Clara
The call came at six in the morning, my father's voice on the other end carrying none of its usual cold authority, only a rare, unguarded fear that made my stomach drop before he'd even finished explaining.
"Your mother collapsed last night," Richard said. "She's at Mercy General. The doctors are running tests now. Clara, I think you should come."
I drove to the hospital in a daze, the particular déjà vu of it settling over me like ice water, the same corridors, the same fluorescent lights, the same fear I remembered from another hospital eighteen months ago, though this time the person on the other side of the door belonged to me by blood rather than by love.
Diane Bennett looked smaller in the hospital bed than I'd ever seen her, the composed, formidable woman who'd delivered u
