LEAVE IT TO CLAIRE, San Francisco's chief medical officer, my best friend of a dozen years, to say the one thing in the midst of this madness that would make me cry. "Charlotte Lightower was pregnant."

Claire was looking drawn and helpless in her orange sur-gical scrubs. "Two months. Poor woman probably didn't even know herself."

I don't know why I found that so sad, but I did. Maybe it made the Lightowers seem like more of a family to me, humanized them.

"I was hoping to catch up with you sometime today." Claire gave me a halfhearted smile. "Just didn't envision it like this."

"Yeah." I smiled and wiped a tear from the corner of my eye.

"I heard what you did," Claire said. She came over and gave me a hug. "That took a lot of guts, honey. Also, you are a dumb bunny, do you know that?"

"There was a moment when I wasn't sure I was going to make it out, Claire. There was all this smoke. It was every-where. In my eyes, my lungs. I couldn't see for shit. I just took hold of that little boy and prayed."

"You saw the light. It led you out?" Claire smiled.

"No. Think............