On Christmas

through double doors into the emergency department. Monitors beeped behind curtains. Shoes squeaked against tile. Somewhere a child was crying.

Then I heard it.

“Mommy?”

Small.

Cracked.

Terrified.

I turned so fast I nearly fell.

Lily was sitting in a hospital bed under three heated blankets, her cheeks red in patches, her lips chapped, her eyes too large continue reading …