The Song No One Expected to Hear

In 2004, a pediatric nurse named Grace Okafor worked the overnight shift at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville. One evening, a three-year-old boy named Elijah was admitted after a house fire. He had no family at his bedside — his mother was in the burn unit two floors above. Elijah would not stop screaming. No medication settled him. No stuffed animal, no cartoon, no whispered reassurance.…