His grief was not performed.

His grief was the realest thing in that terrible bright room.

Chapter 14 — Prepare Yourselves

Then a doctor in green scrubs finally pushed backward through the double doors, and Gabriel lurched to his feet so fast the chair scraped loudly against the floor.

The doctor’s face told me the truth before his mouth opened to speak it.

There is a particular grave arrangement of a tired face, a bracing of the features, that anyone who has waited in a hospital learns to read instantly and dread, and his face was doing exactly that.

“She has lost a great deal of blood,” he said, “and her heart is struggling.