Chapter 2 - THE FOURTH FLOOR
The automatic glass doors of St. Jude’s Pediatric Pavilion slid open with a soft pneumatic sigh, letting in the smell of wet Chicago pavement and taking away every ounce of air in my lungs.
I stood in the lobby, rainwater dripping from the hem of my tailored cashmere coat onto the polished terrazzo floor. Inside my right pocket, my fingers were still clamped around the velvet ring box meant for Amelia Brooks. My phone vibrated against my hip for the fourth time in ten minutes. Amelia. Then a text from my mother: Ryan, the private dining room at The Drake only holds our reservation until 6:30. Where on earth are you?
I didn't answer either of them.
Thirty feet ahead of me, Grace was kneeling on the thin commercial carpet by the elevator bank, unbuttoning three matching red raincoats with hands that shook so badly she couldn't get the plastic toggles through the loops.
The little boy—the one with my gray-blue eyes and my father’s serious brow—reached out and patted her wet cheek with his small palm.
"Cold, Mama," he said softly.
"I know, Leo. Just a second, baby," Grace whispered, her voice raw. She pulled a faded knit cap off one of the little girls, revealing soft dark curls that looked exactly like the baby pictures my mother kept locked in the silver cabinet in Lake Forest.
The second little girl—the one with the stubborn chin—was breathing with a faint, rattling wheeze that I could hear even over the lobby PA system. She leaned her forehead against Grace’s shoulder, clutching a worn blue cloth rabbit with one ear missing.
I walked forward before I could stop myself. My Italian leather dress shoes clicked against the tile.
Grace looked up before I reached her. She didn't gasp this time. She stood up slowly, stepping directly in front of the three toddlers like a bird spreading broken wings in front of a hawk.
"Go back to your dinner, Ryan," she said, her voice barely above a whisper so she wouldn't frighten the children. Up close, the fluorescent hospital lights were merciless. She had lost at least fifteen pounds since the afternoon she walked out of our Lincoln Park brownstone three years ago. There were violet hollows beneath her eyes, and the cuffs of her black wool coat were frayed down to the gray lining.
"How did you know I was going to a dinner?" I asked, stopping three feet away.
Grace’s jaw tightened. She looked down at the floor. "Your engagement party at The Drake made the Crain’s Chicago Business society column this morning. One of the nurses left the paper in the waiting room."
Something twisted sharply beneath my ribs. "Grace, she’s wheezing."
I looked past her shoulder at the little girl holding the blue one-eared rabbit. Every time the child inhaled, the hollow at the base of her throat sucked inward.
"Her name is Clara," Grace said tightly, picking the little girl up onto her hip while holding the other girl’s hand and gesturing for the boy to hold her coat pocket. "And she has subglottic stenosis from being intubated for nine weeks when she was born at twenty-nine weeks. Whenever the barometric pressure drops and it rains, her airway swells. I don't have time for this, Ryan. She needs her nebulizer treatment."
Twenty-nine weeks.
Intubated for nine weeks.
The elevator chimed, and the stainless-steel doors slid open. Grace stepped inside, pulling the children with her. Before the doors could close, I shoved my arm between the rubber bumpers and stepped into the car beside them.
Grace pressed her back against the handrail, keeping the children behind her knees. The little boy—Leo—peeked around her damp skirt and stared straight up at my face. Then his gaze dropped to my wrist, where my grandfather’s vintage gold watch caught the elevator light. He pointed one stubby finger at the ticking face.
"Tick-tock," Leo whispered.
I swallowed past a lump the size of a fist. "Yeah, buddy. Tick-tock."
The elevator stopped on the fourth floor—Pediatric Pulmonology & Specialty Clinics. Grace hurried down the corridor to the check-in desk, setting Clara gently into a plastic waiting room chair while she pulled a battered canvas zippered pouch from her bag.
"Checking in for Clara Vance—sorry, Clara Miller," Grace corrected herself quickly, catching her breath as the receptionist looked up.
My heart hammered against my ribs. She had almost said Vance. My last name.
The receptionist frowned at her computer monitor, tapping two keys. "Mrs. Miller, the nebulizer suite is ready in Room 4B, and Dr. Patel is on the floor. Before you go back, though, billing flagged the account this morning. The quarterly grant from the foundation didn't clear on the first, so there’s an outstanding balance of four thousand eight hundred dollars for last month’s respiratory therapy, plus two hundred fifty for today’s outpatient respiratory panel."
Grace froze. Her hand stayed resting on the counter. "That can't be right. The clinic coordinator told me the endowment covers Clara through December."
"The donor account placed an administrative hold on the file yesterday afternoon," the receptionist said, lowering her voice sympathetically. "I can't clear the respiratory tech to open the medications without at least the two-fifty copay today."
Grace opened her canvas pouch. Inside, I saw three crumpled five-dollar bills, a handful of quarters, and a blue plastic Chicago Transit Authority bus pass. She reached to her wrist and unclasped a thin, worn silver charm bracelet—the one her grandmother had given her for her sixteenth birthday, the one she had refused to take off even on our wedding day because she said it was the only piece of family she had left.
"Will you hold this until Friday?" Grace whispered, her shoulders curving inward with a humiliation that made me sick to my stomach. "I get paid from the bakery on Friday morning."
Before the receptionist could answer, I stepped up to the glass partition and slapped my platinum corporate card onto the counter.
"Run the whole balance," I told the woman. "All four thousand eight hundred, plus today."
"Ryan, don't!" Grace tried to push my hand back, her eyes bright with unshed tears of pride and panic. "I don't want your money!"
"Your daughter is struggling to breathe, Grace. Take your bracelet back and put it on your wrist," I said quietly.
The receptionist swiped my card quickly, eager to end the tension, and printed the receipt. As she handed me the clipboard to sign, she clipped it to the top of Clara’s paper intake folder.
I signed my name. As I lifted my pen, my eyes caught the yellow carbon sheet stapled inside the open folder—the Private Charitable Endowment Authorization Form that had been paying for my daughter’s medical care for the last three years.
Under Guarantor & Primary Account Holder, there was a signature in thick black fountain ink that I had seen on every birthday check and family trust document of my entire life.
Eleanor Vance.
My mother.
And right below my mother’s signature was a typed special condition box checked in red ink: Disbursement contingent upon Beneficiary remaining outside a 10-mile radius of Downtown Chicago and maintaining zero contact with R. Vance.
I stared at the paper until the letters blurred, then looked up at Grace as the nurse opened the door to the treatment hall.
"My mother knew?" I whispered.
May you like
Grace picked up gasping little Clara, looked at the diamond ring box outlining the pocket of my wet coat, and shook her head.
"Your mother didn't just know, Ryan," Grace said, her voice breaking as she backed through the clinic doors. "Ask Amelia whose car drove me to the county hospital when my water broke."
