He had only been hiding, and what he had been hiding was not coldness.

It was this: a tenderness so large it had gone looking for somewhere to spend itself, and had found the sickest children in the building, and had poured itself out there, quietly, where it thought no one who loved it would ever have to see the cost.

Chapter 13 — The Twitch He Tried to Hide

And then I saw it.

I saw the thing he had been hiding, saw it plainly for the first time, because I was watching him closely and the little boy was not.