Lily was twenty, in the middle of a lecture on corporate law, when her phone began to buzz.
She ignored it. It buzzed again. She glanced down. The screen said Martha, and under it, three missed calls.
She slipped out of the lecture hall and answered in the corridor.
"Martha? What is it?"
"Lily." Martha's voice was thin and strange. "You need to come home. Right now."
"What happened?"
"It's your father." A sob broke through. "There has been an accident."
The corridor seemed to stretch. Lily put a hand on the wall.
"What kind of accident?"
"His car. On the highway, near the old bridge. He was driving to a meeting." Martha was crying openly now. "They've taken him to St. Mary's. Mrs. Thompson is already on her way. Oh, sweetheart, I think it's bad. I think it's very bad."
Lily did not remember leaving the university. She did not remember the taxi, or what she said to the driver, or how she got through the doors of the hospital.
All she remembered was the smell, antiseptic and floor wax and fear, and a nurse leading her down a long white corridor toward a room with a number on the door.
St. Mary's. The same hospital where she was born. The same hospital where her mother had died.
She stopped at the door.
Cecilia was already inside, standing beside the bed with a handkerchief pressed to her mouth.
Clara and Evelyn were huddled in the corner. They turned when she came in, and for a moment, Lily thought she saw something other than grief on their faces.
Fear, maybe. Or calculation.
"Where is he?" Lily said.
Nobody answered.
She pushed past them.
Edward Thompson lay in the narrow bed, pale as paper, with tubes in his arm and a bandage across his forehead. His breathing was shallow and uneven. His eyes were closed.
He looked older than she remembered. He looked small.
"Dad?"
Something flickered under his eyelids. A faint movement. His fingers twitched on the white sheet.
"Dad, it's me. It's Lily."
For a long moment, nothing. Then his eyes opened, slowly, hazily, and found her face.
"Lily," he breathed.
She took his hand. It was cold. "I'm here."
"I..." His lips moved. "I got your... I read..."
"Don't talk, Papa. Save your strength."
"No." His grip tightened, desperately. "Lily. The letter. I..."
A hand closed on Lily's shoulder, hard.
"Let him rest," said Cecilia. Her voice was gentle, her fingers were not. "He's confused. The doctors say he should not be strained."
"He's trying to tell me something."
"He doesn't know what he's saying."
Edward's eyes moved to Cecilia's face. Lily watched something change in them, a flash of recognition, almost of terror. His mouth worked.
Then the monitor began to scream.