I held her while she cried into my shirt.

Her hair smelled of the harsh hospital soap they’d used to wash away the dried blood.

She finally drifted back to sleep a little after two.

I waited until her breathing was slow and even before I eased away from the bed.

At two thirty I went out into the main hospital corridor.

I needed to find a nurse and ask when the attending doctor would be back with the scan results.

The hallway was bright and busy.