Eli was not permitted inside the conference.
Neither were we.
For fourteen months, he had shown up. Now adults were deciding whether his sister had reached the end without allowing him to say what he had seen.
Rook took the boy’s hand and led him toward intensive care.
Security stopped them.
The hallway tightened.
Rook did not shout, but his size did the shouting for him. Two officers stepped between him and the unit doors. Leather creaked across his shoulders. His knuckles turned white around the paper bag containing Rosie.
“Move,” he said.
I reached him before the officers placed hands on him.
“Brother.”
“He gets to see her.”
“Not this way.”
Eli tugged Rook’s vest. “Don’t get arrested.”
That one sentence stopped him.
Rook looked down at the boy, then backed away.
We waited outside the conference room for nearly two hours. Laura emerged first. She was thirty-six but looked fifty. Ben followed with red eyes and both hands buried in his coat pockets.
