MARGARET’S POV
Some Women run, others Rise. I wake with a certainty that something has gone wrong. It isn’t pain that pulls me from sleep, though my body still aches in ways I pretend not to notice. It isn’t the beeping of machines or the soft murmur of nurses outside my door.
It is absence, the kind that leaves a hollow behind your ribs. For a moment, I lie still, staring at the ceiling, letting my thoughts align themselves. Hospitals have never frightened me. I’ve lived long enough to understand that fragility is not the same thing as weakness. Still, today, the air feels different, thinner. Like something important has slipped through my fingers while I rested.
I press the call button. A nurse appears almost immediately, young, efficient, too practiced at softness.
“Good morning, Mr
