Determined, she requested her full medical file directly from the records department. Weeks later, an envelope arrived. She opened it at the kitchen table, spreading the pages wide. They were thin, and incomplete. But they covered her basic immunizations and minor illnesses over the years. Yet there were gaps, entire stretches of years with no record at all.
Her fingers shook as she traced the missing timeline. Some childhood visits she remembered vividly, like stitches in her knee after a playground fall, and a bad flu hospitalization, were absent. The omission felt deliberate now, not accidental, as if someone had curated her history, choosing carefully what should survive and what should vanish.