Ink before the paper
Fleshing out the idea of how to describe a scene from which two meanings can be derived. The purpose of this is to lead the reader into thinking that Florence's life is on a steady stable course. No one is aware of her plan. The plan that began when she found her mother, gun-in-hand and aimed a her temple. She calmly talked her mother out of suicide and convinced her to go to the hospital and find out why she's having problems after her hysterectomy.
When she came upon her mother, she was delirious. She thought Florence was one of the many people from her past: the banker that closed her account, her sister with Huntington's disease, her father's voice from outside the car (during the dust storm of 1935), and ultimately the doctor who recently administered the removal of her uterus, the one she hated the most and refused to take any medications from.
Florence watched with horror as her female mentor struggled to hold on to her life and reality. She would not let this become her destiny.