Until that morning, I had believed that hearing the worst thing imaginable would make a person scream.

I remember saying, “She gets cold easily.”

One of the paramedics looked at me and said, “We have her covered.”

I wanted him to understand that she had always been like that.

Cold hands as a little girl, sweaters carried in July, feet tucked beneath my leg on the couch.

I wanted to tell him enough about her to make it impossible for her to become a stranger on a stretcher.

There wasn’t time.