Chapter 20: Daddy?

St. Anne's lobby was full of cameras.

Somebody had called them, and I knew who.

I ran past them with Quincy at my shoulder, and the elevator seemed to take an hour.

"Mrs. Reichart!" a reporter shouted. "Is it true you're refusing the transplant?"

I did not stop.

"Is it true the boy will die?"

I stopped.

I turned.

"The boy is four," I said. "He has done nothing to anyone. If anyone in this building lets a child die to win a story, it will not be me."

The elevator doors opened.

I got in.

On the fourth floor, the yellow hallway was empty.

The door of the boy's room stood open.

Kenneth was inside, in his overcoat, with an orderly's wheelchair.

The boy sat in it already, in a coat, with the whale clutched against his chest.

"We're going on a trip, buddy," Kenneth was saying lightly. "A little airplane. You'll love it."

"Where's Mommy?"

"She's coming."

"Where's Aunt Suzie?"

"Put him down," I said.

Kenneth turned.

He looked at me, and at Quincy, and at the nurses crowding behind us in the hall.

"Suzette. This is not the time."

Behind me, a nurse said quietly, "We called the police the second he asked for transport."

I looked at the boy's hand.

The line in his arm was crooked, the tape peeling.

"Put him down."

"He's my..." He stopped.

"Go on," I said. "Say it."

His mouth tightened.

"He's very sick," Kenneth said. "He needs a specialist, and you've made that impossible. Don't be cruel, darling."

"Don't call me darling."

The nurses did not move.

One of them had her phone up, filming.

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