to take them to school, pick them up, feed them, and stay until Mara brought Elena home.
Instead, they had left.
‘I am so sorry,’ Daniel said quietly. ‘I would have called emergency services if I had known how to reach you sooner, but Mateo begged me not to. He was afraid it would scare Finn more.’
Elena pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. Her whole body felt hollowed out.
‘You did the right thing,’ she said. ‘Thank you. Please tell the boys I am coming.’
‘You should not drive.’
‘I am calling Mara.’
Before she called Mara, Elena called Aunt Vivian.
The phone rang four times. When Vivian answered, there was music in the background, laughter, and the faint clink of glasses.
‘Elena,’ Vivian sang. ‘How did it go, darling? We have all been thinking about you.’
Elena stared at the curtain beside her bed. Its bottom edge swayed slightly from the air vent.
‘Where are my sons?’
The music faded, as if Vivian had stepped into another room.
‘Oh,’ her aunt said. ‘So Mr. Calder reached you.’
The calmness of it was worse than panic. Panic would have meant she understood.
‘Where are my sons, Vivian?’
‘Elena, do not use that tone with me after everything we have done for you.’
‘Everything you have done?’ Elena repeated. Her stitches pulled when she spoke. ‘You left Mateo and Finn alone outside our house while I was unconscious.’
A small, irritated breath came through the line.
‘They were not outside the whole time. They know the neighborhood. And Mr. Calder is right next door.’
‘You left before lunch.’
‘Clara had an emergency.’
Elena heard her own pulse beating in her ears.
Clara was Vivian’s daughter. Thirty-one years old, recently engaged, and treated by the entire family as if her mild disappointments were weather disasters. When Clara was ten and cried because Elena got a higher grade on a spelling test, Vivian had accused Elena of showing off. When Clara was nineteen and wrecked George’s car, everyone agreed Elena should drive her to class for a month because Clara was traumatized. When Elena’s husband died, Clara posted a photo of herself in black and wrote about learning to value life, then complained because Elena did not like it.
‘What emergency?’ Elena asked.
Vivian hesitated just long enough for the truth to gather weight.
‘Her engagement photographer had a cancellation. They moved the shoot to today. Then the zipper on her dress jammed, and she was falling apart. She needed her father to drive us to the bridal studio.’
The recovery room went terribly clear. The monitor beeped. The nurse watched from the doorway. Somewhere behind the curtain, a woman coughed.
‘A dress zipper,’ Elena said.
‘You make it sound shallow because you have always been jealous of Clara.’
Elena laughed once. It hurt so badly she nearly folded over.
‘Finn is six.’
‘And Mateo is very mature for his age.’
‘You locked them out.’
‘We did not lock them out. George took the house key by accident. The code did not work for Mateo because you changed it last month and forgot to tell us.’
‘I texted it to you yesterday.’
Another silence.
Then Vivian said, ‘Elena, I will not be interrogated. Your children are fine. Clara needed
