I saved both.

Her name was Celeste Mercer.

She liked rooms full of flowers, lunch invitations whose guest lists were arranged like business transactions, and repeating that a woman’s job was to make her husband proud.

My mother, who had worked every weekday to keep us afloat, would have horrified her.

On the third day, Celeste tried to come to the hospital.

Staff informed me that someone was requesting access.

I said no.