I shook my head as I let her go.

“Goddamn it,” she whispered. Turning to Sarai, she gave her a gentle smile. “Hey, Rocky, nice shiner.”

“Hi, Ani,” Sarai replied. Her lips trembled. “Sorry we didn’t pick you up.”

“Shut it,” Ani said with a wave of her hand. She leaned against the bed and awkwardly grabbed Sarai’s good hand, giving it a squeeze. “How’re you holding up?”

“Okay,” Sarai said. The word came out warbly and soft.

“Bullshit,” Ani said, leaning forward. “I’m going to hug you, but I’ll be really careful.”

As Ani wrapped an arm around Sarai, my wife started to cry in big body-shaking sobs. I took a step forward to intervene but stopped when I saw the way Sarai’s hand had fisted in the back of Ani’s shirt. Ani murmured to Sarai as I stepped quietly out of the room.

I found Bram and Arie in the emergency room waiting area. The baby was asleep for once, bundled up in her car seat, and as I walked toward my brother, he got to his feet. He met me halfway in a hug so tight I felt my spine pop.

“How’s Sarai?” he asked, still holding on to me.

“Not good,” I replied hoarsely.

“Awake, though, yeah?” he said, his hand patting my back in the way my dad had always hugged us as kids. “She’s gonna be okay.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, my chin knocking into his shoulder. “She’s awake.”

“The baby?” Bram asked.

I shook my head.

“Aw, man,” he said with a sigh. “I’m sorry, brother.”

“Me too,” I ground out. I let go of him and stepped back. “It could’ve been way worse,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face. “We got lucky.”

“Don’t do that,” Bram said. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Pretend like you’re feeling lucky,” Bram said flatly.

I scoffed.

“There’s nothing wrong with being upset,” Bram said, his eyes boring into mine.

“I know that.”

“Okay.” He let it go, but I could tell that he was itching to say something else by the way his jaw flexed. “So what happened?”

I followed him to the chairs lining the wall and sat next to him, with Arie at our feet. I stared at my niece for a moment, thinking about all the things I was never going to do with my daughter or son, then shook my head and looked back at Bram.

“We went to pick up Sarai’s friend Hailey because her boyfriend beat the shit out of her—”

“Motherfucker,” Bram muttered. I nodded.