My 6-year-old granddaughter phoned me in panic just after midnight. “Mommy says the baby is coming! Help!” I asked, “Where’s daddy?” She answered, “He k!cked mommy’s tummy and left.”…..

This was not.

“Lydia,” Cassidy whispered.

Harry turned and saw his granddaughter curled up on the couch in princess pajamas, clutching a stuffed elephant to her chest. Tears streaked her cheeks. Tiny smears of her mother’s blood stained her hands. For one terrible second, Harry could not move, because seeing blood on a child’s hands reached somewhere in a man’s soul that no scars, no years, and no hard life could prepare him for.

“Come here, baby girl.”

Lydia ran to him, and he lifted her with one arm. She buried her face against his neck and clung to him with every bit of strength her small body had.

“Is Mommy going to die?” she whispered.

“No,” Harry said, making it sound as certain as gravity itself. “Mommy’s tough. She’s going to be fine.”