I didn’t answer, so Moira continued. “I was on my own for a long time after Matt had the stroke. Nate helped out more than I really should’ve let him. Maybe I relied on him too much.” She fiddled with the corner of her book, her eyes on her lap. Finally she looked up. “When your child is small, he needs all of you. Everything. But as he grows he needs you to be separate from him, otherwise he’ll feel like he’s taking something from you. Sometimes I worry I didn’t let Nate go soon enough. I wanted him to be a son first and a husband second, and for that I’m so sorry.”

She swallowed. “I want you to know I respect how hard you’re fighting for Josh. He’s still small and he needs someone fighting in his corner.”

“Thank you, Moira. I really appreciate that.”

Katie came in to check Josh’s temperature then.

“It’s spiking a little bit,” she said, looking worried.

“Is he okay?”

“He’s fine,” she reassured me. “Temperatures tend to increase during the first few days after immunotherapy. But we’ll keep an eye on it.”

I leaned my head on the edge of Josh’s bed. Moira picked up her book and continued reading. The gentle noises of the hospital washed over me: rhythmic beeps, the soft murmur of doctors talking, the swish and squeak of tennis shoes on linoleum. Before I knew it, I was asleep…

… I was running through a maze. The walls were built of iced evergreen shrubs that towered above me in a wintry forest, so high it blotted out the sky.

Snow swirled in chaotic currents; a snow globe that had been shaken. It landed on my eyelashes, freezing my tears into icy drops on my cheeks.

I ran through the maze, turning this way and that, pulse pounding as I tried to find a way out. I turned a final corner, emerging into a small, confined square. At the center of the square was a short wooden platform.

Knotted above it was a hangman’s noose.

I stumbled backward and ran away, boughs ripping at my hair and clothes. I finally turned another corner, but again I was in that same square. The hangman’s noose mocked me.

Again and again I ran away, but every time I emerged at the same place. And then I realized.

It was the only way out—

A sharp ringing pierced my consciousness. I jerked awake, grappling for my phone.

“Hello?”

“Where is he?” Nate shouted.

I scurried out of the room. “Who?”

“Ben! Your goddamn brother. Where is he?”

“He’s in the ER.”

“No, he isn’t! Kia went to question him and he’s gone. He walked out.”

Icy needles prickled down my back and up my arms.