I let her tug at me, shaking with tears, and pulled out what I had prepared long ago—
a thick stack of shopping receipts and Ethan’s latest physical exam records.
“Mom, you’re the one who told me to buy these for him.”
I played an audio clip. Her shrill voice echoed in the corridor:
“Everything for Ethan must be imported! Foreign goods are safer—no contamination!”
Stares from all around pricked at her like needles.
I continued evenly,
“And I took him for checkups every month—nothing abnormal before this. The doctor said it’s a genetic mutation, inherited paternally.”
“Didn’t Richard’s cousin have the same disease?”
Her face flushed beet red. She let go of me, fuming in silence.
Daniel, eyes bloodshot and voice hoarse, grabbed the doctor’s sleeve.
“Doctor, the treatment plan—what’s the best option?”
Choking back sobs, I delivered the decisive blow.
“The doctor recommends targeted therapy drugs. The cure rate could reach eighty percent. But the first phase alone will cost five hundred thousand.”
