So I made two calls.

The first was to my father, because he was already driving toward a nightmare that wasn’t real and I could not leave him in it a minute longer than I had to.

The second was to my Aunt Lois, who was Marcia’s sister and the one relative in the family with a working conscience, and I asked her, plainly, to come, and to bring whoever was already planning to.

I did not lie to them about a crashing heart to fill the room.