Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary
Dr. Vance met our car at the gates of my estate twenty minutes later. His four-wheel-drive vehicle escorted us up the long, winding drive, the mansion blazing with every exterior light we owned.
The house, usually so quiet and grand, transformed into a flurry of urgent medical activity.
We carried Emily upstairs to her old bedroom—a room I had kept locked and untouched for eight years, preserved like a museum of my grief and stubbornness. The yellowed wallpaper with its painted wild ivy, the polished cherrywood bed, the bookshelf filled with her high school poetry journals—everything was exactly as she had left it the night she walked out.
Rosa had already stacked wood in the fireplace and lit a roaring fire. The room was warm and smelled of cedar and lavender.
Dr. Vance worked quickly, his expression grave as he hooked up an IV drip to Emily’s wrist and listened to her chest with a stethoscope.
"Double pneumonia," Dr. Vance said, turning to me as he pulled his stethoscope down. "Her fever is sitting at 104.2. She's severely malnourished and dehydrated. If she had stayed in that unheated apartment another six hours, Robert... her body would have given up."
I stood by the foot of the bed, holding Grace in my arms. The little girl had refused to leave my side, her small fingers firmly hooked into the lapel of my jacket. Sophie stood beside us, quietly holding a warm damp cloth that she handed to Dr. Vance so he could sponge her aunt's forehead.
"Will she live?" I asked, the words choking in my throat.
"She’s young, and her heart is strong," Vance replied, hanging an antibiotic bag on the metal stand. "The next forty-eight hours are critical. We need to break this fever and get fluids into her system. I’ll stay here tonight to monitor her breathing."
"I'm staying too," I said.
"Grandpa," Grace whispered into my neck.
I looked down at the child. She looked so much like Emily at that age—the same expressive dark eyes, the same stubborn set to her jaw.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Is Mom going to wake up for Christmas?"
I looked at the grand mahogany clock ticking softly on the mantle. It was 1:15 AM. Christmas Day had officially arrived.
I carried Grace over to the edge of the bed and sat down, letting her rest her small hand on her mother's pale arm.
"She's very tired, Grace," I said softly, stroking the child's soft hair. "She worked very hard to make sure you were safe. Now she needs to rest. But when she wakes up, we're all going to be right here. We aren't going anywhere ever again."
Sophie climbed onto the bed on the opposite side, wrapping her arm around her aunt's shoulders over the thick duvet. "I'll watch her with you, Grace. My dad told me that when people are sick, hearing people who love them helps them fight."
As the blizzard raged against the high glass windows of the estate, my two granddaughters lay on either side of my dying daughter, watching her breathe.
May you like
I pulled a leather wingback chair right up to the edge of the bed, sat down, and took Emily’s ice-cold hand in mine.
I did not close my eyes for the rest of the night.
