There was no version of the next thirty seconds in which I lifted her.

So I said, “Thank you.”

And I lay there and watched a woman I had met eleven minutes previously slide a hand under my daughter’s head and the other one under her back, and turn her, and bring her across, and lower her onto my chest and hold her there until my arm had found its way round.

Pilar did one more thing, and she did it without being asked, and it is the single kindest act of that entire day.

She did not stay.