That frightened her.
Lucy tried waking Emily again.
She shook her shoulder.
“Mommy, please.”
Nothing.
Then Lucy remembered something her mother had told her months earlier.
If there’s ever a real emergency and Mommy can’t help, find another grown-up.
But there were no nearby grown-ups.
Their nearest neighbor lived far down the road.
Lucy’s father wasn’t there.
That question eventually became important.
“Where is your daddy?” Angela asked.
Lucy looked confused.
“Daddy’s in heaven.”
Her father, Michael Harper, had died in a construction accident seven months earlier.
Emily had been pregnant with the twins.
Suddenly the entire story became even more painful.
Emily had been raising Lucy alone while preparing to deliver two babies.
There was little nearby family support.
After giving birth, she’d returned home determined to manage.
Then she became dangerously ill.
Nobody knew.
Nobody visited.
Nobody called at the right moment.
