Eric stood ten feet away. He looked as though he wanted to argue, but no words came.
Daniel pulled back and touched Sophie’s stuffed rabbit.
“I’ll be right here when you finish.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
The MRI took forty-seven minutes.
I counted every one of them.
When Sophie was brought back, she complained that the machine had been loud but said the headache was worse. A nurse dimmed the lights and gave her medicine.
Then Dr. Ortiz asked the adults to follow her into a consultation room.
Sophie refused to let me leave, so the meeting happened at her bedside. Daniel sat on her right. I sat on her left. Eric remained near the window.
A new doctor introduced herself as Dr. Priya Shah, a pediatric endocrinologist.
She placed an MRI image on the monitor.
Most of it looked like meaningless shades of black and gray. Near the center was a pale, irregular shape.
