Here’s all we know: Hudson is in the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, which I decide means he’s alive.

Both Isla and I were born at Cedars. This feels like compelling evidence that my brother cannot die there. I don’t say this out loud to Isla, who would dismiss the thought the same way she dismisses my mother’s vision boards (which, fair enough) and the rest of what she calls our “woo-woo crap.”

I don’t say this out loud because I don’t want to use that word, die.

“You think Sage will be there?” I ask once we’re in the car, speeding toward the hospital. I run a stop sign and then turn left despite the fact that it’s restricted hours. Sage is Hudson’s mom, my dad’s ex-wife. She’s a short woman with tattoos snaking up both of her arms and emphatic, jagged dyed-black bangs. She has the sort of tanned, wrinkly skin that gives the impression she’s spent the last twenty years hard-living on the beach.

It’s almost impossible to picture her and my father doing all the things they apparently did once upon a time: falling in love, getting married, having Hudson.

“Carrie said in her messages that she’s leading a yoga retreat in Nevada. So it should be just us, until Mom and Dad get here. They’re landing any minute. Carrie’s going to meet us at the hospital to take Fluff home.”

Isla kisses our dog’s head, scratches under his ears. I wish we could take Fluffernutter with us into the waiting room. His heavy dog inhalations are comforting. As is the fact that he doesn’t know how screwed up we all are, and if he does, he loves us anyway.

“This family is so screwed up,” Isla says, reading my mind.

“Hud’s going to be okay,” I say.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Isla says.

—

The woman sitting behind the desk in the emergency room tells us to take a seat with barely a glance in our direction. When I ask to see Hudson, she says, “That will not be possible at this time.” When I ask when someone will tell us what’s going on, she holds up her palms, like she’s not in charge, even though she’s the one with access to a computer and a phone and a special hospital pass, which means she can go behind those swinging double doors, where presumably our half brother is.

“Is my brother even alive?” I ask. “Can you at least tell me that?”