Until he sees the cop. Leaning against the receptionist’s counter is a policeman with a push-broom mustache and the complexion of watermelon meat. Henry can’t make out the cop’s words but detects the cadence of rural flirtation. Meanwhile, the receptionist moves her mouth inaudibly around a lollipop, perhaps deflecting the cop’s comeons, or else speaking to a caller on the opposite end of her headset. Her gaze drifts between a pair of computer monitors, until noticing and floating up to Henry and Junior.

“So,” she says, left cheek bulging. “What’s up?”

“My son.” Henry angles his back to the cop. “He’s sick, but like really sick. Got a fever, stomach bug, maybe even pneumonia?”

“A fever, huh?” She claps a clipboard onto the counter. “Here. Fill out your insurance info, and, yeah. Probably be a little while.”

“I don’t got insurance.”

“Then just a billing address. And answer them medical history questions on the second page there, then sign the bottom of the third.”

Rather than admit he doesn’t have an address either, he just says thanks. Pokes the chained pen at the forms before working up the nerve to ask this stranger for a favor, a tiny kindness, then taps the pen to get her attention. He tells her all the kid really needs is some ibuprofen or something for the fever. Maybe she could, if it isn’t too much to ask, just give him a couple pills while they’re waiting and all?

“We can’t really.” She plucks out the lollipop. It is brown and slimy and receiving more of her attention than Henry.

He pounds the counter. “You can’t really what?”

“Administer. Can’t administer anything till we got him processed. Fill that out, wait if you want, but really, the Walmart’s your best bet—hello? Yeah, this is urgent care. What’s up?”

And just like that, Henry goes invisible right before her eyes. A nothing, a nonentity occupying neither space nor time, let alone anybody’s thoughts or concerns. But before he evaporates entirely, something starts brewing. Some formless, weightless thing recognizes another formless, weightless thing—a voice, a word, a sentence. The boy in Henry’s arms is asking for his mom.