TERMS OF THE HEART
Sofia's name flashed across my phone screen, and something in the particular timing — a Tuesday afternoon, no scheduled reason for her to call — made my stomach tighten before I'd even answered.
"Ivy." Her voice carried an urgency I hadn't heard in years, not since the earliest, most dangerous chapters of this family's complicated history. "Damien collapsed during his morning walk. He's conscious, but the paramedics are taking him to the hospital now. They think it might be his heart."
The world narrowed to a single point of terrified focus, every other consideration — the lavender, the garden, the ordinary Tuesday I'd been quietly enjoying — collapsing instantly into pure, desperate urgency