Take care of your little girl.

I typed a quick thank-you and slipped the phone back into my jeans.

At half past eight, Nurse Sarah agreed to watch both kids in the pediatric room so Mariana and I could step out into the night air.

The hospital courtyard was empty, paved with dusty red brick that still gave off the eighty-five-degree heat of the Phoenix summer night.

Mariana walked straight to a low stone retaining wall near the desert willow and sat down.