Lauren.
My daughter.
My twenty-six-year-old girl who still called me every Sunday night while she folded laundry. The one who had sat with me on the floor of my old kitchen in March, eating takeout from the carton because I’d already packed the plates. The one who had hugged me in the parking lot after closing and said, “Mom, I’m so proud of you. This is your house. Nobody gets to take it from you.”
The one I’d trusted with the emergency code because I wanted someone to be able to get inside if I ever fell down the basement stairs and couldn’t reach my phone.
Rachel picked up my phone and looked at the screen.
She didn’t say anything for a long moment.
Then she said, very quietly, “Oh, Di.”
“Ma’am?” The dispatcher’s voice came from the counter. “Are you still there?”
