He signed forms he barely understood and paid bills that could have crushed someone else, telling himself this was what money was for. And if it couldn’t save his daughter, then it meant nothing.
Elena didn’t cry when she woke and realized she couldn’t move her legs. That frightened him more than tears ever could. She stared at the ceiling, hands clenched atop the blanket, as if holding herself together.
“Dad,” she asked that first night, voice barely there, “did I mess up?”
Daniel swallowed hard and forced steadiness into his tone. “No. Never. Sometimes bad things happen. But we’ll fix this. I promise.”
Promises had always been easy for him. He was a man who built companies from air and confidence, who believed effort could bend the world. This time, it didn’t.
Two years passed. Two years of therapy rooms that smelled of antiseptic and fading optimism. Two years of watching Elena strain against a body that wouldn’t answer, of seeing the spark in her eyes dim by degrees. Doctors grew softer with their words, gentler with truths they no longer wanted to say outright.