The room felt smaller, charged. "Do you know how it feels to have your dream ripped away? To watch someone else wear what should've been yours? He took everything. I can never forgive him. I'll make sure he loses everything he took from me."
Rosette sat very still. It was the first time she'd heard James pour out so much pain. The words were fierce, almost foreign — but she could feel the truth behind them: the betrayal, the bitterness, the vow to fight back. She didn't understand all the details yet, but the fury in James's voice left no doubt that his hatred for Red ran deep.
Estelle stepped into the doorway, hesitated, and then crossed the room slowly. "James," she said quietly, "let's not talk about this now."
But the words had been said. The seed of the past — of something that had cost James dearly — had been planted in Rosette's mind. She would not let it go unanswered.
"James. That's enough." Estelle's voice trembled as she stepped between them.
James turned on her, hurt and anger braided together. "Why don't you admit you're hurting too?" he snapped. "When I get mad at him, doesn't it hurt you? Even after everything he's done… you still love him."
"James." Rosette's voice was a small thread in the room. She couldn't see, but she felt the heat in her brother's words like a flame near her skin.
"You want the truth?" James demanded, flinging his hands as if to cast the secret into the open. "Fine. I'll tell you. Dranred and his grandfather — they're the reason our parents are dead. They're the reason I can't play basketball anymore. They're the reason you're blind."
The room went very quiet. The words landed like stones.
Rosette could scarcely breathe. A memory — the nightmare she'd been wrestling with for years — slid into place: the terror of that night, the way it returned to her in flashes. Then she remembered something else, a small, baffling kindness from Dranred in the hospital: his apology, his urgent plea for time. The pieces that had seemed separate began to fit together. Maybe his apology had been guilt. Maybe everything was more complicated than she'd thought.
"No one in this house is allowed to say his name," James continued, voice rising. "He's a traitor. If you understand me at all — if you call yourself my sister — never say his name in front of me. Forget him. He can't come back into our lives."
He turned toward Estelle, fury sharpening. "And don't expect anyone here to welcome him back. Don't hope for what used to be. I will never accept him. Not the grandson of a murderer."
With that, James stalked from the room, his footsteps echoing down the hallway. The door clicked softly behind him.
For a long moment Estelle and Rosette stood in the hush he left. Estelle's hands trembled at her sides; Rosette kept very still, focusing on what she heard — the cadence of Estelle's breathing, the distant hum of traffic, the faint scent of dinner simmering on the stove. The revelation had arrived like a weather front: loud, impossible to ignore, and already changing the air between them.