This was what it was to have someone simply turn toward you in a crisis without having to be dragged.

I had forgotten.

Mason reminded me, and the reminding hurt, because it measured, precisely, the size of the thing my marriage had been quietly withholding from me for years.

Chapter 20 — Discharged

By ten that morning, Hazel’s fever had come down significantly, and the pediatric team cleared us to go home with medication and a careful set of instructions for her care over the coming days.

She was still my sick baby, but she was out of danger, and she was mine, and I could take her somewhere safe.