My mother flinched.
My father noticed.
“What did he call you?”
“No one calls me that anymore,” she said sharply.
Gerald reached into his jacket again and removed the photograph. He did not hand it to her. He simply held it up.
My father stared.
Claire leaned closer, eyes widening. “Mom? Is that you?”
My mother’s face transformed.
For years, I had wondered what she would look like without control.
Now I knew.
She looked like a cornered animal.
“This is inappropriate,” she said. “Holly is medicated. You are taking advantage of her.”
“I’m telling her the truth,” Gerald replied.
My father’s voice lowered. “What truth?”
Mother spun on him. “Richard, not here.”
“Oh, I think here is perfect,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
My hands were shaking under the blanket, but anger was doing what morphine could not. It was keeping me upright.
“You came here to discharge me,” I said to my mother.
Her eyes flashed. “I came here to make sure you weren’t turning a minor issue into a spectacle.”
“My appendix ruptured. I went septic. I flatlined.”
“Doctors exaggerate to protect themselves.”
Dr. Reeves entered so suddenly that it felt staged by God.
“No, Mrs. Crawford,” he said coldly. “We do not exaggerate cardiac arrest.”
My mother turned, startled.
Dr. Reeves stood in the doorway with Maria behind him. His expression had lost all professional warmth.
“Holly Crawford was in critical condition. She required emergency surgery, aggressive antibiotics, and resuscitation. Any attempt to remove her from medical care would have endangered her life.”
My father looked genuinely shaken for the first time.
“Cardiac arrest?” he repeated.
My mother shot him a look. “Richard—”
“You said she was being dramatic.”
“I said she tends to be dramatic.”
“I died,” I said.
My father’s eyes moved to me.
For one brief moment, I saw something like horror in his face. Maybe guilt. Maybe fear of being judged. With Richard Crawford, it was hard to tell. He had always outsourced emotion to my mother.
Claire rubbed her belly.
“Okay, this is obviously serious, but the shower—”
“No,” I said.
The word cut through the room.
