CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – BASIC DECENCY

"Diane? It's Lillian Jones..." she began in a tone of forced steadiness after the line clicked to life. "I'm afraid we have a situation that requires your immediate attention..." Charlotte remained in her defeated, reclined posture throughout the terse, one-sided conversation, letting the murmured cadences of her mother's voice twist and distort around her like shapeless ribbons on a breeze. She found herself idly tracing the severe lines and grooves of the plaster cast engulfing her lower leg, not even registering the dull, throbbing ache that seemed to permanently radiate from within it nowadays. "...yes, Charlotte is still being seen at St. Bartholomew's," Lillian's clipped tones sliced through the fog clouding Charlotte's senses. "I'm calling because she has directly expressed...no, you don't understand the extent of her...Diane, please!" Charlotte felt her heart rate kick up a notch at the obvious agitation creeping into her mother's voice, the underlying frustration finally