Evelyn wiped her wet hands on her apron, her eyes darting toward the empty driveway of my own house next door. “Patricia drove up around two o’clock. She had Claire in the passenger seat. Lily was in the back, and I could hear her wheezing from twenty feet away.”
“Did Patricia say anything to you?”
“She dropped this backpack on my porch swing,” Evelyn said, handing me the pink bag. “She told me she was leaving Lily with me for the afternoon because they had a luncheon reservation at the lake club. She said Lily was just making a fuss to get out of the car ride.”
The nylon of the backpack was damp from the mist.
“I looked at Lily,” Evelyn continued, her voice trembling slightly. “Her lips were turning a terrible shade of blue, Sarah. I told Patricia she couldn’t leave her like that, but Patricia just rolled up her window and drove off.”
I unzipped the front pocket of the backpack. The small, clear plastic pocket where we always kept the emergency auto-injector was completely empty.
“I called nine-one-one immediately,” Evelyn said. “The ambulance came within ten minutes. That ride is going to cost four hundred twenty dollars, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t let her sit there.”
“Thank you, Evelyn,” I said. My voice was very quiet.
“Daniel wasn’t with them,” Evelyn added, looking at me with a soft, sympathetic frown. “Just Patricia and Claire. They looked like they were in a great hurry.”
I held the damp backpack against my side, the empty front pocket gaping open like an accusation.
“Did you see them take anything out of the bag?” I asked.
“I didn’t see,” Evelyn said, shaking her head slowly. “But Patricia was rummaging through the back seat before she got out to drop the bag on the porch.”
I drove back to the hospital, the damp pink backpack sitting on the passenger seat beside me. The rain had picked up, smeary lines running down the windshield of my car as I parked in the garage.
I walked back into the children’s emergency wing, my boots squeaking against the linoleum.
