“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
“Mrs. Santoro.” I keep my voice gentle. “Please tell me. Is it Mina?”
Her face crumples. The dish towel falls to her side, and she looks at me with such raw anguish that my chest tightens.
“It’s my grandson,” she whispers.
The floor shifts beneath my feet. “Leon? What’s happened to Leon?”
“He got sick. Mina thought it was just a cold, but it got worse and worse, and now—” Her voice breaks. “What if he doesn’t get better?”
Leon. Mina’s son. Her happiness. The little boy who ran to greet me at the park with such innocent trust.
Mrs. Santoro presses the dish towel to her eyes. “I should be there at the hospital with her right now. She’s all alone in that place.”
That placesounds ominous. “Where is he? Which hospital?”
Mrs. Santoro hesitates. Her eyes dart away from mine, and I see the conflict playing across her face. She’s loyal to her daughter. She knows Mina wouldn’t want me involved.
“Mrs. Santoro. Please tell me.”
An echo of the way she looked at me when I was nineteen flickers in her eyes. “I don’t think Mina would like that.”
“I know.” I keep my voice soft and unthreatening. The German shepherd lying down with his head between his paws, trying not to be perceived as a threat. “I know she wouldn’t want me there. But she’s alone, isn’t she? She’s been alone this whole time.”
Mrs. Santoro’s face crumples. “She’s exhausted. She tries to be strong, but she’s falling apart. And Leon.” Her voice breaks. “He’s so little. He doesn’t understand why he’s so sick.”
My chest aches.
“Let me help,” I say. “Even if she sends me away, at least let me try. I’ll go now, and you follow with clothes and personal belongings for her and Leon. She must need things. How does that sound?”
“I…”
I want to seize Mrs. Santoro and demand she tells me this instant where I can find Mina, but I stop myself before I turn into the monster they all know I am.
Mrs. Santoro studies my face for a long moment. I don’t know what she sees there, but her resistance fades. “North Malus Hospital.”
I’m already moving, already pulling out my phone to look up the address. My heart is pounding in a way it hasn’t since I was nineteen years old, watching Mina being taken away from me with tears streaming down her face.
She’s been at that hospital for days, alone, without me, watching her son suffer. And I’ve been here doing business. Eating meals in the dining room and sleeping in a comfortable bed.
I should have been there. I should have known. She should havecalledme.
The thought spirals, and I grip the steering wheel harder.
I pull up to the hospital twenty minutes later. I wasn’t expecting much from the area, but North Malus Hospital isworse than I imagined. The building is old, crumbling at the edges, with letters missing from the building name. There are people loitering at the entrance and in the foyer. Inside, the fluorescent lights flicker and hum. The linoleum floor is scuffed and dirty. A man in a hospital gown wanders past us, trailing an IV pole, and no one stops him to ask if he needs help. The smell hits me next. Antiseptic layered over illness and despair.
This is where Mina has been for four days while Leon is fighting for his life, and I didn’t know.
After checking in with security, I find the pediatric ward on the third floor. The elevator is broken, so I take the stairs two at a time, my shoes clicking rapidly against concrete steps.
The entire floor is chaos. Too many beds crammed into too small a space. Thin curtains offering the illusion of privacy while doing nothing to block sound. A baby screaming somewhere to my left. A toddler crying to my right. Parents slumped in plastic chairs, hollow-eyed and exhausted. Nurses rushing past with clipboards, looking harried and overwhelmed.
And there, in a bed by the window, is Leon.
I barely recognize him. His skin is yellow. Not pale, not sallow. Actually yellow, like he’s been stained with dye. He’s hooked up to monitors and IVs, wires trailing from his small body, machines beeping steadily beside him. His dark curls are matted against his forehead. His eyes are closed.
