“Pacing this hallway isn’t going to change when the doctor calls her name.”

“Our daughter has a 104-degree fever,” I added softly.

“I know how sick she is,” he said, turning his shoulder away from me.

“I’m going back to the waiting room.”

He turned and walked back toward the main row of chairs, his rubber soles squeaking loudly on the clean floor.

I walked back to our row of vinyl seats.

June was sucking frantically on her own knuckles, her dark red cheeks wet with drool.

She had lost her pacifier somewhere in the car, and her whimpers were rising into sharp, breathless squeaks.