“Where did you get that?” I whispered.
He went completely still.
“I put that cross in my son’s blanket,” I said. “The day he was born.”
The monitor kept beeping, but neither of us was breathing.
He straightened up slowly.
His hand closed around the cross.
His eyes were wet.
“Ms. Gilchrist,” he said quietly. “Did they ever tell you what really happened to him?”
I opened my mouth.
The door banged open behind him.
My father came in first, in his camel overcoat, with his briefcase under one arm.
My mother followed with her Hermès Birkin hooked over her wrist and a Cartier bracelet flashing at every step.
Cindy Jernigan stood behind them in the doorway, white as paper.
“I called your emergency contacts, hon,” she said. “It’s on your form.”
I had never changed that line on a form in thirty-one years.
Habit.
Or hope.
My mother’s eyes went straight to the cross in the surgeon’s fist.
