At 2:13 in the morning, a bald little boy whispered that he missed his dog—and all I had was a yellow mop bucket.

“I want Duke,” he kept saying.

Not loud. Not dramatic. Just the kind of quiet that breaks you faster.

I was outside room 412 with my cart and bleach water when I heard him crying.

The monitors were steady. No emergency. No code. Just a seven-year-old boy in a hospital bed, knees pulled to his chest, staring at the dark window like it might open and send him home.

His mom was asleep with her head against the wall.

His dad was folded into one of those hard chairs, boots still on, one hand hanging down like he’d passed out in the middle of trying to be strong.

I tapped the doorframe. “You okay, buddy?”

He looked at me, eyes swollen and shiny.

“Not really.”

I stepped in a little. “Bad dream?”

He shook his head.

“I miss my dog,” he said. “He sleeps by my feet every night. He won’t know where I went.”

That one got me.