He stopped when he saw me.

He did not shout the way my mother had.

He crossed the courtyard slowly and lifted my chin with a gentleness that did not match the muscle jumping in his jaw, and turned my face to the light, and looked.

I watched him take inventory the way he must once have taken inventory of a thousand scenes — the cheek, the lip, the way I was holding my side.

His hands, which had cuffed cartel bosses, were not quite steady.

He said nothing for a long moment, and I understood that the silence was him choosing.