“The woman who came into the unit is my mother, Patricia.”

Kevin stood right behind my chair with his palms resting flat against my shoulder blades.

The solid heat of his hands helped steady me against the cold air in the room.

“And you personally saw her at the bedside?” the officer asked.

“My six-year-old daughter saw her,” I said, keeping my words plain and short.

“My mother grabbed my daughter by the wrist and threatened her when Brooklyn tried to step between her and the machine.”

The officer wrote three quick lines of notes without looking up from his paper.