My Daughter Is Dying, and My Husband Is Saving His Lover's Son novel · Chapter 19 of 32

Chapter 19: The Clinic That Wasn't

Nobody in the shop moved.

The mom across the hall was still on her knees with the scraper.

The dad with the toddler had the shop vac hose over his shoulder.

Brad looked at all of them, and for once he didn't ask to talk somewhere private.

"Can I come in?"

"You're in," I said. "Say it from there."

He opened the blue folder on the clean counter.

A letter on clinic letterhead. A treatment plan. Three pages of lab results with Caden's name typed across the top.

"Tasha gave me this in October," he said. "When I asked if the clinic needed anything. She said they only take cash."

"And you gave her cash."

"I gave her your cash." He swallowed. "Our cash. Clara's."

"After the lawn," Brad said, "she told me her mother stole Caden's medicine. That he was getting sicker without it. She said if I got the records from Cleveland, I could bring them to the hearing and prove you'd coached him."

"So you drove to Cleveland."

"Thursday. Two and a half hours."

He turned the letter so I could see the address at the top.

"Suite 214," he said. "It's a mailbox. A shipping store in a strip mall, between a nail salon and a vape shop. Box 214."

The dad with the toddler made a sound in his throat.

"I stood there for an hour," Brad said. "Then I went to every hospital in Cleveland with a children's cancer floor. I said I was his stepfather. I begged. Nobody had ever heard of him. Not one record. Not one appointment."

"There was never a clinic," I said.

"There was never a clinic." His voice cracked on it. "I sat in the parking lot and looked at the signature on this letter."

He put his finger on it.

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