“Desmond,” I said, my own voice shaking now too, “is that what you’re seeing? Mom’s birthmark?”
He nodded, unable to speak for a moment, his eyes wet in a way I hadn’t seen since the week we buried our mother.
“I watched her die from that exact thing,” he finally said. “I watched it start as nothing, just a mark, just skin, and I watched it turn into six months of hospice and a funeral before either of us had time to fully understand what was happening. I can’t watch that happen to my own daughter. I can’t sign up to spend the rest of my life waiting for that same mark to turn into the same thing that took Mom.”
PART 5
A nurse, and then, within minutes, an on-call pediatrician, arrived to check on Nora, drawn by Renee’s screaming and the general chaos that had erupted in the room.
