Chapter 4:The Hospital

Callie's POV

"The window has changed."

Dr. Anderson did not look at his notes when he said it. He looked at me. Which meant it was worse than I was prepared for.

"How much?"

"The latest results show the progression is moving faster than we projected last week." He paused. "I want to be honest with you Ms. Dawson because I think you are someone who needs honesty more than comfort right now. We are no longer looking at six weeks."

The room was very still.

"Three," he said quietly. "Possibly less depending on how her body responds to the first round of treatment."

"We will begin the second phase of treatment this Friday," Dr. Anderson continued. "I want to be aggressive with the timeline given what we are seeing. The research program I mentioned is still an option but I need your decision by end of week."

"You will have it," I said.

He nodded. Then he looked at Lily.

"How are you feeling today Lily?"

She considered this seriously. "My tummy felt funny this morning," she said. "But Mr. Rabbit felt funny too so we were funny together and that made it better."

Dr. Anderson smiled. The real kind. "That sounds like an excellent system."

"It is," Lily agreed. And went back to not reading her book.

---

We were in the corridor heading for the exit when I noticed she had not said anything in several minutes. For Lily that was a long time. She walked beside me with her hand in mine and her eyes on the floor tiles and her rabbit tucked under her other arm and she said absolutely nothing.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked.

She was quiet for another few steps.

Then she looked up at me with those eyes that always seemed to see further than they should.

"Mummy." Her voice was careful. Like she had been arranging the words for a while. "If I go to heaven before my birthday. Can we have my party today?"

i felt the ground shift completely beneath my feet.

"You are not going to heaven before your birthday," I said.

"But if I did."

I crouched down in front of her right there in the middle of the corridor and held both her hands and looked at her face. This small serious face that had been asking impossible questions since she learned to talk.

"If you did," I said carefully. "Then yes. We would have your party today. Right now. We would get the biggest cake and the reddest shoes and we would celebrate you so loudly the whole street would hear."

She thought about this.

"Could Mr. Rabbit have cake too?"

"Mr. Rabbit could have his own cake."

She nodded slowly. Satisfied with the terms.

Then she took my hand again and we walked the rest of the way out without speaking.

---

She waited until we were in the car.

I had the engine running and my hands on the wheel and I was doing the thing I had learned to do in the past two weeks which was take the next five minutes and only the next five minutes and not look any further than that.

"Mummy."

"Yes baby."

"Does Daddy know I am sick?" A pause. "Like really know."

I kept my eyes on the road ahead.

"Yes," I said. "Daddy knows."

"Then why has he not come?"

Four words that had no good answer.

I drove and said nothing and she did not ask again and somehow that silence was the heaviest thing I had carried in a long time.

---

I thought she was asleep.

It was nearly nine when I checked on her. She was in bed with the lamp off and Mr. Rabbit tucked under her arm and her breathing had that slow rhythm that usually meant she was gone for the night.

I left the door slightly open and went to the kitchen and sat at the table with a cup of tea I did not drink and the research program paperwork spread out in front of me and the particular kind of exhaustion that lives somewhere past tired.

I did not notice my phone was gone until twenty minutes later.

I found her sitting up in bed with the screen lighting her face in the dark. She had not called anyone yet. She was looking at Derek's name in my contacts with a concentration that made my chest clench.

"Lily."

She looked up. Not guilty. Just very serious.

"I want to call Daddy," she said.

"It is late sweetheart."

"I know." She looked back at the screen. "But I have something to tell him."

I stood in the doorway and I thought about all the reasons to say no and how Derek had not picked up the last time. Another unanswered call would sit in her chest for days. I could not protect her from his silence if she reached for him and found nothing there.

Then I thought about three weeks.

"Okay," I said.

She pressed call before I finished the word.

It rang twice.

"Callie I told you not to—"

"Daddy." Her voice was small and bright and completely certain. "It is me. Lily."

A silence on his end.

"I just wanted to hear your voice," she continued. "Dr. Anderson says I have to be very brave. I am trying really hard Daddy. But it is easier when you are here."

She waited.The whole room waited.