“Jesus,” she said.

Normally one of us would have said something about her swearing, but there was nothing normal about this day.

“Should I see if I can find anything on AM? Maybe I can find talk radio or something. Or give me your phone to navigate and you plug mine in, since yours doesn’t work in the adapter. I—”

He interrupted me and laid his hand on my thigh. “Honey, I love you. But can we just be quiet?”

THREE

ABBI

NOW

I stared angrily at the closed door, holding back the urge to pound my fists on it until they let me in. She was my mom, and I deserved to be in there with them, but someone official looking had met us at the emergency room entrance this morning and whisked us through the hospital without ever introducing herself to me. She’d shooed me into the hallway and shut the door behind them before I had a chance to protest. Dad would’ve said something to her about treating me like a little kid, if he hadn’t been in shock. It wasn’t fair that Meredith got to be in there with him and I didn’t. I’d counted every mile until we’d gotten to Montana and never expected to be shut out like this.

I hated being treated like a kid when it came to Mom’s case. They weren’t talking about anything behind their closed door that I hadn’t already thought of. Probably twice. I’d played out every terrible thing that could’ve happened to her over the years, and there was nothing they could say that would surprise me, but it was too late now. I was stuck.

My stomach hurt. I had slept horribly last night, since I never slept well in hotels, and all I’d eaten today was a banana. I didn’t want to, but Dad made me. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday, either, so I had only agreed to eat one if he did. As much as it bothered me that Meredith had gone in the room while I had been left out, at least she was there to support him. He was a mess.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It’d been vibrating against me since I had switched it back on. I’d turned it off last night because my best friend, Meaghan, had been texting me nonstop, asking how I was and what was going on, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I would’ve left it off, but I wanted Dad to be able to text me from inside if he wanted to.

Was Mom in there too? She couldn’t be, could she? Probably not. Dad had been speaking with an investigator named Marcos ever since we had found out about Mom, and he had said that Mom and the baby had needed to be hospitalized for their injuries, and the room they’d gone into wasn’t a patient’s room. It looked more like a regular office. But she was in the same building. We were officially breathing the same air.