For most of my life, I would have treated that as evidence they were busy.

Now it meant something different because two people at a facility had already been trying the same numbers.

I reached Ohio in the early evening.

Eleanor was waiting beside the brown suitcase and the grocery bag of prescription bottles.

Patricia had kept the unsigned checklist in a folder.

“Your grandmother has been specific,” she told me.

“She has declined admission.

We have not treated the family’s wishes as her consent.”