didn’t.”
Vanessa grabbed her purse.
“Lock up when you leave.”
She opened the door.
Then turned back.
“And don’t use my card for hospital parking again.”
Mom flinched.
I saw it.
Vanessa didn’t.
Or maybe she did.
That was worse.
The door shut behind her.
And I finally understood something I should have realized years earlier.
Vanessa didn’t dislike inconvenience.
She disliked my mother.
Mr. Bellamy arrived exactly two minutes later.
He wore an old Navy baseball cap and immediately took Mom’s bag.
“Hospital?”
Mom smiled.
“I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Ma’am, I once transported a man who tried to fight an ambulance because he thought it was stealing his shoes. You are not a bother.”
Mom laughed.
It was the first genuine laugh I had heard from her that morning.
At the hospital, things went better than expected.
Mom’s specialist reviewed her tests, adjusted her medication, and said her
