Chapter 2

Julian did not appear in Rosie's hospital room until 6:40 the next morning.

By then, her surgery was over, and she had been moved to observation.

My sister, Hannah, had sat beside her all night. The hospital identification band I had been given while signing for my daughter was still around my wrist.

Julian stopped when he saw it.

"She really had surgery?"

I looked up at him.

"The hospital called you."

"I saw the calls, but Sloane was having a panic attack. I thought you had only brought Rosie in to be examined."

He removed his rain-soaked coat, speaking as casually as if nothing had happened the night before.

"What did the doctor say?"

"Her appendix ruptured. The infection had already spread through her abdomen."

At last, he stopped adjusting his cuffs.

"Is Rosie all right now?"

"She is out of immediate danger."

Julian visibly relaxed.

"Good."

He did not even look at our pale daughter in the hospital bed first.

"You should've been clearer last night. You can't send one message saying she needs surgery and then have the hospital keep calling me."

I slid my phone across the table.

Sloane's photo filled the screen.

"This was your international meeting?"

Julian barely glanced at it.

"Her power went out in the middle of a thunderstorm. She could not be alone."

"She was in a mansion with a backup generator, security guards, and household staff."

"So?"

"So your daughter's appendix had ruptured, and she was stranded beside a flooded road, waiting for a stranger to save her."

Julian frowned.

"Why do you insist on comparing two completely different situations?"

"Because you made two completely different choices on the same night."

"Clara, Sloane is not as strong as you are. Weather like that can make it hard for her to breathe."

A soft laugh escaped me.

"So because I didn't cry and beg, Rosie and I didn't need you?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

Julian did not answer.

He finally approached the bed, but he looked only at the numbers on the monitor.

"You already had doctors, and you called Hannah. Why did you still have to use Rosie to make me choose between you and Sloane?"

Hannah shot to her feet.

"Your daughter was in an operating room while you were helping another woman with her wiring, and now you are accusing Clara of forcing you?"

Julian turned back to me as though Hannah's words did not deserve an answer.

"You are too emotional to be reasonable right now."

"Rosie kept asking for her daddy before they took her into surgery."

Something flickered in his eyes.

Then his phone played the ringtone he had assigned only to Sloane.

Julian answered, and his voice immediately softened.

"I know. I will come back and take care of it right away."

When the call ended, he picked up his coat.

"There's an important presentation today. I can't stay here."

"You just arrived."

"She is fine now."

Julian's voice turned cold again when he looked at me.

"We'll talk when you've calmed down."

He hurried out of the room.

From the moment he entered until the moment he left, he never touched Rosie's hand or asked when she would wake up.

Her fingers moved faintly above the blanket.

When she opened her eyes, she looked toward the door first. Then she weakly asked whether Daddy was still at work.

I did not tell her that Julian had just been there.

I did not tell her that the moment Sloane called, he had chosen to leave again.

I only held her hand and told her the surgery was over and that Mommy and Aunt Hannah would stay with her.

After the door closed, Hannah asked, "How many more chances are you going to give him?"

I tucked the blanket around our daughter.

"There will not be another one."

My phone lit up.

My attorney asked me to gather records of every time Julian had been absent from Rosie's medical care over the past seven years.

I photographed the visitor's chair that had remained empty since the night before and sent it with every message he had read but ignored.