Chapter 2 — Our Daughter Needs His Blood

Lily was awake when I returned to Harborlight.

She sat propped against three pillows, a knit cap covering the soft shadow of hair beginning to grow back. When she saw the bright yellow box, her whole face changed.

"Mom! Is that the castle?"

"The very one."

I carried it to her bed and pretended my hands were not still shaking.

"Can we build it now?"

"After lunch."

"That's what grown-ups say when they mean maybe."

"After lunch," I repeated, and kissed her forehead. "Birthday-girl promise."

She grinned.

I held that expression inside me like a match in winter.

For twenty minutes, we sorted pieces into the plastic hospital basin. Lily chose the tiny knight with a blue shield. I assembled one crooked tower while she corrected me with the grave patience of a child who had spent too much time around adults.

Then a drop of blood landed on the instruction booklet.

"Mom?"

Another drop slid over Lily's upper lip.

I reached for tissues, but the bleeding came faster. Red soaked through the first wad, then the second.

"Press here, sweetheart. Keep your head forward."

I hit the call button and shouted into the hall.

Two nurses hurried in. One took Lily's vitals while the other called the hematology team. I backed against the wall as they worked, forcing myself not to interfere.

My phone vibrated in my coat pocket.

I ignored it.

It buzzed again.

When the bleeding finally slowed and Lily had been taken for labs, I looked at the screen.

A transfer of $60,000 had reached the hospital trust account Dana had helped me establish months earlier.

Below it was a message from Adrian.

This is the first payment. You get the rest when I have your written promise that you will stay away from my wife and never speak publicly about the past.

I read it twice.

Then I took screenshots of the transfer, the message, and his number. I emailed them to myself and uploaded copies to a folder Evan once would have known how to find.

Adrian did not know me anymore.

Maybe he never had.

Dana Ruiz found me outside the procedure room.

She had been Lily's social worker since the relapse—a compact woman with silver threaded through her black curls and a talent for making bureaucracies sound temporarily beatable.

"The bleeding is controlled," she said. "Her platelets are very low, but the team is starting a transfusion."

My knees weakened.

Dana caught my elbow and steered me into a consultation room.

Dr. Patel joined us ten minutes later with Lily's latest results. He sat instead of standing, which told me the news before he spoke.

"The registry search hasn't produced the donor we hoped for," he said. "We're expanding it, but Lily's disease is moving faster than we expected."

"How much time?"

"We need a viable plan within days, not weeks."

The room became very quiet.

"You tested me," I said. "I wasn't a match."

"Not a suitable one for the approach we're considering. A biological parent is always a half match, and depending on the rest of the markers and Lily's condition, her father may give us another option. It isn't a guarantee. He still needs a full workup."

Evan had once told me his blood type when we filled out emergency contact forms.

I could still see his handwriting.

"I found him," I said.

Dana frowned. "Lily's father?"

"He isn't dead."

I told them enough to explain why he had never been tested. Neither interrupted.

When I finished, Dr. Patel removed his glasses.

"Can he come in today?"

"He doesn't believe she's his."

"Then we can arrange paternity testing separately. But the HLA sample should not wait."

Dana slid a legal pad toward me. "Document every request. Dates, times, exact words. Keep the medical issue separate from the money. Ask him in writing."

I opened Adrian's message.

Lily's doctors need you to complete an urgent HLA donor screening. This is not a request for money. Harborlight can contact you directly. Please tell me when you will come.

The reply arrived while we were still in the room.

Stop using a sick child to force yourself into my life.

Dana's mouth tightened.

"Forward that to me."

I did.

The door opened, and a nurse appeared. "Mara, Lily is asking for you."

I stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor.

In the hallway, I nearly collided with a man rounding the corner.

Adrian caught my shoulders.

For one disorienting second, his hands were familiar.

Then he released me as if I had burned him.

Celeste stood beside him in a camel coat, one hand resting over her chest. A cardiac clinic folder was tucked under her arm.

Her eyes widened. "Mara? Is Lily all right?"

"She had a bleed. They're giving her platelets."

Celeste stepped closer. "Is there anything I can do?"

"You have already done more than enough."

Adrian looked from me to the pediatric unit doors.

"You followed us here."

"My daughter has been admitted here for six weeks."

"Adrian," Celeste said, startled. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Your appointment is in ten minutes."

"She needs the hematology director. I know Dr. Levin through the foundation."

"Celeste, no."

His tone was gentle, but final.

Celeste ignored him. She took out her phone and asked for Lily's full name. Within minutes, she had reached an administrator and requested a review of every donor-search resource available.

I thanked her because refusing help would not make me proud. It would only make Lily sicker.

A nurse came to escort Celeste to cardiology. She squeezed my hand before leaving.

"Message me if you need anything. Anything at all."

Adrian waited until the elevator doors closed behind her.

The warmth left his face.

"You have thirty seconds to explain why you're here."

I stared at him. "You think I admitted a five-year-old to oncology because I knew your wife had an appointment?"

"I think you saw an opportunity at my house and decided to build a performance around it."

I took out my phone and opened Lily's patient portal. Lab results. Diagnosis. Admission dates. A photograph from that morning showed her smiling beside the yellow castle, a cotton pad taped beneath her nose.

"Look at her."

He did not.

"I transferred the money," he said. "That was the agreement."

"Money cannot provide the sample in your veins."

His gaze snapped to mine.

"So that's the next move? First she's my daughter. Now only I can save her?"

"Her doctor said you may be a half-matched donor. He did not promise anything. He asked you to take a test."

"And if I refuse, you tell Celeste I let a child die."

"If you refuse, I tell Lily's medical record that her biological father refused donor screening. The truth does not become blackmail because it makes you uncomfortable."

For the first time, I saw anger break through his polished calm.

He leaned closer.

"You want the remaining five hundred and forty thousand dollars? Then you do not approach Celeste again. You do not appear at her clinic. You do not send messages designed to make her pity you."

"She contacted me."

"Stay away from my wife."

"Take the test."

He laughed once, without humor.

"You were always stubborn. I used to mistake it for strength."

"And I mistook cowardice for love. We were both wrong."

The elevator opened behind him.

Celeste stepped out with a nurse, and Adrian's expression changed instantly. He moved to her side, one hand at the small of her back.

"How did it go?"

"They want to adjust my medication."

He listened as if no one else existed.

Once, that attention had belonged to me.

Or I had believed it did.

I returned to Lily's room before memory could make me weak.

She slept through most of the afternoon. At six, her fever climbed. At eight, she vomited and could not keep down her medication. At eleven, alarms drew three nurses and Dr. Patel to her bedside.

I stood outside the glass doors while they stabilized her.

Dana came to sit beside me.

"He refused?" she asked.

I handed her my phone.

She read the messages and forwarded them to the secure case file with my permission.

"Now it is documented," she said.

"Will that save her?"

Dana did not answer.

Near dawn, Dr. Patel found me beside Lily's bed.

"She's stable for the moment," he said. "But we are losing room to maneuver. If her father is willing, I need his sample as soon as possible."

"How soon?"

"Within the next few days."

I looked at Lily's hand inside mine. Her fingers were small enough to close around one of mine and still leave space.

Adrian could call me greedy. He could call me a liar. He could make me crawl through every lie he had built.

But he was going to take that test.

Even if I had to beg the dead to bleed.