He nodded frantically.
“She made it.”
Then the elevator doors opened.
My parents stepped into the hallway.
Mom saw us and rushed forward.
“Is Lily all right?”
“She’s stable,” I said.
My father closed his eyes with relief.
“Thank God.”
Mom reached toward me.
I stepped away.
She stopped.
“Hannah?”
I held up the contract.
Every trace of color vanished from her face.
Dad’s expression hardened.
“Where did you get that?”
“That is your question?”
“Hannah, this isn’t the time.”
“No. I think this is exactly the time.”
Mom looked at Noah.
“He had no right to show you.”
“Lily told him to.”
That silenced her.
My father’s jaw tightened.
“You don’t understand the circumstances.”
“I understand that you were planning to send your own daughter away without telling me.”
“We were planning for her future.”
“She had a future.”
“We couldn’t know what level of care she’d eventually require.”
“Then you talk to her. You talk to me. You help her build support. You don’t make secret arrangements and offer her boyfriend money to assume responsibility for her.”
Dad pointed toward Noah.
“He signed it.”
Noah remained silent.
My mother seized on that.
“Exactly. If you’re going to judge us, judge him too.”
I looked at Noah.
Then back at her.
“He accepted your contract because you backed Lily into a corner.”
“That’s what he told you?”
“He also showed me where every payment went.”
My parents exchanged a look.
That was all the confirmation I needed.
“You knew.”
Mom lowered her voice.
“Hannah, please. People are listening.”
Only then did I notice the nurse at the nearby desk and several people farther along the corridor.
My mother’s greatest fear in that moment was not what she had done.
It was being seen.
I felt strangely calm.
“You spent years making decisions based on what you thought other people would think of Lily,” I said. “Maybe tonight you can experience what that feels like.”
Dad’s face reddened.
“We love both our daughters.”
“Then you should have treated both of us as daughters instead of treating Lily like a problem to solve.”
Mom’s eyes filled with tears.
For a second, I almost softened.
Then I remembered Noah saying she believed I shouldn’t be “burdened” with my sister.
I remembered Lily waiting by windows.
Lily choosing wedding flowers.
Lily decorating her yellow kitchen.
Lily lying behind those hospital doors after fighting to bring her children into the world.
