What to do

"Where have you been?" Margaret jumped from her bed in a breathless voice as soon as Elijah stepped inside the house and closed the door. Judging by how the pillow was in a mess, she had been clutching it so hard that it failed to keep its normal shape. "Sierra! Oh! Hello! I didn't think you would come."

Her expression shifted quickly and she smiled. She didn't want to worry anyone about her situation. She thought for once, she was being her brother again but this time, it was her that made herself as so not her mother. Sierra noticed how her normally bright-looking face had taken the hue of a freshly whitewashed wall and her eyes had huge black bags from lack of sleeping and maybe crying.