Mariana watched them.

She had stopped checking her watch.

I folded the paper with Beatrice’s phone number twice and pushed it into my back pocket beside my wallet.

When I came back into Room 304, Mariana was adjusting the thin cotton blanket over Lily’s feet.

The plastic monitor above the headboard hummed in a steady rhythm, counting out seventy-two beats a minute.

Mariana’s phone rang on the bedside tray, vibrating against a paper cup of cold tea.

She reached for it, glanced at the unknown Phoenix number, and pressed the green icon before setting it down on speaker.