Dorothy let him hug her because she did not yet trust herself to speak.
He smelled like antiseptic, expensive cologne, and the stale trace of rain.
“She fought so hard,” he said quietly against her temple. “Doctor Prescott said there was nothing anyone could have done. The hemorrhage was catastrophic.”
Dorothy stepped back and looked at him.
He closed his eyes for half a second, then opened them again, carefully composed.
“The babies are okay,” he added. “That’s what matters now. That’s what Colleen would want us focused on.”
Us.
Dorothy had always disliked how quickly he used that word in moments that served him.
She nodded once because there was no strength in her for argument. Not yet.
An hour later, after signing papers and answering questions she would not later remember, Dorothy went to the waiting room for water. The room overlooked the parking garage through a wall of windows blackened by rain. Down below, near a silver sedan, Grant stood under the yellow spill of a light.
He was not alone.
A woman stood beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched.