For a moment I wondered if I had misread what I felt.
Exhaustion can make a clinician distrust a sensation that doesn’t match the expected anatomy.
So I lifted my hand.
I looked at the swelling.
Then, before I touched him again, the pressure beneath Leo’s skin seemed to move back toward the place where my fingers had been.
I stared at it.
Greg stopped checking his watch.
The change in him was immediate.
Up to that second, he had been impatient, dismissive, annoyed by every extra minute we spent examining the child.
Now he was completely focused.
“We’re leaving.”
He crossed the room fast.
His hand went for Leo’s jacket.
Leo moved faster.
The boy slid off the opposite side of the exam bed so abruptly that his shoe caught the paper covering and ripped it.
The sound snapped through the room.
Sarah’s thumb moved toward the silent security button.
