A greenish one across her hip.

I did it clinically, the way I would document evidence in any case, because I had learned long ago that the clinical part of me is the part that is actually useful in a crisis, and the feeling could wait until the work was done.

But there was one thing I could not keep clinical, and it undid me more than the blood or the bruises had.

She apologized after every spoonful of the soup.

I’m sorry, she kept whispering, between mouthfuls. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Apologizing for eating.

Apologizing for being hungry, for being hurt, for being a burden, for the trouble of it all — apologizing to me, her son, for the crime of needing to be fed.