As if Noah had not lain on that floor screaming while adults decided what he deserved.
I stood abruptly, my chair scraping backward.
“I need to go there.”
“No.”
“That’s my mother’s house.”
“It’s an active crime scene.”
“My son said red door.”
Harris went still.
“What?”
“Before he fell asleep. He said ‘red door.’ Does that mean something?”
The detective’s face tightened.
“I don’t know yet.”
But he did.
Or he suspected.
And I was beginning to understand that every adult around me was carrying pieces of a story they were afraid to assemble in front of me.
At midnight, Noah’s fever spiked.
Doctors rushed in. Nurses moved around him with terrifying speed. I stood behind the glass, unable to breathe, watching strangers fight to keep my child anchored to this world.
I pressed both hands to the window.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please.”
