I ignored her question and demanded to know where Emily and Noah were.
Mom casually replied that Noah had cried throughout the night and Emily was probably asleep now.
Then I heard Noah.
Not an ordinary cry.
A weak, fractured sound coming from behind the bedroom door.
I immediately ran down the hallway.
The smell reached me before I even got to the bed: sour milk, sweat, stale diapers, blood, and overheated air trapped inside the sealed room.
Emily lay completely still on one side of the mattress while Noah rested beside her, wrapped inside a dirty blanket.
The room felt unbearably hot.
The windows were tightly closed, the fan was switched off, and Emilyâs face appeared gray beneath the early morning light.
One of her hands hung weakly over the side of the bed as though she had attempted to pull herself upright and failed.