Clara had finally surrendered to exhaustion, her body sagging into the hard plastic of the hospital chair. Her head had slipped to the side, cheek pressed against the stiff blanket draped over Lily’s bed. Her fingers, cramped and aching, were still curled tightly around her sister’s smaller, cooler hand — as if loosening her grip might let something vital slip away.
The steady blip of the heart monitor pulsed in the background, an unsteady kind of lullaby. Lily’s chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm, the faintest flutter of her lashes beneath pale lids. Clara studied her face for any flicker of discomfort, any change, before the heaviness behind her own eyes dragged her under.
When she woke, her neck screamed in protest and her knees popped as she straightened. The fluorescent light over
