“Claire, not every family matter belongs in a file.”

“Then why did you put my house in one?”

He disconnected.

I sat with an unopened packet of crackers until a nurse at the rehabilitation center noticed me struggling with it.

She joked that those packets were the hardest things in the building to open.

I let her help.

It was such a small act that I could accept it without thinking.

I ate two crackers before the phone lit up with Megan’s name.