Then Craig’s own voice, impatient, hissing, sharp enough that every person at that table heard it:
“No, Mom. Not the cobbler again. Say it clean.”
The dining room did not breathe.
A fork hit a plate.
Mrs. Fenton’s hand rose to her mouth.
Kristen’s eyes went to the speaker, and then to her husband.
And in the stillness, my eight-year-old son pushed back his chair, and stood on the rung of it so everyone could see him.
His voice was small and shook like a leaf.
“That’s the secret word,” Wyatt said. “It means Grandma needs help.”
Chapter 4: What a Dispatcher Hears
My mother stood up.
She did it slowly, one palm flat on the table, and when I reached for her, she shook her head.
Lenora Pratt stood on her own two feet in the navy dress with her silver hair pinned up, and she looked, for a moment, exactly the way I remembered her at the kitchen door at dawn, coming home from a double shift.
