Dr.

Ortega came in with a discharge planning sheet and clipped it to the tray.

“Two weeks,” he said.

“If her swallow study is clean.”

I kissed Abigail’s forehead.

She leaned her head against my shoulder, and I looked at the sheet over her hair.

Two weeks later, Abigail sat cross-legged on the bed in room 104 of the pediatric step-down ward, folding her blue sweater into her cloth backpack.

The sweater still smelled of hospital soap.