The words hit the air and stay there.
You have heard enough stories to know a whole courtroom can fit inside one sentence. You do not ask the obvious next question because you are afraid of what shape the answer will take. Instead you say, “You’re safe right now.”
She gives you a look in the mirror that is much too adult.
“No,” she says. “Not if he’s still alive.”
At the hospital, Naomi is already waiting with a nurse and a wheelchair.
Everything becomes motion. Doors sliding open. Cold fluorescent light. The squeak of wheels. Forms. Scrub tops. A nurse trying to take Lily from Addie, and Addie nearly clawing the woman’s face off before Naomi steps in, crouches to her eye level, and says, “Nobody is taking your sister away from you. But I need to help her breathe easier. You can come with us every second. Deal?”
Addie looks at you.
It is absurd how much rides on that glance. You, a man who once moved millions with a signature, standing helpless under a hospital light while a child decides if the world is allowed one more chance.
You nod. “She’s telling the truth.”
Addie lets go.
You stay.
Even after Lily is rushed behind double doors. Even after another nurse cleans the cuts on Addie’s feet and learns quickly not to fuss. Even after an administrator with a pleasant voice and sharp eyes asks if you are the father, uncle, guardian, or reporting party. You almost say none of the above, but the phrase sounds grotesque under the circumstances, like some bureaucratic species classification.
“I’m the one who found them,” you say. “And I’m not leaving.”
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