Chapter 1 - TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS
Denise Carter already had a fistful of Emma’s hair when Lily started crying.
“Give me two thousand—or you both get out!”
Emma twisted hard, forcing her mother’s hand loose while keeping six-year-old Lily tight against her chest.
Lily had been discharged from surgery less than three hours earlier.
She was pale, exhausted, wrapped in a hospital blanket, and holding a stuffed rabbit under one arm.
Emma stared at Denise.
“She just had surgery!”
Denise’s face turned cold.
“Not my problem. Pay or get out.”
Then she slapped Emma sharply across the face.
Emma’s head snapped sideways.
She tightened both arms around Lily.
Behind Denise, Richard appeared in the doorway wearing a navy sweater.
He looked at the rain-soaked suitcases already scattered across the driveway.
Then at Emma.
“If you can’t pay, then leave.”
For one second Emma could not understand how both parents could sound so calm.
A week earlier, they had insisted she and Lily stay with them after the operation.
Emma was a single mother.
Her apartment was on the third floor of an older building with no elevator.
Lily’s discharge plan recommended avoiding unnecessary stairs for several days.
Denise had said:
“Of course you’ll stay here. We’re family.”
Now the storm hammered the driveway and her daughter could barely hold her head up.
Emma straightened.
“What kind of grandparents do this to a sick child?”
Denise and Richard froze.
Not because the question shamed them.
Because a car had just turned into the driveway.
Headlights swept across the porch.
A woman stepped out in a raincoat and hurried toward the house.
Emma recognized her.
Maya Reynolds.
Hospital family-resource coordinator.
Maya stared at the luggage.
Then at Lily.
Then at Denise.
“What is happening?”
Nobody answered.
Maya climbed the porch steps.
“Mrs. Carter, why is Lily outside?”
Denise immediately changed tone.
“This is a family disagreement.”
Maya looked at Emma.
“Are they asking you to leave?”
Emma nodded.
“Unless I give them two thousand dollars.”
Maya’s expression changed.
She slowly turned toward Denise.
“Two thousand?”
Denise looked away.
Maya reached into her bag and pulled out a folder.
“That cannot be right.”
Richard stiffened.
Emma stared.
“What?”
Maya opened the folder.
“The hospital foundation approved this home as Lily’s no-cost recovery residence.”
Emma went still.
Maya continued:
“Your parents already received the first advance.”
Denise closed her eyes.
Emma’s voice dropped.
“What advance?”
Maya looked at the payment record.
“Five thousand eight hundred dollars.”
May you like
Emma slowly turned toward her parents.
They had demanded two thousand dollars to let Lily stay in a house that had already been paid to receive her.
