"Have they told you anything?" she asked.
"Not really," Sophia answered, her voice flat and lifeless. "They said they had to operate urgently—something about internal bleeding. And they said something about a coma and—and—and—"
She broke down in rattling sobs, and her shoulders shook beneath Catherine's arm. Catherine rubbed her back.
"It's going to be okay," Catherine said. "Linda is strong—you'll see."
Privately, she had doubts. In her last life, she remembered getting news from Sophia that Linda had slipped into a coma. Tom had refused to pay any medical expenses, and Sophia had taken on another job to try to pay for her mom's doctors and hospital bed. Later, she'd married a man her father had suggested in the hopes that her husband would pay for her mom's medical care. The last she'd heard, Linda's condition had only gotten worse over the years, and Sophia's husband had refused to pay for her care.
