Maisie looked up at me with wide eyes and squeezed the bunny tight to her chest.

“Bunny has a quiet heart,” she whispered to me.

She pressed the red plastic chest piece of the stethoscope to my wrist, then moved it up to my neck.

She tipped her head as though she were listening for something through the hollow yellow tubes.

“Listen, Mommy,” she told me.

“Thump, thump, thump.”

“Is my heart strong?” I asked her.

“It goes fast,” Maisie said.