Mrs.

Hayes… I don’t think your daughter has had a single visitor.”

I closed my eyes, leaning my back against the cool plaster of the wall. For one terrible second, the supply closet smelled like harsh antiseptic, old paper, and pure terror.

For one second, I was thirty-four years old again, standing in a sterile hospital corridor, waiting for a surgeon to tell me whether my husband was still alive after his massive heart attack.

Same icy hollowness. Same absolute certainty that my life had just split cleanly in two.

“I’m coming,” I said, my voice hard as iron. “Tell Sarah I’m coming right now.”