“I’m on it, sweetheart,” she said.

“And if that husband of yours shows his face here, God forgive me for what I’ll do to him.”

The ambulance arrived as the sun was going down over Miami, staining everything the color of the bougainvillea.

My mother was pale, and sweating cold, and as they lifted her onto the gurney she caught my hand and squeezed it with everything she had left in her.

“Don’t let him get that notebook,” she said.

And at that exact moment, my phone buzzed with a message from a number I did not recognize.