Pāhonoa te oro

He told himself it was a gesture. He told himself it communicated something that words had failed to. He found out three days later what it had actually communicated. One of his men, doing a routine sweep of the hospital wing, sent a photograph. In it, Maria's office door was propped open by two gold bars arranged side by side on the floor. A child of perhaps seven was sitting on the examination table, arm extended, watching with enormous eyes as Maria wrapped a splinted forearm with efficient,