Chapter 1 - FIFTY CENTS
The emergency-room doors opened so hard they bounced off the stops.
A little girl stumbled through them barefoot, soaked to the knees, carrying a baby almost half her size.
“Please,” she gasped. “He won’t wake up right.”
Nurse Julia Grant was already moving.
“How old are you, sweetheart?”
“Six.”
“And the baby?”
“My brother. Caleb. He’s nine months.”
Caleb’s face was pale. His breathing came in short, wet pulls. Julia took him gently while another nurse called for a pediatric team.
The girl grabbed Julia’s sleeve.
“Wait.”
Her small fist opened.
Two quarters lay in her palm.
“I have fifty cents,” she whispered. “Is that enough to make him better?”
For one second, Julia forgot how to breathe.
“We help first,” she said. “Money doesn’t decide that here.”
The girl stared at her as if she had never heard those words before.
“What’s your name?”
“Mia Bennett.”
“Where’s your mom, Mia?”
Mia looked toward the automatic doors.
“She went to get Caleb’s medicine yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“She didn’t come back.”
Dr. Marcus Reed rushed Caleb into a treatment room. Julia tried to guide Mia toward a chair, but the child resisted.
“I have to see him.”
“We’re helping him.”
“If I don’t watch, something bad happens.”
That sentence was too old for a six-year-old.
Ten minutes later, Dr. Reed stepped out.
“He’s dehydrated, his blood sugar is low, and he has a respiratory infection. You got him here in time.”
Mia’s knees folded.
Julia caught her.
A hospital social worker was already on the way when security called the desk.
“There’s a man downstairs asking for two children named Bennett,” the guard said. “He says he’s their uncle.”
Mia heard every word.
Her fingers dug into Julia’s arm.
“No,” she whispered.
May you like
Then louder:
“Don’t let Uncle Travis take us home.”
