Chapter 4 - THE BOX IN MY FATHER’S ATTIC
My father kept everything.
Tax returns from 1989.
Broken watches.
Receipts from appliances he no longer owned.
My mother’s medical records should have been impossible to find.
Instead, Dad answered on the second ring.
“Emily?”
“Dad, I need Mom’s old hospital paperwork.”
Silence.
“What happened?”
“Sophie’s sick.”
That was enough.
He did not ask questions.
He went upstairs.
Forty minutes later, he called back breathing hard.
“I found a blue box.”
Inside were folders from when my mother, Janet, was sixteen.
Hospital bills.
Surgical notes.
Pathology reports.
Dad photographed everything he could and sent it to me.
Dr. Ortiz reviewed the files while Sophie rested.
One diagnosis caught her attention.
An ovarian germ-cell tumor.
Rare.
Treated successfully.
Associated with an elevated hormone marker.
I stared at the old report.
“So Sophie has the same thing?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“But it’s possible?”
“Yes.”
My knees weakened.
All day, I had been terrified because the scan showed something abnormal.
Now I was terrified because it might have a name.
Eric was sitting down the hall.
Daniel stood by the vending machines with untouched coffee.
I went to them.
Eric stood immediately.
“Well?”
I handed him my phone.
He read the old report.
His anger vanished.
“Your mother?”
“She was sixteen.”
Daniel leaned against the wall.
“So this could be hereditary?”
“Dr. Ortiz said we shouldn’t jump ahead.”
Eric rubbed his face.
Then looked at Daniel.
For several seconds neither man spoke.
Finally Eric said, “I shouldn’t have touched you.”
Daniel stared at him.
“No.”
“I thought—”
“I know what you thought.”
“I was scared.”
“So was Sophie.”
That stopped him.
Daniel’s voice stayed quiet.
“You made her defend me while she was lying in an ER bed.”
Eric’s eyes lowered.
“I know.”
“No, you know now.”
I stepped between them emotionally even though neither moved.
“This stops being about both of you.”
They looked at me.
“Sophie is sick. Whatever rivalry you think you have is finished tonight.”
Daniel nodded first.
Eric took longer.
Then nodded too.
That should have settled something.
Instead, my phone rang.
Dad.
His voice sounded strange.
“Emily, I found another folder.”
“What?”
“Your mother’s records aren’t the only ones.”
My chest tightened.
“Whose?”
May you like
He hesitated.
“Yours.”
