Instead I said, “Never do that again.”
He reached for my hand.
This time, I let him take it.
Chloe woke up at 7:03 p.m.
She cried when she saw the IV.
Then she cried harder when she remembered Daniel falling.
“I called you,” she whispered.
“You saved your dad,” I told her.
Her lower lip trembled.
“I was scared.”
“I know.”
“Did I do it right?”
That question broke something in me that the whole afternoon had not managed to break.
I bent over her bed and pressed my face into her hair.
“You did everything right.”
The police report came two days later.
I did not read it all at once.
I read it in sections, standing at the kitchen island after the windows had been open for forty-eight hours and the cinnamon smell was finally gone.
Incident time.
Responding officers.
Evidence collected.
Probable cause statement.
Suspect interview summary.
