The screaming heralded the onset of bursts of light and time and reality, like flashes of a camera capturing moments of horror.

The doctor rushing to Celina’s side.

Flash.

The urgency in his voice as he asks her questions and gets no response.

Flash.

The hurried way they rush her out of the room and down to CT.

Flash.

Dane leading me to a chair and pressing me into it.

Flash.

The look of excruciating pain on his face when I look up at him.

Flash.

The dull ache of losing something more precious to me than my own life.

Flash.

Dane.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

Him picking me up off the floor.

Him pressing my head to his shoulder.

Him looking down into my eyes, agony written all over his face.

Then there’s agony. So much agony.

Then time. So much time.

Hours, days, years later, Dr. Napier shows up again. His words are a jumbled mess. Critical bleed Celina’s caused a head trauma seizure.

Or was it seizure trauma caused bleed Celina critical head?

Or was it Celina’s seizure caused head trauma and has a critical bleed?

I don’t know. I only know that my daughter isn’t awake. I can’t see her eyes and I can’t feel her with me.

Since she was born, I’ve always been able to feel her presence, like a warm light in my heart no matter where she was—at preschool, at a friend’s house, on a field trip. She was always alive out there, somewhere, her lungs filling with air and her heart beating enough to keep both of us alive.

Only now I don’t feel that.

I can’t feel my little girl and my heart doesn’t have enough energy to beat on its own. My world doesn’t have enough energy to turn on its own. My life doesn’t have enough reason to continue on its own.

Little by little, hour by hour, day by day, I’m dying and so is my child.

On Thursday—or is it Tuesday?—I’m in the waiting room. I’m always in the waiting room. Something shifts beside me and I glance to my left. It’s Dane. He looks haggard, his eyes red, his hair a mess, and a thick, dark layer of stubble dusts his cheeks. He sits beside me and I stare absently at him.

I don’t know how long he’s been there. Or how long I have. Forever. Moments. I don’t know anymore.

I feel him take my hand. I feel the warmth of it. I feel the comfort of it.

But I’m not warmed.

And I’m not comforted.

“The nurse said her vitals are improving.”

I nod. That means nothing to me. I can’t feel my daughter.

“The neurologist says he thinks she’s improving.”

I nod again. I feel a tiny flare in my chest, like the spark of hope trying to take hold, but it flickers once, sputters, and dies because I can’t feel my daughter anymore.

“She’ll make it, Brinkley. She has to.”

It’s the tremor in Dane’s voice, the uncertainty of it that shakes me. First, I look down at our joined hands and then back up at his familiar face, and I see.

I see.

For the first time since all this happened, I really see Dane.

He’s suffering. I can see it, as plainly as the bright sun painting golden triangles on the drab carpet.

He’s helpless. I can feel it as poignantly as I feel the absence of my daughter.

But he’s strong, too. He’s as solid as our rock and as unwavering as the earth itself.

I blink at him.

My eyes, they’re burning. Still burning. Always burning.

I try to speak, but have to try twice. My mouth is so dry. “Dane, what am I going to do?”

“You’re going to be here when our daughter wakes up. That’s what you’re going to do.”

“What if…what if…” I can’t bring myself to say the words, even though they feel like they’ve already been spoken into existence.

Because I can’t feel my daughter anymore.

“She’ll make it. She’s strong. Like you. She’ll make it. She has to.”

“What will I do if…if…”

I can hardly think of the possibilities, much less utter them.

“It won’t happen. You don’t need to worry about that. She’s gonna make it.”

“Dane, I can’t…I can’t feel her. I can’t feel my little girl anymore.”

Hysteria comes for me, swift and sweeping.

“She’s still there, Brinkley. You’ll feel her again.”

“I’ve always felt her. Always. Since she was born, I’ve… always… I can’t lose her. I can’t…I can’t…”

I feel so hollow.

So cold and empty and hollow.

“You won’t. She will make it. This is not how her story ends. If I have to go in there and give every one of my organs to save her, I will get her back for you. I swear it. I can’t live with myself knowing I took her from you. I just…I can’t. I’ll get her back for you if it’s the very last thing I do.”

I feel my forehead crease. “Dane, this isn’t your fault.”

He gets out of his chair and drops to his knees in front of me, pressing our joined hands to his brow. “If I hadn’t wanted to be her donor, this might not have happened. I was so selfish. I wanted to be the one. I wanted to be the one to save her.”

His voice is anguish, his tone misery.

“It wasn’t your marrow that did this.”

He’s so still, so quiet. Torment is rolling off him like frigid waves from the ocean. “I just found her. I’ll make this right. I swear on my life.”

His words bring a kind of awakening to me. They force me not only to see reason, but to remind Dane of it. “You’re right. You did just find her, so you don’t know her. You don’t know how strong she is. She’s the strongest person I’ve ever met. She’s so tough, so…determined. She’s a fighter. Even her teachers said so.”

As I say the words, I draw a strange sort of detached comfort from them. And deep within me, a soft glow begins.

Dane looks up and stares at me, long and hard, and somehow, little by little, we begin to draw strength from each other.

“She can’t come from us and not be a fighter.”

“No, she can’t.”

He goes on, bolder. “We fight for love in this family. We fight for each other. We always have.”

“Always.”

“We never gave up and neither will she. She’s coming back. I promise you. She’s coming back. And we’ll be together. All three of us. A family. Finally.”

“A family.” Although the words are but a whisper, there is a thread of steel that weaves them together. I repeat them, just so I can feel them roll off my tongue, fill the air around us, resonate in and through and between my ribs. “A family. She’ll have a whole family.”

Dane pulls me into his arms, crushing me to him, and together, we hope. We grab onto it, we cling to it. We hold to it as desperately as we hold to each other.

His voice is gruff and muffled when he says, “I never stopped loving you, you know.”

Something inside me shifts, moves. Melts. My Celina…she has to come back to us. She has to come back to this.

“Dane.” I bury my face in the curve of his neck.

“I wish I’d told you sooner, and I know this is the shittiest time, but I want you to know. You have to know that you…you’re all I’ve ever wanted, and meeting the beautiful little girl that we made together…I’ll never be the same. And I don’t want to be. When we leave here, I want you to know that…that…” He leans away and takes my face in his hands. “You’re my home. Wherever you are, that’s where my heart is. It always has been. Even after all these years.”

“Sommers?” Both of our heads snap up when my name is called. It’s the doctor. He’s looking for us.

When his eyes meet mine from across the room, my heart stops. It just stops beating, my entire existence balanced on the head of a pin.

Another countdown begins.

Minus one heartbeat.

Minus two.

Minus three.

But then he smiles.

And my heart, my life, my world starts back up again.