she ran her brothers’ lives from a hospital bed.
And eventually, I wrote the hospital too.
The parts she told me not to write because she was nine and wrong about that one thing.
I wrote about the phone ringing at 8:14.
The garden club photograph.
The wine bar.
And I wrote:
“You’re just a poor writer. Deal with it.”
Exactly as Belle had said it.
Putting the sentence on paper was the first time I could look at it without flinching.
I became two people again.
During the
