The pediatric wing smelled like antiseptic and crayons, a strange mix that never made sense to me. Inaya lay against the pillows, an IV taped to the back of her hand, a bag of clear fluid dripping slow above her head. She was asleep, finally. Her chest rose and fell in small, careful breaths, like even breathing cost her something.

Colter had gotten her this room. A private one, quiet, away from the beeping monitors and crying babies of the ward down the hall. He'd called it a favor. I called it the least he could do.

I was smoothing Inaya's hair back from her forehead when I heard heels on the linoleum. Sharp, fast, the sound of someone who never had to wait for anything.

A woman filled the doorway before I even looked up. Camel coat, buttons like gold coins, hair blown out stiff and shining. She was pregnant — seven months, maybe more, one hand resting on the swell of her belly like it was a prop. Behind her stood a younger woman clutching a tablet, half a step back, the posture of someone paid to absorb blame.

The pregnant woman's eyes moved over me once. Coat to shoes. Her mouth twitched, not quite a smile.

"You're the cousin," she said. Not a question.

I didn't answer. My mouth had gone dry.

She turned away like I'd already stopped existing and looked at the nurse who'd followed her in. "I need a private room on this floor. For prenatal rest. I get headaches when there's noise."

"Ma'am, this room is occupied," the nurse said carefully.

"I can see that." Priscilla's gaze flicked toward Inaya's bed, toward the IV, toward my daughter's small sleeping face, and moved on like none of it interested her. "I'm Mrs. Phillips. Colter Phillips's wife. I assume that means something around here."

She pulled a phone from her coat pocket before the nurse could answer.

I stood up. "She's mid-infusion. She can't be moved right now."

Priscilla didn't even glance at me. She was already dialing.

I sat back down. My hand found Inaya's foot under the blanket, small and warm through the sock. I told myself it would pass. Rich women made calls. Rich women got bored. I'd been telling myself things like that since we got off the bus.

Forty minutes later, two administrators in gray suits appeared with a transport bed and a clipboard.

"Mrs. Phillips has requested this room for prenatal accommodations," one of them said, not quite meeting my eyes. "We'll move your daughter to the ward. It's just down the hall."

"She's getting fluids," I said. "Look at the bag. It's not finished."

"We can transport with the line running."

"You can wait twenty minutes." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "That's all I'm asking."

Priscilla appeared in the doorway then, arms crossed over her belly, watching the way you'd watch rain you expected to stop soon. "Go ahead," she told the administrators. "I have a headache."

"She's a child," I said. "She's sick."

Priscilla's eyes finally landed on me, cool and unbothered. "So am I, technically. Pregnancy is a medical condition too." She said it like she was reading off a menu. "Proceed," she told the staff, and stepped back to let them through.

They moved fast, the way people move when someone above them has made a decision and they just want it over with. A nurse released the brake on Inaya's bed. Another reached to unhook the IV pole so it could roll alongside.

Inaya's eyes fluttered open, confused, scared. "Mama?"

"I'm right here, baby." I grabbed her hand.

The bed jerked as they angled it through the doorway. The IV line caught on the raised rail — I saw it happen, a half-second of slack pulling taut — and then it tore free from the tape, from her skin, from the thin blue vein in the back of her hand.

Inaya screamed.

Blood ran down her wrist in a bright red line, dripping onto the white sheet, blooming there like something planted. She was crying now, real crying, the kind that comes from a body that's already given up too much.

"Stop!" I was shouting before I knew I was shouting. "Stop the bed! Somebody look at her arm, look at what you did—"

A nurse finally lunged for gauze. I climbed half onto the bed myself, pressing Inaya's hand between both of mine, pressing down on the wound, feeling her whole small body shaking against me.

"Shh. Shh, baby, I've got you. I've got you."

I looked up once, just once, toward the hallway.

Priscilla stood there with her arms still crossed, watching the blood and the crying and the chaos with the patient, faintly annoyed expression of a woman waiting for traffic to clear. Nothing in her face moved. Not her mouth, not her eyes.

Then she turned, smoothed her coat over her belly, and walked away down the hall like none of it had anything to do with her at all.

Colter came two hours after the bleeding stopped.

I heard his voice in the hallway first, smooth and easy, thanking someone for their time. Then he appeared in the doorway of the ward room they'd moved us to — smaller, louder, three other beds crammed in with thin curtains between them. His suit was different from yesterday. Navy this time. Tie perfectly knotted.

He didn't look at Inaya's bandaged hand. He looked at me.

"Hallway," he said quietly. "Now."

I kissed Inaya's forehead and stood. She was awake but groggy from the pain medication they'd finally given her. Her eyes followed me as I walked out.

Colter was already ten feet down the corridor, hands in his pockets, waiting by the window that looked out over nothing but another building's brick wall. I stopped in front of him.

"Priscilla called me," he said. His voice was low. Controlled. The voice of a man who'd practiced this conversation on the drive over. "She said you caused a scene. That you were shouting at staff. That you made her uncomfortable."

I stared at him. "They ripped the IV out of Inaya's arm."

"I know." He glanced toward the ward door, then back at me. "And I'm sorry that happened. But you cannot make problems here, Myra. Do you understand? Priscilla is pregnant. She's sensitive right now. If you cannot stay invisible—"

"Invisible."

"—then I will have you both discharged and you can find another hospital on your own."

The words landed flat. Clean. Like he'd already decided and this was just the paperwork.

I looked at his face. The face I used to know. The face from the photograph Inaya carried everywhere. I tried to find something in it that I recognized. Some crack. Some place where the man I'd married was still standing.

There was nothing.

"Okay," I said.

He blinked. "Okay?"

"I'll stay invisible."

He exhaled, shoulders dropping half an inch. Relief. "Good. Thank you. I know this is hard, but—"

"Is there anything else?"

He stopped. Looked at me again, a little closer this time, like he'd just noticed I wasn't arguing. "No. That's it."

I turned and walked back to the ward. I heard him leave — the elevator chime, the doors sliding shut. I sat down in the chair beside Inaya's bed and took her good hand in mine.

She looked at me with those big eyes. "Was that Uncle Colter?"

"Yes, baby."

"Is he mad at us?"

I smoothed her hair back. "No. He's just busy."

She nodded slowly. She believed me because she always believed me. I felt the crack in my chest widen just a little more.

I didn't cry in front of her.

---

The days blurred together after that.

I learned the names of the billing clerks on the third floor. I sat through surgical consultations with doctors who spoke in careful, measured tones about windows and timelines and the importance of acting soon. I nodded and asked questions and wrote everything down in a little notebook I'd bought from the hospital gift shop for two dollars.

Inaya's window was narrowing. That was the phrase they kept using. Narrowing. Like it was a hallway she was walking down and the walls were closing in.

I carried the $5,000 pouch everywhere. Zipped inside my coat. Against my ribs. I felt it when I stood, when I sat, when I leaned over Inaya's bed to check her temperature. I never left it unattended. Not in the bathroom. Not when I went to the vending machine down the hall for crackers and coffee that tasted like burnt water.

I slept in the chair beside her bed. The nurses offered me a cot once, but I said no. I wanted to be close enough to hear her breathing. To know if it changed.

I didn't call anyone from home. Dorothy had already given me everything she had. The church fund was tapped. I didn't want them to worry more than they already were.

I just had to get through this part. Get Inaya the surgery. Get her stable. Then we could go home and I could figure out the rest.

---

Priscilla came by on the fourth day.

She wasn't visiting Inaya. She was doing one of her floor walks, the kind where she stopped at the nurses' station to ask about her chart, her test results, her room temperature. She had an assistant with her again, different from the last one, holding a different tablet.

She passed our ward room and glanced in through the open door. Her eyes landed on me for half a second. I was standing beside Inaya's bed, reaching for my coat on the chair. My hand went to the pouch automatically, checking it, making sure the zipper was closed.

Priscilla's gaze followed the movement. Stopped there. Lingered.

Then she kept walking.

I didn't think anything of it at the time. I zipped my coat and sat back down and held Inaya's hand while she slept.

I should have thought something of it.

The surgical coordinator had a kind face. She wore glasses on a beaded chain and spoke in the gentle voice people use when they're about to deliver bad news they've delivered a hundred times before.

"The deposit needs to be submitted within forty-eight hours," she said. She had Inaya's file open on the desk between us. "If we don't receive it by Friday at five p.m., we'll have to release the OR slot."

I gripped the edge of the chair. "When's the next available date?"

She checked her screen. Clicked something. Waited. "Six weeks out. Maybe seven, depending on—"

"That's too long."

"I know." She looked at me over her glasses. "Dr. Brennan's notes indicate that the window for intervention is narrowing. I'm not a physician, but I've worked with him for eight years. When he says soon, he means it."

I nodded. My throat was too tight to speak.

"Do you have the funds?" she asked quietly.

I touched my coat. Felt the pouch through the fabric. "Yes."

"Then bring it to billing tomorrow. Before noon, if you can. That way we're covered."

I thanked her and left. The walk back to the ward took forever. My legs felt strange. Heavy. Like I was walking through water.

Forty-eight hours.

I could do that. I just had to hold on for two more days. Keep Inaya comfortable. Keep the money safe. Get her into that operating room.

I turned the corner toward the ward and stopped.

Priscilla was standing outside the door. She wasn't looking at me. She was looking at her phone, one hand resting on her belly, the other scrolling. She wore a cream sweater that probably cost more than the surgery deposit. Her hair was perfect. Her nails were perfect.

She glanced up as I approached. Her eyes moved over me once, the way they always did. Coat to shoes. Dismissing.

Then she walked past me without a word and disappeared down the hall.

I stood there for a second, watching her go. Then I pushed open the ward door.

Inaya was asleep. The other beds were empty for once — one patient discharged, two in radiology. The room was quiet except for the hum of the monitors and the faint sound of a TV somewhere down the hall.

I went to the chair beside Inaya's bed. My coat was where I'd left it, draped over the back. My hospital bag sat on the floor beside it, unzipped.

I froze.

I always zipped it. Always. Even when I was only gone for five minutes.

I grabbed the bag and pulled it open. Dug past the notebook, the crackers, the bottle of water. My hand found the pouch.

It was too light.

I yanked it out and tore the zipper open.

Empty.

Every bill was gone. The fives Dorothy had folded into squares. The twenties from the diner owner. The crumpled tens from the church collection. All of it. Gone.

There was something else inside.

A napkin. White, cloth, folded once. I pulled it out and opened it.

Blue ink. Neat handwriting. A single line:

If you want it back, come and ask me nicely. — P.

Below it, an address. A restaurant name I didn't recognize. Midtown.

I stared at the napkin. My hands were shaking. The edges of my vision went dark and then bright again, like a light flickering.

I sat down on the edge of Inaya's bed. I didn't mean to. My legs just stopped holding me.

Inaya stirred. Her eyes opened halfway, groggy from the medication. She looked at me. Then her gaze sharpened.

"Mommy?"

I didn't answer. I was still staring at the napkin.

Inaya's small hand reached up and touched my cheek. Her fingers were cool. Careful. "Mommy, did someone take our money?"

I looked down at her. At her pale face and her big eyes and the bandage still wrapped around her hand from where they'd ripped the IV out.

I folded the napkin and put it in my coat pocket.

Then I smoothed her hair back from her forehead, the way I always did. The way that made her feel safe.

"I'm going to get it back," I said quietly.

Her eyes searched my face. She nodded once, slow, trusting.

I stood. Picked up my coat. Checked the address on the napkin one more time.

I didn't know what I was going to do when I got there. I didn't know what I was going to say.

I just knew I was going.

I leaned down and kissed Inaya's forehead. "I'll be back soon, baby. I promise."

She closed her eyes. "Okay, Mama."

I walked out of the ward. Down the hall. Past the nurses' station. Into the elevator.

The doors closed.

I looked at my reflection in the steel. My face was pale. My eyes were hard.

I didn't recognize myself.

Maybe that was better.