Chapter 22: Problems with the Heart

Vivian pressed her lips to Rosie's soft cheek and raised her right hand with solemn ceremony.

"Never," she said firmly. "I have never once thought about leaving you. Every single day this week I've been figuring out how to get to you." She pulled back just enough to look at the small, tear-streaked face. "And haven't I come? I'm here, aren't I?"

Rosie considered this from within the circle of her arms, sniffling quietly. The familiar warmth of his mother's embrace, the particular scent of her, clean and natural and entirely safe, worked its way through the week's worth of accumulated worry and loneliness and slowly, gradually, began to loosen the knot in the small chest.

His breathing evened out.

His rigid little shoulders dropped by degrees.

"Mom." His voice was very small now. "I want to go home."

There was a beautiful room here, with Little Prince murals and star-painted ceilings and a grandmother who would move mountains for him. There was a father now, tall and quiet, who had tied the ribbon off her wrist without hesitation.

But none of it was home.

Home was wherever Vivian was.

"When can we go home?" Rosie looked up with eyes full of a hope so pure and uncomplicated it was almost unbearable to receive.

Vivian couldn't hold that gaze directly.

She looked slightly to the side, keeping her arms tight around the small warm body, and steadied her voice before she spoke.

"Baby, you know your heart gives you trouble sometimes, right? Mommy can help manage it, but it isn't something I can fix completely on my own. Remember how much it hurts when it happens?" She felt the small nod against her shoulder. "Your daddy's family has a medicine. It won't cure it, not yet, but it keeps it under control. It means you won't hurt as much when it happens." She pressed a kiss to the top of the soft head. "Can you be brave a little longer? Just until Mommy finds something that can actually fix it properly. Then I'll come for you. I promise. And we'll go somewhere just the two of us, as far as we want."

Rosie was quiet for a moment, processing this with the particular gravity of a four-year-old who understood more than four-year-olds were supposed to.

Vivian stared at the far wall and let herself think about it, actually think about it, for the first time.

Getting Rosie out from under Ethan Hartwell's roof, away from the Hartwell family name, past whatever security and legal apparatus surrounded a man of his standing, it would require careful planning. Patience. Precision.

It would, in short, be approximately as difficult as stealing the moon.

he was already getting a headache.

Small arms crept back up around her neck.

A warm pressure landed on her chin, a deliberate, decisive little kiss and Rosie settled back into her lap with a long, resigned exhale that sounded remarkably like a tiny adult making peace with an inconvenient situation.

"…Mm," she said.

Vivian laughed, quiet, helpless, overwhelmed with love. She gathered Rosie in and held him and rocked her gently, telling him a story, then another, then humming the song that had always worked, the one she'd sung since Rosie was small enough to fit entirely in the crook of one arm.

By the time the little eyes finally drifted shut and the breathing went deep and slow and completely trusting, Vivian felt wrung out in the best possible way.

She stood beside the bed for a long time after that.

Just looking.

Memorizing, the way you do when you're not sure when you'll get to look again. Every soft feature, every faint flutter of lash, the tiny fist loosely curled against the pillow.

Finally, she reached out and adjusted the blanket, tucking the edge in gently, setting the cup lid back in place and turned.

Ethan was standing in the doorway.

She hadn't heard him come in.

He was watching the scene with an expression she didn't have a word for, something quiet and unguarded that smoothed the sharp angles of his face into something almost approachable. He stepped forward without speaking and held out a small parcel.

"Check if these are right," he said, keeping his voice low.

Vivian pressed a hand to her chest, steadied her startled pulse, and took the package from him. She went through the items methodically checking each one, testing quality between her fingers.

Nothing missing. Every item exactly right, and sourced well.

"These are perfect," she said.

Ethan glanced at the sleeping figure on the bed. "She's already asleep. We can do this another day."

Vivian was already withdrawing a silver needle from the case, her movements practiced and unhurried. "It's fine. I've developed a technique that works better during natural sleep, less resistance, deeper effect." She didn't look up. "I've examined her. It's a combination of cardiac irregularity and neurological sensitivity. My method won't eliminate the condition, but it will reduce the frequency and severity of attacks."

Of course it will, she thought, with a quiet ferocity that had nothing to do with professional confidence.

She had spent two years learning this technique from a master practitioner after the day Western medicine had looked at her daughter and offered nothing but management plans and sympathetic faces. She had sat in that office, four months after Rosie's second birthday, and decided that not enough was not an answer she was willing to accept.

She had been treating Rosie with this method ever since.

It was slow. The effects accumulated over time rather than arriving all at once. And it was after witnessing Rosie's first severe attack, small body rigid, face white, eyes terrified, that Vivian had accepted what she'd been refusing to accept for months.

She couldn't do this alone anymore.

She had packed Rosie's things that same night.

"I need quiet when I work," she said, straightening and rolling her sleeves back with calm efficiency. She glanced at Ethan briefly. "If you'd prefer to stay and observe, that's fine, but please don't speak or move around. It breaks concentration."

Her face in that moment, focused, certain, completely in her element, caught the light in a way that made Ethan go still without fully deciding to.

"I'll stay," he said.