The phone rang at 11:43 p.m., and it didn’t feel like a call—it felt like an alarm.
I had been drifting through a half-dream of still water and clean horizons when the sharp digital sound snapped me awake. Years as a paramedic trained my body to react before my mind could catch up. Calls that come this late are never harmless. They never carry good news.
Only one name glowed on the screen: Emily.
My daughter never called at this hour. She was twenty-four, married just over a year, living several states away. We had patterns—Sunday afternoons, coffee at my kitchen table, her voice careful but warm as she talked about her job at the library and the small, ordinary victories she used to steady herself.
I answered immediately. “Em? Are you okay?”
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