Room 814
Chapter 02 - Room 814
Ethan reached the elevator before either of us.
He struck the button twice, then looked toward the staircase as though eight floors might be faster on foot.
Vanessa followed him.
“Ethan, stop. We don’t know whether any of this is true.”
He turned so quickly that she stepped back.
“You knew Emma lived out of state?”
“That’s what your mother told me.”
“I didn’t ask what my mother told you. I asked what you knew.”
The elevator doors opened.
I stepped inside with Ethan. Vanessa entered last, still gripping her purse.
No one spoke as the numbers climbed.
I could hear Ethan breathing. Short, uneven breaths that reminded me of the night Emma was born, when the nurse placed a six-pound baby in his arms and he whispered that he was terrified of dropping her.
The doors opened on the eighth floor.
Rosa Alvarez stood outside Room 814.
She had worked at the Mercer Grand since its first year, back when it had leaking pipes and twelve employees. Her hair was silver now, but her expression had not changed. Rosa still looked at dishonesty as if it were a stain she intended to scrub out.
When she saw Ethan, her mouth hardened.
“Where is she?” he asked.
Rosa opened the door.
Emma was lying on top of the bedspread beneath a thin hotel blanket. A paramedic knelt beside her, checking the blood-pressure cuff around her arm.
She looked smaller than thirteen.
Her brown hair spread across the pillow. Her face was pale, with faint shadows beneath her eyes that no child should have carried.
Ethan stopped in the doorway.
“Emma?”
Her eyes opened.
She stared at him for several long seconds.
Then she looked at me.
“You told him?”
“I had to.”
Her gaze returned to Ethan.
He took one step toward the bed.
Emma pulled the blanket higher.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“I didn’t know you were here.”
“I emailed you.”
“I never saw the emails.”
“You answered them.”
“No. I swear to you.”
Vanessa remained beside the door.
The paramedic looked between us and decided this was not a conversation he wanted to join.
“We need to take her to Northwestern,” he said. “Her pressure is low, and given her medical history, she needs labs immediately.”
Ethan moved aside while they transferred Emma to a stretcher.
As they passed him, he touched the metal rail.
Emma turned her face away.
Downstairs, hotel guests watched the stretcher cross the lobby.
Someone had already picked up the dollar.
I saw it folded in Ethan’s hand.
Vanessa leaned close to him.
“You have a board dinner in forty minutes.”
He looked at her as though he had forgotten she existed.
“My daughter is going to the hospital.”
“And you don’t know what Claire has told her.”
I stopped beside the ambulance doors.
“Come with us or don’t. But do not stand here and make Emma’s illness about me.”
Ethan climbed into the ambulance.
Vanessa did not.
At the hospital, Dr. Priya Shah met us in a private consultation room after Emma’s blood tests.
“Her counts have fallen again,” she said. “We can stabilize her tonight, but we cannot keep treating each crisis as an isolated event. We need to move toward transplant preparation.”
Ethan stared at the floor.
“What do you need from me?”
“Bloodwork first. Then tissue typing. Biological parents are often important donor candidates.”
“I’ll do anything.”
Emma was awake when we entered her room.
Ethan stood near the foot of the bed, afraid to approach.
I handed Emma my phone.
“Show him.”
She opened the folder where she had saved every message.
At first, the emails were painfully ordinary.
Did you know I made the soccer team?
Mom says I got my stubbornness from you.
I saw a picture of your new hotel. It looks beautiful.
There had been no responses for weeks.
Then the replies began.
Please stop contacting this account.
Your mother made her choices.
I have another life now.
The last message was dated twelve days earlier.
Emma turned the screen toward Ethan.
He read the words twice.
You were a mistake I paid for. Do not contact me again.
His knees seemed to weaken.
“That isn’t me.”
Emma’s voice was barely louder than the machines.
“It came from your email.”
Ethan reached for the phone, but she pulled it back.
“You know what the worst part was?”
He could not answer.
“I still came to the hotel because I hoped you didn’t mean it.”
May you like
She closed her eyes.
“And when your fiancée saw me, she called me by my name.”
