Danny.
He wore only a thin gray T-shirt and blue cotton shorts—the same pajamas he’d had on that morning when I dropped him off at my parents’ house. No jacket. No shoes. Just a little boy folded in on himself, shaking so hard I could see it from halfway across the yard. The temperature was twenty-eight degrees. I had heard the forecast on my drive home—record cold for November, with windchill making it even worse.
I ran. My nursing bag flew from my shoulder and burst across the frozen driveway.
“Danny!” I screamed. He didn’t answer.
I tore off my coat before I even reached him. His lips were a deep, terrifying blue. Not the movie kind—the real cyanotic blue that tells you organs are fighting to survive. His skin was blotched and waxy. When I pulled him to my chest and wrapped my coat tightly around him, his body felt like ice beneath fabric.
“Mommy,” he whispered. The word shattered between his chattering teeth.
