A car accident. A head injury. Eleven days of unconsciousness.
Eleven days of my life, simply gone.
But in that first minute, I didn’t know any of that. All I knew was that something warm was pressed against my side.
I turned my head, slowly, because everything hurt.
And there he was.
My grandson, Walter. Nine years old, curled up in a chair that had been dragged right up against my bed, his head resting on the edge of my mattress. One small hand was still wrapped around a fistful of my blanket, like he’d fallen asleep holding on and refused to let go even in his dreams.
Something in my chest cracked open.
Walter had lived with me since he was five, since the day we buried my son, Daniel. His mother had left long before that. So it had been the two of us, in my little house,
