The kids would not go to the playroom with volunteers. They orbited Ethan like satellites that had found a stable pull. He learned their names from wristbands a nurse had printed: Ava Cole and Jalen Cole—and the sight of that last name nearly undid him. Naomi had written it without his permission and without his help; the audacity of hope in that choice made something hot burn behind his eyes.

Hours later, when Naomi woke, her first word was kids. Her second was where. She took in the fluorescent ceiling, the IV line, the unfamiliar blanket, and tried to sit up.

“They’re safe,” Ethan said from the chair by the bed, his voice hoarse from saying nothing for a long time. “They’re in the play nook. I stayed with them. They’re okay.”

She turned toward the voice, squinted, and then recognition hit like a door swinging too fast. “Ethan?” The name left her mouth like a small astonishment and a complicated regret at once. She looked away, swallowing shame as if it were a pill she’d been prescribed. “You shouldn’t be here.”