The doctors had tried everything, for both children. All the antiviral drugs, approved and off-label and compassionate-use; all the different respiratory interventions; steroids and serum and semi-experimental treatments. My eyes shifted to Beau’s monitor; his heart rate, which had been racing along at a rate far too fast, had now started its final, inexorable slide down. He didn’t have long.

I nodded dully. One of the nurses, the one with the kindest eyes, dragged over the wheeled stool to the bedside and guided me to it. Obediently, I sat, but then swiveled my head, searching for my bag.

“What do you need, honey?” said the nurse, her gloved hand on my shoulder.

“My phone.”

The nurse exchanged a puzzled glance with Mike Zhou, but she handed me my bag and waited while I rooted through it. Once I held the phone in my hand, I checked the battery, and though it had entered the red zone, enough juice remained to make a call. Good.

“Can I be alone?” I asked.

“Of course, Dr. Marchand. We’ll be right outside if you need us, and we’ll be back to see to Rorie in a little bit.” With a final, awkward squeeze of my shoulder, the nurse and the RT and Mike Zhou left.

An update from Vani showed on the phone’s screen. She’d jumped in her car the instant I’d called her but was still hours away, somewhere in the midst of the Tennessee mountains. Next: Wally. I’d called him earlier and asked him to be here, directing him to first stop by my office. I’d thought there would be more time.

“Wally,” I said, dialing him again. “Wally, Wally, pick up the phone.”

I let it ring through to voicemail and then called again, hoping against hope he’d answer, but he didn’t. This was it, then. No more hope. Until now I had not believed it.

As Dr. Zhou had instructed, I picked up Beau’s hand. Despite the warmth of the room, his small fingers were cold. I rubbed them between my hands, then gently set down one hand to pick up the other one to rub it too. Trying to ignore the alien tubes protruding from his mouth and nose, I kissed his face; first his little stub of a nose, then the delicate skin of each of his eyelids and the precise fine slash of each of his eyebrows and the smooth curve of his forehead. I stroked his curls and watched them spring back, remembering my surprise upon seeing his hair after his birth; who would have predicted a blondish-brown Afro?

Beau: it meant beautiful in French. An apt name. Never had there been a more beautiful child, not in spirit or in flesh. His sunny nature, his kindness. His bright, sparkly interest in the world. His singular devotion to the downtrodden.