The doctors watched him closely and treated him for what he had been given, and worked to help his small body clear it and cool.

I did not leave his side.

I stood, and sat, and stood again by that plastic bassinet under the soft machines, and I did not sleep, because I had done enough sleeping, I thought, to last me the rest of my life.

Poppy curled up in the armchair beside me and slept with her teddy bear jammed under her chin, and every so often her hand would reach out in her sleep to touch my arm, checking, the way she had taught herself to check.

On the third morning, his fever broke.