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When I turn and leave her there in the storeroom to simmer in it, I can practically feel the point of the knife that I know she is going to stick in my back when she gets the chance.

But that fact is, she can do that whether she works here or not at this point. All I can do is keep her close enough, for now, to keep an eye on her.

And maybe find out if her parents really would miss her.

It’s one o’clock in the morning, and I’m finally back home after spending an extra hour after close scheduling out the next week’s worth of social media posts and preparing the special menus for printing. Tim is going to hold the reception at Red Hall, and at last, things are looking up.

All I want right now is to crawl into bed. I don’t even bother to undress; just slink down into the warm embrace of my plush mattress and let myself take the slide down into sleep.

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sp; And then my phone rings. Should have put it on silent.

But it could be related to work. Lacey is restless, and planned to stay up late experimenting with some ideas we’ve had for the reception. She does that from time to time. I trust her entirely.

I’d better answer it, though. Except… it’s not my chef. It’s George, who never calls me for anything. Do I dare answer?

“Hello?”

“Janie,” George says, “you better come. It’s Gina. She’s been admitted to the hospital, and they say it’s bad.”

“Why?” I sit up, and I’m already putting my feet back into my heels. No, better wear flats. Shit, I’m still in my dress from work. “What happened?”

“What do you think happened?”

He doesn’t want my answer to that. “Did they admit her for a panic attack?”

“For observation, yes… and they want to keep an eye on her heart.”

My heart begins to pound. Jesus… in the past three years I’ve barely spent any real, quality time with my mother. It’s strange that this is what comes to mind. Right away, I’m wondering how long she’s got. She active enough, but Mama’s health has never been ideal, not for fifteen years. Not since Dad left and, really, even before then.

“Text me the room number,” I tell George, and then hang up. A moment later, the text comes through and I’ve changed into something more casual, though my hair is still up. Whatever.

The doctor tells me more or less the same story. Mama had a panic attack, and thought that she was having some kind of cardiac event. When she came into the emergency room they told her she wasn’t — but she did have a murmur that got worse when she was in the midst of one of her attacks. Her blood pressure was too high, and there was a concern that she might have a stroke if her distress didn’t cause a heart attack first.

So, they want to keep her for a week for observation of her heart and blood pressure, but also for a psych eval. Why?

Because George admitted that she’d talked about killing herself before.

“They asked me, I told them,” George says. “And you know your Ma. She wants to stay.”

Mama’s asleep at the moment. I checked on her, and then met George to tell him to call me if anything changes. George, though, has another concern. The one that he actually called me for.

“Look, I wanna take care of your Ma, Janie,” he says, using that good-guy voice I’ve only heard when he wants something, “but we can’t afford this. We don’t have this kind of money.”

“Okay,” I say. After all, this isn’t about him, or me — it’s about Mama. I look at Chris and Derek, who’ve come to help out as well. “So, what are you guys pitching in? Are we just gonna split it, or what?”

My brothers share a look, and then drop their eyes.

“We both pitched in a grand,” Derek mutters.

A grand. Each. I look at George. “Which leaves…?”

“About five grand,” George says — apologetically! As if he’s really sorry about this when I know damn good and well that George Acropolis is never sorry about anything.

“She really needs them to keep an eye on her right now,” Chris says. “And you’re better off than any of us. Red Hall’s back open, right? You’ll make that kind of money back in a night.”

I’d very much like to know where he got information like that. He isn’t wrong, but it’s beside the point. These two are constantly going on about all the money they spend on cars and vacations and Armani suits that they have custom tailored. And a thousand bucks is the best they can come up with to “split” an eight-thousand-dollar price tag on their own mother’s hospital stay?