Chapter 8: Visiting Hours

I came off the elevator at eight the next morning on a limp and a cup of bad coffee.

Through the glass of my mother's door I saw Gavin standing at the foot of her bed.

Corinna was beside him with an enormous bouquet of white roses.

My mother sat very straight against her pillows with the oxygen tube under her nose and her eyes narrowed.

I pushed the door open.

"Callie," Gavin said, and he stepped toward me with his hands out. "Thank God. We came to bring you home."

"We were so worried," Corinna said, and her eyes were wet. "Roberta, we flew all night."

"You flew all night to a place she told you not to follow her," my mother said.

"Mom."

"Hush, baby. Let me."

She turned her head on the pillow and looked at Gavin.

"You held my hand at your wedding and told me you'd take care of my daughter."

"I did, Roberta. I still intend to."

"Which wedding was that, then?" my mother said. "Callie told me on the phone. The county has no record of it."

The room went very quiet.

Gavin's mouth opened, and Corinna got a half-step in front of him.

"Roberta, that's a clerical thing. Gavin would never"

"He cut off your medicine last winter," my mother said to him, "and made my daughter kneel in a hallway."

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