For as long as she could remember, Amanda Scarpinati kept a small stack of black-and-white photos tucked away like a secret. In every move, every new home, they went with her—slipped into drawers, between book pages, inside boxes of keepsakes. The pictures were old and gently creased, but one in particular mattered more than anything.
In it, she was just a baby, her tiny head wrapped entirely in gauze. Her skin was bandaged, her body limp with exhaustion. And holding her was a young nurse, no older than her early twenties, looking down at Amanda with a calm, tender expression. The nurse’s face was soft, almost serene, her arms cradling the injured infant as if the world beyond that hospital room didn’t exist.
