“Lily,” I whispered.
I took her hand. It was cold and too light.
“Baby, I’m here. Mom is here.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
For one horrifying moment, I thought I had arrived too late.
Then her eyes opened.
At first, they were cloudy with medication. Then they found me.
“Mom,” she breathed.
That one word broke me.
I bent over the rail of the bed and pressed her hand to my cheek.
“I came,” I whispered. “Of course I came. Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you tell me?”
A tear slid from the corner of her eye.
“Colin said not to bother you,” she whispered. “He said you were finally resting. He said I’d only make you worry. He said I was going to get better.”
My grief hardened.
Not disappear.
Harden.
A nurse learns to recognize certain kinds of cruelty. Some cruelty shouts. Some cruelty hits. Some cruelty isolates a vulnerable person so thoroughly that love starts to feel like an inconvenience.
Nora touched my shoulder.
“Mrs. Brooks, may I speak with you in the hall?”
I kissed Lily’s forehead and promised I would come right back.
Outside the room, I asked the question I already feared.
“How long does she have?”
Nora did not soften the truth.
“Days. Possibly a week, but that would be generous. The cancer has spread extensively. We’re keeping her comfortable.”
I braced one hand against the wall.
“When was she diagnosed?”
“Four months ago.”
Four months.
Four months of appointments, pain, fear, scans, treatment, and decisions.
And no one called me.
“Tell me about Colin,” I said. “All of it.”
Nora led me into a small staff room and placed a folder on the table.
“He came once,” she said. “The day Lily was admitted. He stayed less than half an hour. He completed the forms, left your name off the approved contact list, claimed he had urgent travel, and left.”
Then she showed me the screenshot.
Colin stood on a white beach in the Bahamas, tanned and smiling, his arm around a young blonde woman in a swimsuit. The ocean behind them was impossibly blue.
