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told her about Robin.” At Kathryn's look of alarm, she added, “He didn't say much. But Tami was asking. All I said was that Robin would be fine.”
    “That's good.”
    “It won't be for long, Mom. Word'll spread. Hanover isn't a big place, and the running community is tight. And Robin has friends all over the country—all over the
world.
They'll be calling.” Glancing around, she spotted the plastic bag that lay on the floor by the wall. It held Robin's clothes and fanny pack. “Is her cell phone there?”
    “I have it,” Kathryn said. “It's off.”
    Like that would solve the problem? “Her friends will leave messages. When she doesn't answer, they'll call the house. What do you want me to say?”
    “Say she'll get back to them.”
    “Mom, these are close friends. I can't lie. Besides, they could be supportive. They could come talk to Robin.”
    “We can do that ourselves.”
    “We can't tell them it's nothing. If Robin's had a massive heart attack—”
    “—it's no one's business but ours,” Kathryn declared. “I don't want people looking at her strangely once she's up and around again.”
    Molly was incredulous. To hear her mother talk, Robin might wake up in a day or two and be fine, be
perfect.
But even mild brain damage had symptoms. Best-case scenario, she would need rehab.
    Molly turned to her father. “Help me here, Dad.”
    “With what?” Kathryn asked, preempting Charlie.
    Molly shot an encompassing look around the room. Her eyes ended up on Robin, who hadn't moved an inch. “I'm having as much trouble with this as you are.”
    “You're not her mother.”
    “She's my sister. My
idol.
”
    “When you were
little,
” Kathryn chided. “It's been a while since then.”
    My fault,
my fault
, Molly wailed silently, feeling all the worse. But how to do something positive now? She appealed to her father again. “I don't know what to do, Dad. If you want me at Snow Hill fine; but we can't pretend this isn't serious. Robin is on life support.”
    “For now,” Kathryn said with such conviction that Molly might have stayed simply to absorb her confidence.
    Gently, Charlie said, “If anyone asks, sweetheart, just tell them that we're waiting for test results, but that we'd appreciate their prayers.”
    “Prayers?” Kathryn cried. “Like it's life or death?”
    “Prayers are for all kind of things,” Charlie replied and glanced up as a nurse came in.
    “I'd like to do a little work here—bathing, checking tubes,” the woman said. “I shouldn't be long.”
    Molly went out to the hall. Her parents had no sooner joined her when her mother said, “See? They wouldn't be bothering with mundane things like bathing if there was no point. I'm using the ladies’ room. I'll be right back.”
    She had barely taken two steps, though, when she stopped. A man had approached and was staring at her. Roughly Robin's age, wearing jeans and a shirt and tie, he looked reputable enough to be on the hospital staff, but with haunted eyes and a dark shadow on his jaw, he was clearly upset.
    “I'm the one who found her,” he said in a tortured voice.
    Molly's heart tripped. When Kathryn didn't reply, she hurried forward. “The one who found Robin on the road?” she asked eagerly. They had so few facts. His coming was a gift.
    “I was running and suddenly there she was.”
    He seemed bewildered; Molly identified with that. “Was she conscious when you were with her? Did she move at all?
Say
anything?”
    “No. Has she regained consciousness yet?”
    She was about to answer—truthfully, because his eyes begged for it—when Kathryn came to life. Shrilly, she charged, “You have
some gall
asking that after standing there paralyzed for
how
long before calling for help?”
    “Mom,” Molly cautioned, but her mother railed on.
    “My daughter is in a
coma
because she was deprived of oxygen for too
long!
Did you not know that every
single second
counted?”
    “
Mom.
”
    “I started CPR as soon as I