He gave me the truth — that Rhys had been poisoned, that it had been deliberate and dangerous, that he had come close to the edge — without handing me a manual.

There is a discipline in the way careful people speak about these things, a refusal to make the harm any more transmissible than it has to be, and that doctor had it.

What mattered was in his hands and would be in the hands of the investigators: the how, the what, the exact shape of the crime.

What he gave me, standing in that hallway, was only what a mother needs, which is to know her child will live, and to know it was not her fault, and to be spared the rest.

Chapter 7 — The Trash Can

In the waiting room, Sondra was telling anyone who’d listen that we were all overreacting, that Rhys would wake up and I would look ridiculous.