The words hit me like physical, crushing blows to the chest. Say your goodbyes.
“Can I see her?”
“Briefly. She’s in the ICU.”
I walked into the intensive care unit. The machinery was deafening—a terrifying, rhythmic symphony of beeps, mechanical sighs, and hisses keeping a ghost tethered to the earth. Chloe was practically unrecognizable beneath the heavy bandages, the neck brace, and the thick intubation tube taped to her swollen mouth. She looked so small. So incredibly, heartbreakingly small.
I pulled a hard plastic chair up to the bedside. I reached out and took her hand—the only part of her that wasn’t wrapped in gauze. It was terrifyingly cold.
“I remember when you were seven,” I whispered, gently stroking her pale skin, my tears finally falling, hot and fast. “You fell off your bike on the driveway and scraped your knee to the bone. You cried so hard. I put a butterfly bandage on it, kissed it, and bought you a chocolate ice cream cone. And it was all better.”
I leaned forward, resting my forehead against the cold metal rail of the hospital bed.
“I can’t kiss this better, baby. I can’t fix this.”
I sat there for an entire hour, obsessively watching the green line of the heart rate monitor. Every single beep was a stolen second.
Then, my mind began to drift away from the sterile room. I thought of the Sterling estate. It was a massive, sprawling Georgian mansion sitting on a pristine hill, surrounded by high iron gates. It was probably warm inside. They probably had the gas fireplaces running to chase away the morning chill.
Liam was likely sleeping deeply in his massive king-sized bed, perhaps nursing a slightly sore shoulder from swinging his golf club with such brutal force. Eleanor was likely sitting in her sunroom, sipping expensive tea from the very silver set that my daughter had supposedly failed to polish perfectly. She was probably feeling entirely righteous. Clean. Untouchable.
They weren’t sitting in a cold interrogation room at the police station. The police hadn’t arrested them yet; the officers were still “gathering facts,” still “taking statements.” The Sterlings had elite lawyers on retainer. They had judges in their pockets. By noon, they would spin a flawless story about a tragic fall down the grand staircase, or a violent carjacking, or a sudden, tragic mental breakdown where Chloe ran away into the storm.
They were sleeping peacefully. While my daughter and my unborn grandchild were slowly dying.
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