“Yes.”

“This is Tucson General.

Your mother, Paulina Marsden, has been admitted — a stroke, quite severe.

You should come as soon as you’re able.” The hallway seemed to stretch and tilt.

My son, Auggie, was six and safe at home with a sitter I trusted; that was the first thought, the reflexive inventory of a single mother — is my child all right — and he was.

It was my mother who was falling.