Chapter 07

Callie's POV

"Ms. Dawson I need to speak with you about something sensitive."

Dr. Anderson's voice on the phone had that careful quality again. The one that meant something had happened that he was not sure how to explain.

"The hospital administration received a call this morning," he said. "From Derek Ashford's office. He has requested formally and in writing that any unauthorized third parties be barred from involvement in Lily's case going forward."

I sat down slowly.

"He named someone specifically," Dr. Anderson continued. "A Dr. Michael Reyes."

The kitchen was very quiet around me.

"I want you to know I pushed back immediately," he said. "But Mr. Ashford's history with this hospital as a donor complicates things administratively. They are taking the request seriously."

"Michael Reyes," I said. "What do you know about him?"

A pause.

"That is actually what I wanted to tell you." Dr. Anderson cleared his throat. "Dr. Reyes is one of the leading pediatric hematologists in the country. His specific area of research is acute leukemia in children under six." Another pause. "He is the lead physician on the research program I have been trying to get Lily into for the past two weeks."

I said nothing.

"Mr. Ashford has essentially tried to bar the one doctor whose program could give Lily a fighting chance," he said quietly. "Before Dr. Reyes has done a single thing."

I put the phone down after we finished talking and sat at the kitchen table and looked at the wall for a long time.

Not from shock.

From the specific exhaustion of watching someone choose their anger over their daughter's life and not even flinch doing it.

---

I was at the daycare gate at three when I saw Vanessa.

She was standing just inside the fence line with Noah beside her looking like someone who had arrived somewhere casually and just happened to end up exactly where she intended to be. She smiled when she saw me. Warm and uncomplicated.

I did not smile back.

The children came out in the usual flood of bags and noise and small bodies looking for their people. Lily found me immediately. She was halfway through telling me something about paint and a boy named Theo who had sneezed on her project when Noah appeared beside her.

"Lily." He said her name with that particular five year old gravity that meant he had been thinking about what he was about to say for a while. "My mum said your mum kisses random men at parties."

Several parents standing nearby went very still.

Lily looked at him.

Then she looked at me.

Her face was doing the thing it did when she was trying to work out whether something was true or whether it was the kind of thing adults said that did not mean what it sounded like.

"That is not true," I said. Calm and clear. Loud enough for the parents nearby to hear.

Vanessa tilted her head with an expression of gentle confusion. "I am sure I don't know what he heard. Children pick up all sorts of things don't they."

Noah nodded seriously. "You said it in the car Mum."

Vanessa's smile did not move.

One of the mothers near the gate turned to another and said something too low for me to catch. The other one glanced at me and looked away quickly.

I took Lily's hand.

"Let's go home sweetheart."

"But Mummy—"

"I know." I kept walking. "I know."

---

The rumor had reached four different parents by the following morning. I knew because two of them stopped responding to the group chat and one of them moved her daughter away from Lily at drop off without making eye contact.

Lily noticed.

She did not say anything about it. She just held my hand a little tighter than usual and kept walking and I wanted to burn everything down and could not burn anything down because I had a daughter who needed me to hold it together.

I held it together.

---

My phone rang at nine that evening. A number I did not recognize.

I answered because I had learned in the past two weeks that unknown numbers sometimes mattered.

"I'll make this quick." Derek's voice. Flat and businesslike. "The birthday arrangement. I'm moving it forward."

I went still. "What?"

"Two weeks earlier. I'll come then instead."

"Derek that is four days from now—"

"I'm aware."

"She is not prepared for that. I have not told her anything yet. I need time to—"

"You had time," he said. "You used it to invite men to hospital events. The arrangement changes. Take it or leave it."

"Please." The word came out before I could stop it. Not because I wanted to beg him. Because I was thinking about Lily and what four days meant and what three weeks had meant and how much of that time was already gone. "Please do not do this out of anger. This is her birthday Derek. It is the last one she—"

"Four days," he said. "I'll be there at six."

The line went dead.

I sat on the kitchen floor.

Not dramatically. I just sat down because my legs stopped working and the floor was there.

Four days.

Lily did not even know her birthday was coming early. She did not know about the appointment ban. She did not know that the one doctor who might be able to help her had been blocked by her own father before he had done a single thing.

She was upstairs right now talking to Mr. Rabbit about something important.

Four days.