After the paperwork was completed, Maya sat in a wheelchair beneath a blanket as we moved through a quiet corridor that smelled of laundry soap and metal.

Behind us, alarms did not ring.

No one shouted.

That was Vance’s gift.

He could turn a crisis into a shadow.

We reached an underground ambulance bay where a black medical transport van waited.

As I lifted Maya inside, she whispered into my shirt, “Dad?”

“Yeah?”