“Lily… my baby… my Lily is seven years old, Mom… how do I tell her she’s this sick? How do I explain something I don’t even understand myself?”
The rag slipped from her hand into the bucket. She took a deep breath, but she couldn’t hold herself together.
“The treatment costs two hundred eighty thousand dollars… yes, I know we don’t have it… I know it’s impossible… but I’m going to do something, whatever it takes… I’m not giving up on her.”
Her voice broke completely. She sank into the chair beside Alexander’s bed and began to cry. It wasn’t a quiet cry. It wasn’t performative. It was raw and defenseless, the kind of cry that comes when a mother feels the whole world collapsing on top of her.
Alexander, still motionless, felt that the pain in his ribs was nothing compared to the weight now pressing on his chest.
The woman—Maria, though he still didn’t know her name—took a breath, wiped her tears with her sleeve, and, believing herself alone, placed one hand over his.
That touch felt like a prayer.