I turned around to tuck June’s heavy fleece blanket carefully around her shoulders.

Ethan slipping his phone into his coat pocket as the ER triage nurse calls out June’s name.

I walked past the triage desk and found two empty chairs in the second row of the waiting room.

An older man in a yellow windbreaker sat near the entrance, wheezing softly into a paper napkin.

The air smelled of sharp antiseptic cleaner and damp winter coats.

On the small laminate table between the vinyl seats sat three empty plastic water cups, left behind by whoever had waited there before us.