CHAPTER 17: The Child Wakes Up
Grace woke to sunlight.
Not the harsh fluorescent light of the emergency room, not the cold shine of a corridor where adults argued over whether she belonged, but a soft morning light filtering through hospital curtains at the children’s cardiac center.
For several seconds, she did not know where she was.
Then she saw Father Elias asleep in a chair beside her bed, his head tilted forward, his rosary tangled in one hand. She saw Dr. Michael Reed standing near the window, speaking quietly with a nurse. She saw a stuffed rabbit on the table, though she did not remember anyone giving it to her.
Her throat hurt.
“Did I die?” she whispered.
Michael turned so fast he nearly knocked over the chair.
Father Elias woke with a start. “Grace?”
She blinked. “I feel weird.”
Michael came to the bedside, smiling in a way that made his tired face look younger. “That’s because your body just did something very brave.”
“Did you fix me?”
“Some very good doctors helped you. I just made sure you got to them.”
Grace looked around. “Where’s the mean lady?”
Father Elias’s expression darkened. “She cannot hurt you now.”
Children understand more than adults think, and less than adults fear. Grace looked at their faces and knew something had happened while she slept. Something big. Something that had to do with her mother’s folder.
“My mom was telling the truth,” she said.
Michael nodded. “Yes.”
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
Grace’s eyes filled with tears. “Then why didn’t anybody believe her before?”
The question entered the room and sat down among them.
Michael had no easy answer.
Father Elias took her hand. “Because sometimes truth knocks softly, and lies own the building.”
Grace frowned, thinking about that.
“Did truth get inside?”
Michael smiled. “Yes.”
A nurse entered with a tablet. “Grace, there are some people downstairs who sent you messages. Kids from the shelter. Nurses from Saint Aurelia. A lot of people.”
Grace looked alarmed. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” Michael said. “You reminded them to do something right.”
The nurse showed her a photo of the candlelight crowd outside Saint Aurelia. Hundreds of people stood in the rain beneath signs with her name.
Grace stared at the screen.
“My name is outside?”
Father Elias nodded.
She touched the image with one finger.
“My mom would’ve liked candles.”
“I think she would,” he said.
Michael’s phone rang. He stepped into the hallway. It was Clara Whitcomb.
“We are reopening the Mercy Ward,” she said. “Effective immediately. We want you to direct it.”
Michael almost laughed from exhaustion. “Yesterday you were preparing to fire me.”
“Yesterday we were wrong.”
He looked through the glass at Grace and Father Elias.
“Wrong is easy to say after the child survives,” he answered. “What happens to the next one?”
“That is why I’m calling.”
Michael looked down at his unsigned resignation letter, still folded in his pocket.
May you like
For the second time in twenty-four hours, he had one hand on a door.
And once again, he turned back.
