There are moments when knowing too much is its own kind of wound, and running through those doors was one of them.

I would have given a great deal, that night, to be an ordinary frightened mother who did not know, in clinical detail, exactly how close she had come to losing everything.

Chapter 4 — Trauma Bay Four

I came through the ambulance doors still in my navy scrubs, my hospital badge swinging against my chest, and a triage nurse who had known me for years took one look at my face and said, “Evelyn.

Trauma Bay Four,” and pointed, because she understood that I could not have managed a full sentence in return.