Never In Another Life novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Forty-Eight Hours

The director met me at the ward door at nine with a letter in her hand and no color in her face.

"The board met by phone at eight," she said. "I fought them, hon."

"What does it say?"

"Forty-eight hours."

I took the page and read it twice.

It said the safety of the residents could no longer be assured.

It said the facility had received threats since the video.

It said my mother's bed would be needed by Saturday morning.

"They're throwing her out," I said.

"They're throwing out the problem."

"She's on a ventilator. She can't be moved to just anywhere."

"I know." The director's eyes were wet. "I called every unit within a hundred miles. Nobody has a bed that takes a vent patient on two days' notice."

I folded the letter very small.

Someone had made sure of that.

Someone had made calls before sunrise, and I knew the voice that made them.

I went out the front doors to breathe.

The parking lot was full of strangers.

Eight, maybe ten, standing in a loose ring with their phones up.

A man shouted, "That's her!"

A woman I had never seen said, "How could you leave your baby?"

I kept walking.

At the curb sat a black sedan with its back door open.

Constance sat inside it with her pearls on and her hands folded.

Her lawyer stood beside the car holding the leather folder.

"Get in, Kira," she said. "It's cold, and you are making a scene."

"I'm standing in a parking lot."

"Then stand there and listen."

She took the folder from the lawyer and held it out the window.

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