There was a pause. I heard hospital noise behind him — the muffled snap of gloves, a rolling cart, someone calling for a nurse.

Then he said, “It’s Emily.”

I was already reaching for my keys. “What happened?”

“She came into the ER forty minutes ago. Severe trauma to her back. Possible assault.” His voice caught, just enough for an old surgeon to hear it. “You need to see this yourself.”

I don’t remember locking my front door.

I remember rain on my face. I remember the cold metal of the car handle. I remember backing out of my driveway too fast and almost clipping the mailbox Emily had painted white for me two summers after her mother died.

That mailbox was still crooked from the day Daniel backed his truck into it and laughed while he promised to fix it.

He never did.

Ten minutes later I pulled into the ER lot with my shoes half-tied and my gray sweater damp at the collar. The ambulance entrance lit the wet pavement in dull white stripes.

I came through those doors as a father, but every old habit in me woke up at once. Antiseptic. Burnt coffee. Wet asphalt dragged in from the parking lot.

A sheriff’s deputy stood near the intake desk with a clipboard. A nurse looked up from a hospital intake form, recognized me, and looked away too quickly.

That look told me more than her words could have.