“Every book, every pencil, and every shoe.”

She nodded slowly and leaned her head on my shoulder.

“I drew a picture of the bird feeder outside the window while you were gone.”

“Show me when you wake up tomorrow,” I told her.

At eight o’clock that evening, Marcus Vance met me in the small consultation room down the hall from the nurses’ station.

The room was quiet and smelled faintly of clean wax and paper files.

He set his heavy leather briefcase on the laminate table and unlatched both brass clasps with a firm sound.