“You knew she was alive.”
Neil followed us into the hallway. “You can’t just take her.”
“Watch me.”
Students and teachers stared as we walked past, but I didn’t care.
Outside, I let Grace sit next to me. As I started driving, planning on taking my baby home, I realized Neil might go there too, and I didn’t trust him.
“Please don’t leave me again,” Grace muttered beside me.
I didn’t trust him.
“I won’t, my baby,” I said firmly. “I’m taking you to your Aunt Melissa’s house for a little while. I need to figure out what happened.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“You won’t be. Remember, you used to love staying with her? She’d let you stay up late and eat ice cream for dinner sometimes.”
A small, uncertain smile appeared.
“I won’t, my baby.”
When we pulled into my younger sister’s driveway, my heart was still racing. Melissa opened the door and stared at us. Then she gasped.
Grace stepped forward. “Aunt Melissa?”
Melissa covered her mouth before pulling Grace into a tight hug.
“It’s really you,” she cried.
We stepped inside and shut the door behind us.
Then she gasped.
“I don’t know everything yet,” I told her. “But I think Neil’s been lying to me.”
Melissa’s expression changed instantly.
“Please keep her here,” I said. “He doesn’t know your address, only the name of the area.”
Grace looked up at me, fear creeping back into her eyes. “Please don’t let them take me again.”
Them.
“No one’s taking you,” I promised. “I’ll be back soon.”
She grabbed my hand. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Please keep her here.”
When I left Melissa’s house, my thoughts were clearer than they’d been in years.
I drove straight to the hospital where Grace had been admitted.
***
Two years earlier, Grace was admitted there with a severe infection. I remembered sitting beside her hospital bed daily, machines beeping steadily.
Then one afternoon, Neil came home.
He told me the brain-dead story. He said I shouldn’t see her like that.
I’d trusted him.
He told me the brain-dead story.
***
Inside the hospital lobby, everything came rushing back.
“I need to speak with Dr. Peterson,” I told the front desk. “He once treated my daughter.”
After a short wait, I was standing outside his office. When he opened the door and saw me, he went pale.
“Mary,” he said carefully.
He glanced down the hallway, then stepped aside. The door closed behind me.
And I knew whatever he was about to say would change everything.
“He once treated my daughter.”
Dr. Peterson sat down.
“How is my daughter alive?” I asked immediately.
Lowering his voice, he said, “I was under the impression that your husband explained everything to you.”
“He told me she was brain-dead. That she was taken off life support. I buried her.”
The doctor’s face tightened. “That’s not exactly what happened.”
My stomach dropped.
