“He would’ve been around your age now, I think,” Dr. Grayson continued, his lips twitching into a broken sort of smile. “He was three years old when we lost him. In a fire.”
He paused, blinking and swallowing hard.
“We weren’t home,” he said. “Dawn used to work in the hospital as well at the time. There was a late-night emergency at the hospital that night, so she and I had both been working overtime… It was supposed to be just for a few hours. We thought he’d sleep right through until we got back.”
His voice cracked slightly, and he looked away.
“But something happened. The old heating unit—faulty wiring, they said—sparked and caught the curtains. The fire spread fast. By the time anyone noticed, it was already too late.”
I felt something settle in the pit of my stomach as I listened
