Chapter 1 — Eight Forty-Six

The call came at 8:46 in the evening, while I was closing a deep laceration on a six-year-old’s forehead in the pediatric emergency department where I had spent most of my adult life.

“Dr.

Evelyn Vance?” The woman’s voice on the line was carefully controlled, the deliberate calm of someone trained to deliver hard news without adding panic to it.

“Yes,” I said, my hands still working.

“This is Officer Jimena Torres, Chicago Police Department.

We found a young boy near University Avenue.

He had your emergency contact number written on an index card inside his backpack.” My fingers went numb inside my surgical gloves.

“What is his name?” There was a slight pause, the kind of pause I have learned, over a career, to dread.

“Lucas Vance,” she said.

“He’s nine years old.”

I dropped the forceps onto the stainless-steel tray with a clatter that made the whole room turn.

Lucas was my son.

“Is he alive?” I heard myself ask, in a voice I did not recognize.

“Yes,” she said, quickly, because she knew what that question costs a mother.

“But paramedics are transporting him now.

He’s showing severe signs of hypothermia, and some injuries.

We need you here immediately.” I do not remember stripping off my gown, or my gloves, or telling anyone I was leaving.