Jesse

I was sitting in the hallway. Jennifer had gone to talk to her nephews. We'd had a nice coffee together down in the cafeteria. Earlier, my son had called me, regarding dinner plans which, to be frank, were the furthest thing from my mind. He told me he'd make something.

He'd left and picked up Louisa's friends Pansy and Lauren, then apparently headed to our place, where Lily was. Ashley and Hannah had come about an hour ago, to the hospital. I'd called Mark and told him about Karen and he said he'd be on the next flight out. I knew Pam would tell Bobby, one of our friends from school.

Kate had woken up about an hour ago. Anna and Amanda were asleep. Other than Lily, everyone was here.

The doctors at St. Luke's had called Alice, who had told me they'd put Karen in a coma.

It suddenly dawned on me that the psychic we'd seen at the carnival had been right, about everything. Karen was 42 and relatively young; our daughter Lily had a cat by the name of Luna; Kate's leukemia had presented blood and many visits to the hospital whenever she got sick. Our daughter Rose had red hair. We'd brought Marie over from Paris. Amanda, with her eating disorder, had bones sticking out. Louisa had consumed alcohol last night. And Evan, just as I had when I was his age, had set many fires.

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and that was definately true in our family.