Cynthia Scapelli Robinson now lives in San Francisco, where she has a fine husband (no tattoos) and two children, the older of whom is an honor roll student in high school. Her household is a warm one. Cynthia works hard to keep it that way, because the atmosphere in her aunt’s home, where she did most of her growing up (and where her mother began to develop that formidable shell) was always chilly, full of recriminations and scoldings that usually began You forgot to. The emotional atmosphere was mostly above freezing, but rarely went higher than forty-five degrees. By the time Cynthia was in high school, she was calling her mother by her first name. Ruth Scapelli never objected to this; in fact, she found it a bit of a relief. She missed her daughter’s nuptials due to work commitments, but sent a ­wedding present. It was a clock-radio. These days Cynthia and her mother talk on the phone once or twice a month, and occasionally exchange emails. Josh doing fine in school, made the ­soccer team is followed by a terse reply: Good for him. Cynthia has never actually missed her mother, because there was never all that much to miss.

This morning she rises at seven, fixes breakfast for her husband and the two boys, sees Hank off to work, sees the boys off to school, then rinses the dishes and gets the dishwasher going. That is followed by a trip to the laundry room, where she loads the washer and gets that going. She does these morning chores without once thinking You must not forget to, except someplace down deep she is thinking it, and always will. The seeds sown in childhood put down deep roots.

At nine thirty she makes herself a second cup of coffee, turns on the TV (she rarely looks at it, but it’s company), and powers up her laptop to see if she has any emails other than the usual come-ons from Amazon and Urban Outfitters. This morning there’s one from her mother, sent last night at 10:44 PM, which translates to 8:44, West Coast time. She frowns at the subject line, which is a single word: Sorry.

She opens it. Her heartbeat speeds up as she reads.

I’m awful. I’m an awful worthless bitch. No one will stand up for me. This is what I have to do. I love you.

I love you. When is the last time her mother said that to her? Cynthia—who says it to her boys at least four times a day—honestly can’t remember. She grabs her phone off the counter where it’s been charging, and calls first her mother’s cell, then the landline. She gets Ruth Scapelli’s short, no-nonsense message on both: “Leave a message. I’ll call you back if that seems appropriate.” Cynthia tells her mother to call her right away, but she’s terribly afraid her mother may not be able to do that. Not now, perhaps not later, perhaps not at all.

She paces the circumference of her sunny kitchen twice, chewing at her lips, then picks up her cell again and gets the number for Kiner Memorial Hospital. She resumes pacing as she waits to be transferred to the Brain Injury Clinic. She’s finally connected to a nurse who identifies himself as Steve Halpern. No, Halpern tells her, Nurse Scapelli hasn’t come in, which is surprising. Her shift starts at eight, and in the Midwest it’s now twenty to one.