“I’ll stay here with Lauren,” Ethan said.

He sat down on one of the small plastic chairs, his long legs bent awkwardly.

He picked up a blue crayon from the table.

“Can I help you color?” Ethan asked his daughter.

Lauren looked at him for a second, then nodded and pushed the paper toward him.

“Don’t go outside the lines,” she warned.

Ethan smiled, a real, soft smile.

“I won’t,” he said.

I walked down the hallway toward the intensive care unit.

The double doors opened with a soft hiss of air.

Mary’s new room was quiet, the only sound the steady beep of the heart monitor.

She looked so small in the hospital bed, her face pale against the white sheets.

There were tubes in her nose and an IV line in her thin arm.

I sat down in the vinyl chair beside her bed and took her hand.

It felt cold and fragile, like a dry leaf.

“Mary,” I whispered. “It’s Evelyn.”

Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t open her eyes.

“He’s here, Mary,” I said. “Ethan is here.”

“And Lauren is safe.”