“Go on in, Dr. Sweeney,” she said, buzzing me through the locked doors.

I found Josh in the last exam room. One hand was grasped tightly in Moira’s. Her face was wet with tears. Josh had a bloody bandage taped to his forehead, an IV attached to the back of his hand. But his eyes were open. He was okay.

Relief hit me hard. My legs went numb, made of nothing but air, and for a second I teetered there, feeling like I would collapse. “Josh!”

I tugged Josh into my arms, hot tears pressing against my eyelids.

“Mommy, I fell down the stairs,” Josh said.

I looked at Moira.

“He just…” She started crying. Her usually sleek hair was a complete mess, her eyes rimmed with red. Her cashmere sweater was wrinkled and smeared with blood. “He fainted, right at the top of the steps. I couldn’t catch him!”

Her sobs became hysterical. Mascara oozed down her cheeks, embedding into the wrinkles on her face. Her hysteria snapped me back to myself.

“It’s okay.” The words gusted out of me.

I touched my son’s cheek and took a deep breath. Josh’s head dropped against my chest, and I just held him, his hot little body pressed against mine. He stuck his middle and pointer fingers in his mouth and after a minute dozed, his breath coming in short little bursts.

The blue curtain swung back, the scraping metal rings making me jump. A doctor I didn’t know entered the cramped exam room. He was young, with curly dark hair, a strong nose, and a manila folder clutched in his hand.

“Hello, Dr. Sweeney. I’m Dr. Adelman. We’ve put some fluids into Josh’s IV to start hydrating him, but we are going to need to investigate a little more to find out exactly what’s going on.” He pulled over a low stool with wheels so he was next to us. “We’ll take some blood, do an MRI, of course.”

Josh moaned in his sleep, a small sound at the back of his throat. I tightened my hold on him, felt the heat of him seeping through my clothes and warming my skin.

“He started feeling unwell a few days ago,” I said. “Sunday. He was a little warm, but nothing to be concerned about. He had a bad cold a few weeks back, and I thought maybe he’d just gotten overtired. He, uh…” I closed my eyes. “His back…”

I gently lifted Josh’s shirt, exposing the pale skin of his back for the doctor to look at. Moira gasped. The bruises marching up his spine were even darker now.

“He said he got slide-tackled at school,” I whispered, horrified.

The doctor’s face didn’t change, but I saw the tightening around his eyes. “Let’s run those tests.”