Greg saw it.
“You can’t hold my kid here.”
I stood between him and Leo again.
“You brought a critically ill child into my department,” I said. “He needs imaging, IV antibiotics, and a surgical evaluation.”
Greg’s jaw tightened.
“He needs to stop lying.”
The sentence landed harder than his earlier complaints about work.
Not because it was loud.
Because Leo reacted to it.
His eyes dropped immediately.
Then he moved closer to me.
Not dramatically.
He didn’t reach for my hand or hide behind me.
He simply shifted one step until I was between him and Greg.
That was enough.
Two security officers appeared outside the doorway.
Greg changed again.
He smiled at them as though the entire scene had been created by an overcautious doctor and an exhausted parent who had somehow gotten their signals crossed.
“I’m tired,” he said. “The boy plays rough. His mother knows how he is.”
