My six-year-old daughter was supposed to be spending a fun day with my parents and my sister until my phone lit up in the middle of a work meeting and a police officer said she’d been rushed to the hospital after being found l0cked alone in my car during a bru:tal heatwave…

I had been packing Ellie’s lunch while she chattered nearby about a craft she wanted to finish after school. My instinct had been to hesitate, but my parents were off, Megan was off, and they’d said they were taking Ellie too. My mother had even chimed in sweetly on speakerphone: “It’ll be good for her to have cousin time.”

And because I have spent my whole life being the person who smooths things over, I said yes.

Of course.

I ordered a taxi with fingers that wouldn’t stay still and paced in tight circles while the app cheerfully informed me my driver was three minutes away.

Three minutes is nothing.
Three minutes is a song on the radio.
Three minutes is how long it takes water to start boiling if you’re paying attention.

Those three minutes felt endless.

When the taxi pulled in, I yanked the door open so hard the driver flinched.

“St. Andrew’s,” I said. “My daughter’s there.”

He nodded with the calm strangers have when your life is on fire and theirs isn’t. “Traffic’s bad today.”

Of course it was.