Wally did not ask me to explain my choice. He probably figured it to be triage: when forced to choose among the dying, we were taught to first save those with the best chance of survival. In this room, you didn’t have to be a doctor to make the call. Beau was so close to death you could almost hear the snapping of the tethers between his soul and his body. I’d been too afraid to give it to him when he first became ill. What if it killed him?

I couldn’t put it off for another moment: I had to give the medicine now.

I don’t know why I chose Rorie. Maybe it was triage—it was drilled into me, after all—but also maybe atonement for the favoritism she’d always seen in me when it came to her brother.

I loved them equally; I did.

I had to hurry. Setting Wally to guard over Beau, I turned to Rorie. I was afraid to inject the drug into Rorie’s central line, where it would zoom straight to her heart. Unless the clinical trials in Spain had progressed further than I thought, she’d be the first human being to receive it. It could cause a massive allergic reaction and kill her outright. It could turn out to have an unforeseen effect, killing T cells or targeting some essential cytokine or frying the liver. Who knew?

But what other choice did I have? Putting Rorie on a ventilator would improve her oxygenation and ventilation, but it wouldn’t stop the domino chain of her failing organs. She could be too far gone for any medication to work at this point, but her chances were better than Beau’s. I uncapped the syringe, tapped it, and adjusted Rorie’s arm, aware of the seconds melting past us. I felt Wally’s presence behind me, heard the rustle of his gown as he hovered, undoubtedly anxious for me to depress the plunger and inject the drug.

A hand gripped my wrist.

Rorie’s eyes opened. Her mouth moved behind her mask, but I couldn’t make out the words. I leaned in, my head inches from Rorie, and still, I could not understand. With effort, Rorie pointed to her mask. I loosened the lower strap and lifted it a fraction.

“No, Mommy,” said Rorie. Her eyes drifted shut, then fluttered open. “Please.”

“Honey, it’s a medicine from Declan. He gave it to me, before. It might help.”

“No.”

“Rorie,” I said, at a loss. I couldn’t administer an untested drug to someone if the someone in question refused it, even if it was my child. I had to make her understand. “Baby, it might save your life. I— We don’t know exactly what it might do. It could be dangerous. But Declan said they thought it was going to work.”

“Beau.”