I would hold his hand, the same way that I held this little boy’s hand . . . because I was the one who rode in back with him, listening to his mother scream the whole way. Only it wasn’t even a scream. It was a . . . a howl. Feral and guttural and grating, like it came from a place deep down that most of us never see in ourselves. Because most of us haven’t had our lives shredded apart in an instant. And the other medic and I just looked at each other, knowing that we’d hear echoes of that scream for the rest of our lives.
