CHAPTER 7: THE OTHER CHILD IN THE HOSPITAL
Emily did not follow them because Richard asked.
She followed because Ashley was crying.
Not elegantly.
Not like Karen cried, with tissues and posture and one eye on the room.
Ashley cried like a woman whose foundation had cracked.
They found a quiet hallway behind the arena floor, near a row of locked storage doors and abandoned flower boxes. Olivia stayed beside Emily. She did not ask permission. She had earned the right to remain.
Richard started first.
“You should not have done that publicly.”
Emily looked at him.
“You abandoned me publicly. The hospital record is not private shame for me to carry alone.”
Karen whispered,
“We made mistakes.”
“Mistakes are forgetting appointments.”
Karen began to cry.
Emily did not soften.
Richard cleared his throat.
“This is not why we came.”
That was the first honest thing he had said all day.
Ashley stepped forward.
“Lily is sick.”
The name meant nothing to Emily.
Then everything.
“My daughter,” Ashley said. “She’s seven.”
Olivia inhaled softly.
Emily felt the world narrow.
“What kind of sick?”
Ashley’s lips trembled.
“They think it may be leukemia.”
The hallway seemed to lose air.
For a second, Emily was thirteen again.
White sheets.
Apple juice.
How much?
Richard moved quickly.
“We need you to help us get her into the best trial. You know people. You have access now.”
Olivia’s face hardened.
Now.
That word.
Emily looked from Richard to Karen.
“Is that why you contacted the university?”
Karen hesitated too long.
Ashley turned on her mother.
“You said you wanted to apologize.”
Karen sobbed.
“I did.”
Richard snapped,
“We do not have time for emotional theater. Lily needs help.”
Emily stared at him.
There it was.
The same voice.
The same urgency.
Only now the cost had a different name.
Ashley wiped her face.
“I didn’t know,” she said to Emily.
“About what?”
“All of it. They told me your treatment failed and you were transferred. Then later they said you wanted no contact.”
Emily felt something cold move through her.
Olivia stepped closer.
“They told your sister she died socially so they could keep the story clean.”
Karen whispered,
“We were trying to protect everyone.”
Emily turned toward her.
“No. You were protecting yourselves.”
Ashley looked sick.
“I used that college fund,” she said. “I went to school. I thought you were gone.”
Emily did not know what to do with the pain on Ashley’s face.
It did not erase the past.
But it changed the shape of one person inside it.
Richard pushed a folder toward Emily.
“These are Lily’s records.”
Emily did not take it.
“I am not her doctor.”
“You are a pediatric oncologist.”
“I am a resident starting next month.”
“You are connected.”
Emily looked at him for a long time.
“Do you hear yourself?”
Richard frowned.
“What?”
“Fifteen years ago, I was too expensive. Today, I am useful.”
His face tightened.
“That is not fair.”
“No,” Emily said. “It is accurate.”
Ashley held the folder out with shaking hands.
“Please. Not for them. For her.”
Emily looked at Olivia.
Olivia’s eyes were wet again, but steady.
The choice was not hard.
That surprised Emily.
She would not punish a sick child for the sins of adults.
She took the folder.
“I will review it and refer Lily through proper channels. No favors. No lies. No skipping another child because your family is frightened now.”
Ashley nodded quickly.
“Thank you.”
Richard exhaled with relief.
Emily turned to him.
“You don’t get to come as family.”
His relief died.
“What?”
“You can come as Lily’s grandfather if Ashley allows it. You cannot come as my father.”
Karen whispered,
“Emily, please.”
“No.”
The word was calm.
Final.
Ashley clutched the folder to her chest.
Then said something that made Karen cover her mouth.
“I want the hospital records.”
Richard went still.
Ashley looked at him.
May you like
“All of them. Emily’s. Lily’s. Everything.”
For the first time, Richard Parker looked afraid of his chosen daughter.
