"Tomasso was only kind to me and the baby because of my late husband!" Catarina sobbed, crawling to Tomasso's legs. She pressed her face against his knee, and the gesture was so perfectly calibrated, so precisely the image of a grieving widow seeking protection from her fallen husband's blood-brother, that I almost admired it. Almost. "The baby fell from a height. I don't even know if he'll survive. Tomasso, please, don't waste any more time. Call a doctor!"
"Don't be scared. I won't let anything happen to him." His voice dropped low, tender, a register I hadn't heard him use with me in years. He cradled the child closer.
Tomasso turned to leave with the baby in his arms.
And in that moment, I felt something warm and wet sliding down between my legs.
The sensation froze me with terror. Everything else disappeared. The voices, the faces, the fluorescent hum, the smell of antiseptic and spilled porridge. All of it fell away, and there was only the warmth spreading beneath me and the cold that followed it, a cold that started in my chest and moved outward until my fingers went numb.