Kevin didn’t answer, but his hands came down firmly on my upper arms and drew me against his chest while I stood crying into his flannel shirt.

Ten minutes later, I walked down the main hallway toward the double glass doors of the neonatal intensive care unit.

Nurse Elena was standing behind the central desk with a red pen in her right hand, checking a stack of printed charts.

She looked up as my rubber slippers scuffed against the threshold, her brown eyes following my slow progress across the floor.

“Mrs.