“And the civil suit against Chloe?” Julian asked.
“I need to know if we are filing the paperwork tomorrow morning. The deadline is twelve hours away.”
“No,” I said. “We let it go.”
Julian watched me for a long moment, his face expressionless behind his gold-rimmed glasses.
He nodded once, a brief, professional acknowledgment of a decision he clearly disagreed with, but he did not argue.
The heavy double doors of the intensive care unit at the far end of the corridor swung open.
Two paramedics in dark blue uniforms wheeled a gurney out into the hallway.
My mother lay beneath three layers of white hospital blankets, her head elevated, her face pale and utterly still.
A thin clear tube was taped beneath her nose, and her right arm was strapped securely to her side.
An emergency physician walked beside the gurney, holding a clipboard.
“We’re moving her to the specialized neurological unit upstate,” the doctor said as they passed us.
