I did not think, once, to question it.

That is the thing about being someone’s emergency fund for ten years: you stop asking whether the emergency is real.

Chapter 2 — The Hand on My Wrist

I came through the emergency ward doors too fast, heels cracking against the linoleum, scanning the room numbers until I found 412.

My hand was already on the heavy door when fingers closed around my wrist and pulled me back.

A nurse — her badge read Kathleen — drew me sideways, quick and low, into the mouth of a supply alcove across the hall.