Handle it yourself.” And I hung up.

I want to be honest that a version of me — the five-years-trained version, the one who had spent the night in an ER holding a feverish boy’s hand — flinched at that call.

Old habit is a powerful thing, and mine had been built out of exactly this: someone is hurt, drop everything, go.

But I made myself sit with the newer, colder knowledge I had earned, which was that in that house, an emergency involving Tristan was the one reliable lever that could always, always be used to pull me back into service.

So I let it ring out of me.