The Kindest Parents Locked Me in a Gas Chamber

The moment carbon monoxide poisoning made me convulse and cough up blood, my mother was on the other side of the door, gently coaxing me to sleep.

My parents were the town's most celebrated philanthropists. They'd adopted Harrison Chavez—the orphaned son of a fellow patient who'd died of a terminal illness. To help heal his trauma, they didn't even dare raise their voices around him.

Then came the day the blizzard sealed the mountain roads, and I—a severe asthmatic—spiked a high fever.