That sound landed harder than it should have.
A stamp.
A time.
Proof that we had been there.
A nurse in blue scrubs came around the desk and took one look at Emily.
She put an orange triage band around my daughter’s wrist and asked, “How long has she been like this?”
“Three days,” I said.
The nurse’s face changed.
She did not scold me.
That almost made it worse.
She had the expression of someone who understood delay too well.
Not the kind caused by traffic or insurance cards or bad luck.
The kind that begins in a kitchen when one person decides everyone else’s pain is negotiable.
They wrote the words on the intake form cleanly.
Abdominal pain.
Fever.
Persistent vomiting.
They did not write that my daughter had whispered not to tell her father.
They did not write that I had hidden money in towels.
