“Tell Aunt Vanessa I wasn’t scared,” he whispered.

I touched his forehead and brushed his hair back from his temple.

“I’ll tell her, Caleb.”

“And put my dinosaur blanket on the chair so nobody else touches it.”

“It’s staying right there on the chair,” I said.

Dr.

Vance gave the scrub nurse waiting by the metal door handles a quick nod.

The gurney wheels clicked across the brass expansion seam in the floor as they rolled the bed forward into the holding bay.