My tears hit the floor before I could stop them：「Why didn't you call me sooner?」
Her voice was so quiet.
「I did.」
「You didn't pick up.」
Four words. They hurt worse than anything she could have yelled at me.
I held her hand. It was ice cold.
The doctor needed a family member's signature to order tests. My hand shook so badly I could barely sign my own name.
After reviewing the scans, the doctor said she'd waited too long. They needed to check for inflammation and blood clots. She'd be admitted overnight for observation.
My mind went blank.
If I'd gone with her today.
If her morning appointment hadn't lapsed.
If someone had been there to catch her when the pain hit that afternoon.
If I'd answered that call in the middle of the night.
But there were no ifs.
My mother lay in the hospital bed, comforting me instead.
「It's nothing. Mom just took a little fall.」
「Don't let this hold you up at work.」
I looked at her and almost laughed. Her whole life, that had been her line. Don't let this hold you up.
When I was little and she threw out her back, she still got up early to make me porridge.
My senior year, she ran a fever of a hundred and two and still hauled herself to the market to work the stall.
Now she was lying in a hospital bed, and the first thing out of her mouth was still telling me not to miss work.
But what exactly had I missed?
I'd spent the whole night covering someone else's window.
And my mother had fallen alone in a stairwell.
Seven a.m. The next shift arrived.
My eyes were raw from the all-nighter. I'd barely stepped out of the billing office when I saw Viola strolling in with breakfast.
Soy milk, fried dough sticks, and a box of soup dumplings.
She spotted me and smiled first.
「Wow, Katherine, you look awful.」
「Come on, you're young. One night shift shouldn't wreck you like this.」
I said nothing. She leaned closer.
「Nothing went wrong at the window last night, did it?」
「Director Abbott told me you tried to walk off during your shift?」
I lifted my head.「My mom fell in the middle of the night. She's in the ER.」
Viola blinked.
The flicker of embarrassment vanished almost instantly.
「Well, she's already here then, isn't she?」
「So nothing got delayed.」
I stared at her：「Viola, didn't you tell me last night your husband was working late and nobody could watch your kid?」
Her expression shifted.「What are you getting at?」
I pulled out my phone and opened the hot-pot photo from her feed.
Her son holding up an award certificate. Her husband picking food onto her plate. A family of three, all smiles, picture-perfect.
Viola's face went hard.
「Why are you snooping through my posts?」
「When you asked me to cover your night shift, you said there was nobody at home.」
Her voice shot up immediately.
「A parent-teacher conference doesn't count?」
「My kid came in first. I took him out for hot pot. So what?」
「Your mom fell—it's not like I pushed her.」
The moment those words left her mouth, the fire in my chest finally broke loose.
「You knew my mom had a follow-up appointment.」
「And you still dumped the shift on me.」
She sneered.
「Dumped?」
「Director Abbott approved it.」
「Besides, you're single, so you have no real family obligations. Helping a coworker out once in a while isn't going to kill you.」
Patients and their families moved up and down the hallway. A few stopped to look.
Viola saw the audience and got louder.
「Girls these days, honestly.」
「Cover one night shift and she acts like it's the end of the world.」
「When I was her age, everyone just toughed it out. That's how it worked.」
Director Abbott happened to step out of his office right then.
He frowned at me.「Katherine, what's all this noise first thing in the morning?」
Viola's eyes went red on cue.
「Director Abbott, I was just checking in on her.」
「She keeps saying I made her mother fall.」
「I can't afford that kind of accusation.」
