She had been taught to make herself small.

I was going to spend the rest of my life teaching her that she was allowed to take up all the room in the world.

Chapter 6 — The Hospital

At the hospital that afternoon, the doctors confirmed what I already knew: that my daughter was dehydrated, that her blood sugar was dangerously low, that her small body had been pushed to a place no child’s body should ever go.

They treated her, and they were kind, and I sat beside her bed and watched an IV line disappear into her tiny arm, and I did the thing a physician does even in her worst hour, which is to stay calm, and stay useful, and stay present.