My jaw tightened. “I’m managing the logistics. That’s all.”
“Is it?” She pulled off her ridiculous wire glasses, and without them she looked less like Mrs. Claus and more like the Grace who’d invited me to dinner on Mom’s anniversary. “Alex told me about —”
“I’m fine, Grace.” I cut her off, gently but firmly. “I’m managing the logistics so you and Alex can focus on the kids. That’s what I’m good at. So let me do it.”
She studied me for a long moment. “Okay. But if you need to tap out—”
“I won’t.”
“—go back to the fourth floor, next to my office.” She squeezed my arm and went back to Alex, and I went back to my checklist.
Just get through the hospital. Then you can breathe at Donnelly’s.
Connor
Anhourandahalf later, we’d finished the last room. Grace went to return some equipment to the nurses’ station, and Alex disappeared to change out of his Santa suit. I stood in the hallway, staring at my notebook.
Seventeen items, all checked off except one:
? Take 5 minutes alone if you need it
I’d added it last night because Hannah had insisted.You belong on your list too,she’d said as I’d obsessively rewritten the list for the third time.
It had felt indulgent then. Impractical.
Now, standing in a hospital corridor with antiseptic burning my nostrils and monitors beeping in my ears, it felt necessary.
We were six minutes ahead of schedule. I had time.
I followed Grace’s instructions—fourth floor, past her office. I nearly missed the door. The only indication of what lay inside was a brass plaque mounted at eye level:The Clarke Family Sensory Room
Clarke. As in Alex Clarke. His family had donated this.
I remembered now—last December, Alex’s dad had a heart attack during the sensory room dedication. Grace called with the news, and I’d told him to get on a plane.
And now here I was, standing outside it.
I pushed open the door and stepped into darkness.
A moment later, motion sensors triggered soft lighting. A wall-mounted screen glowed with gentle, shifting patterns that reminded me of watching clouds. In the corner, a floor-to-ceiling tube pulsed with purple light, floating beads rising and falling in hypnotic rhythm like some kind of oversized lava lamp. Hidden speakers played quiet orchestral music that seemed to wrap around me, muffling the harsh hospital sounds from the corridor.
I sank onto one of the fuzzy pillows scattered across the plush carpet, watching those colored spheres rise and fall in the glowing tube. My shoulders dropped and jaw unclenched.
I pulled out my phone and set a timer for five minutes. And just… breathed.
Thought about Mom. About how she would have loved seeing Alex make those kids laugh today. He’d done different voices for each toy, even gotten that one little girl who hadn’t spoken in days to giggle so hard the nurses came to check her monitors. Mom would have been proud of Alex for that.
She would have been proud of me too, probably. For showing up even when it was hard. For putting someone else’s needs—these kids’ needs—ahead of my own discomfort.
But she’d also probably tell me I was being stubborn. That I didn’t have to white-knuckle my way through everything alone. That it was okay to take a break, to feel things, to let people help me.
Hannah’s voice echoed in my head, soft but insistent:You belong on your list too, Connor.
I watched the purple beads float upward, then slowly descend, over and over in an endless cycle. Felt my heartbeat slow to match their rhythm. Let myself sit with the discomfort—not trying to push past it. Just acknowledging it was there.
My timer hadn’t even gone off when the door opened.
Light spilled in from the corridor, and I looked up to find Alex silhouetted in the doorway. He’d changed out of the full Santa suit, now just wearing jeans and a Stanford sweatshirt, but his face had red marks where the beard had pressed into his skin.
