3: 3

3

"Who curses their own kid like that? Michael has the exact same illness as Claudia, and you don't see Letitia moaning and blaming the world every single day."

Lance was so angry he flipped over the folding table. It was the one we'd picked out together right after we got married, saying it would be our child's own little dining chair someday.

The takeout box hit the floor and broth splashed all over him.

He frowned. "If you ask me, it's your negativity dragging Claudia down. From now on my mom takes the kid. You go get yourself checked out at a hospital first."

The crash of the folding table going over made Claudia flinch head to toe, and on reflex she shrank into me, her little hand clutching the hem of my shirt for dear life.

Broth ran down my pant leg, but I couldn't spare a hand to wipe it. I only tucked Claudia further behind me.

"Lance, look at her." I pointed at my daughter's pale little face. "She's lost six pounds, chemo took all her hair, she can't even stand steady. And you're telling me that's my doing?"

He tugged a tissue and wiped his cuff, not even glancing at Claudia.

"Then explain it to me. How come Michael's bouncing around full of life? Letitia takes him to his rehab every day with a smile on her face. She's got the right attitude, so the kid recovers faster. You walk around with that funeral face all day—"

"How much does Michael's imported drug cost?" I asked, out of nowhere.

He stalled. "What's the drug got to do with anything?"

"I'm asking you. How much."

He looked away. "Over eight thousand a box. I covered the first three months for Letitia. After that she figures it out on her own."

Three months. Twenty-four boxes. Two hundred thousand.

In an instant I thought of the day Claudia was diagnosed, when I knelt in the doctor's office begging him to start with just a two-week course.

Lance sat there scrolling the calculator on his phone, hesitating for a full ten minutes, and finally said, "Let's do one week first, see how it works before we decide."

And by then, he had already paid two hundred thousand for Letitia.

I gently eased Claudia toward the inner side of the hospital bed. "Lance, is it that you think Claudia's illness isn't serious enough, so it's not worth spending the money?"

His head snapped around. "You just have to twist everything I say?"

"Then tell me. Why does Michael have his medicine and Claudia doesn't?"

His mouth opened, then he raked a hand through his hair, agitated. "It's not easy for Letitia, a woman raising a kid alone. Michael's dad died young. What's wrong with me helping out a little? You're my wife, Claudia's my own daughter. You think I'd ever shortchange you two?"

But the whole time he said it, his eyes wouldn't hold still.

Claudia suddenly poked half her head out from behind me, her voice small and afraid.

"Daddy, could I have just one of Michael's pills? Just one. I want to live one more day, that's all."

For a moment Lance's face went blank.

I held Claudia's little hand and felt how cold her fingertips were.

She didn't understand any of it. She only knew Michael took that medicine and stopped coughing, and she wanted to get better too, so Mommy wouldn't have to cry in secret every day.

I crouched down to meet her eyes. "Claudia, that medicine isn't right for you. Mommy will find you something else."

She nodded obediently, then glanced at Lance and said in a tiny voice, "Sorry, Daddy. I shouldn't have asked for someone else's things."

Lance's throat worked. At last he came over, bent down, and set the toppled folding table upright.

He crouched on the floor wiping up the splashed broth, head bowed low so I couldn't read his face. "Tomorrow I'll have someone bring back another batch of the drug from Zurich. This time I'll watch it myself, guarantee it's the real thing."

I said nothing, just held Claudia.

Her hair had once been dark and shining too. Now it was dry and brittle, like a bird half dead.

Lance finished wiping and stood, looked at the grease stain on his cuff, and walked out with a frown.

At the doorway, without turning back, he said,

"I'm working late tonight. I won't be home."

4: 4

The door closed, and the room went quiet again. Claudia drifted off in my arms, her breathing as light as a dry leaf.

I took out my phone, opened Letitia's chat thread, and saw the post she'd just put up—

A box of medicine, still sealed, captioned: "Next month's supply is restocked too. Thanks to a certain someone for quietly transferring the money again. Love you."

Right and wrong, I no longer had the energy to care. I fought down the sting behind my nose and looked down at my daughter. "Claudia, do you want to go out and play somewhere?"

4

Claudia said she wanted to go to Disney.

Every year on her birthday, she'd wish for a Rina Belle doll.

Lance always dragged himself home in the middle of the night, saying he'd been working late.

Every time, he promised to buy Claudia a present, and every time he said he'd been too busy and forgot.

It wasn't until last year that he finally came home with a paper bag, and inside was a doll with coarse, cheap fur.

Claudia was thrilled. She hugged it all the way to preschool, and came home with her eyes red from crying.

The other kids told her it was a knockoff. When I confronted Lance, he trotted out that same tone about being frugal.

"The real Disney one is over three hundred. This one was fifteen. Doesn't it play the same? Kids can't even tell the difference between real and fake."

That night I held Claudia as she cried herself to sleep, and I turned that doll over and over in my hands.

The tag was printed with crooked English letters, and loose threads poked out of the seams, each one like a needle in my heart.

I placed an order online that same night, the real Rina Belle, rush shipping, delivered into Claudia's hands first thing the next morning.

She rubbed her eyes awake, saw the fluffy pink little fox on the nightstand, and froze for several seconds before she lunged over and hugged it, tears dropping onto the doll one after another.

"Mommy, this one's so soft."

I kissed her forehead. "Claudia deserves the best."

Now she was curled in my arms, her little face sallow, her eyes sunken, and still she tipped her head back and smiled at me. "Mommy, if we go to Disney, can we bring Rina Belle? I want her to see the castle too."

My throat closed up hard, and I nodded and nodded.

That afternoon I signed the discharge papers.

The doctor said staying in the hospital wouldn't do any more good, and it was better to let the child spend her last stretch of road happy.

Once I'd packed everything up, I carried Claudia out of the inpatient building, and the sunlight was bright enough to make her squint.

She lay against my shoulder and looked back the way we'd come, asking softly, "Isn't Daddy coming to pick us up?"

I was quiet for a moment, then held her tighter. "Daddy's busy. Mommy is enough to be with you."

She said oh, and obediently buried her face in the crook of my neck.

In the cab to the airport, I booked two tickets to Los Angeles, and a room at the park's hotel.

The text pinged in that I'd maxed out my credit card, and I shut off the screen right away.

Claudia fell asleep leaning on my leg, a little smile still at the corner of her mouth, though I couldn't tell if she was dreaming of castles and fireworks.

While we waited at the gate, my phone buzzed.

A message from Lance: "I asked about Claudia's medicine. It'll arrive next week. Don't worry."

When I didn't answer, he sent another: "Where are you? The nurse said you were discharged?"

I pressed the power button off, straightened Claudia's Rina Belle, and shielded her from the harsh sun.

The boarding announcement came over the speakers. I picked up my daughter and walked toward the gate without looking back.