Lily's Point of View
The dads were here again.
Lily watched them from her lunch table. They came every Friday to eat with their kids. Some of them brought special lunches. Some of them were loud and funny and made their kids laugh so hard they couldn't eat. One dad was teaching his son how to use chopsticks even though they were eating regular sandwiches.
She didn't look at them for too long. Her mom had taught her that. Don't stare at things you can't have.
Lily was seven years old and she already knew the rules about missing things.
She picked at her sandwich. The bread was a little stale because her mom had made it yesterday morning before her double shift. There was peanut butter but no jelly because jelly cost more and they were being careful with money. Her mom was always careful with money.
The kid next to her, Marcus, had his dad here too. Marcus's dad worked at a bank or something. He was telling a story about a meeting and Marcus wasn't even listening because he was just happy his dad was here.
Lily used to ask about her dad.
She remembered being five and asking her mom where he was. Why he didn't come to pick her up like other dads. Why he didn't call. Her mom's face would go tight and she'd say something like some people aren't ready to be parents or some people choose themselves first and that's just how it is.
After a while, Lily stopped asking.
It hurt less to not ask. It hurt less to pretend she didn't notice the empty chair at her school events. It hurt less to not think about the fact that her mom worked so much because there wasn't another person to help. It hurt less to just accept that she was the kind of kid who only had one parent.
The lunch monitor was watching the dads. She always looked happy on Fridays. Like she believed in families.
Lily swallowed her sandwich even though it tasted like nothing.
Second period was math. Mrs. Patterson was nice but she talked a lot and Lily had been awake since five thirty because her mom had to work early. In the classroom, Lily tried to focus on the numbers on the board. Multiplication tables. Sevens and eights and nines that didn't make sense yet.
She was thinking about staying awake when she felt it.
A sharp pain. Right in her chest.
It was like something inside her chest was squeezing. Like her ribs were too tight. She put her hand over her heart but the pain didn't stop. It got worse.
Lily tried to pay attention to Mrs. Patterson but the numbers were getting blurry. The classroom felt too warm. She couldn't breathe the way she normally could. She could breathe but it felt like there wasn't enough air.
She raised her hand.
Mrs. Patterson didn't see her at first. Lily put her hand down and the pain got sharper. She tried to breathe normal but her breathing felt weird. Fast. Like she was scared but she wasn't scared. Or maybe she was scared. She didn't know.
She raised her hand again.
This time Mrs. Patterson called on her.
"I don't feel good," Lily said. Her voice sounded small even to her own ears.
Mrs. Patterson came over and felt her forehead. Lily was sweating. She could feel the sweat on her face and her neck and it made her even more scared. What was wrong with her? Why did her chest hurt?
"Come on sweetie, let's go to the nurse," Mrs. Patterson said.
The nurse's office was just down the hall but it felt like walking forever. The pain was sharper now and Lily's breathing was doing something weird. Short and fast. Her vision was getting spotty like when you stand up too fast.
Nurse Williams looked at her and her face changed. It went from regular to worried in like half a second and that made everything worse because if the nurse was worried then something was actually wrong.
"Sweetie, I need you to sit down. Can you sit here for me?"
Lily sat. Nurse Williams listened to her chest with a cold thing that was probably a stethoscope or whatever it was called. She was frowning. She asked Lily questions. Did anything hurt? Yes. Her chest. Did she fall? No. Did she eat something weird? No. Had she felt this before? No.
Lily watched Nurse Williams pick up the phone.
She knew what that meant. She'd seen shows where when they picked up the phone it meant something serious was happening.
"I need an ambulance," Nurse Williams said into the phone. "Seven-year-old with acute chest pain and difficulty breathing. I'm at Westfield Elementary. Room 104."
An ambulance.
Lily's heart beat even faster. She was going to an ambulance. Something was actually wrong. Something was seriously wrong or they wouldn't be calling an ambulance.
She wanted her mom.
The waiting felt like forever but it was probably just a few minutes. Then she heard the sirens. So loud. Coming closer and closer. The whole school was probably hearing it. Everyone was probably looking out the windows wondering whose kid was in trouble.
It was her kid. She was her mom's kid and something was wrong.
The ambulance people came in. A man and a woman who looked like they knew what they were doing. They had a stretcher but Lily walked to the ambulance herself because walking was still possible even though her chest hurt and her breathing was weird.
Inside the ambulance, the sirens were even louder. The man was asking her questions and the woman was putting stickers on her chest that connected to a machine. The machine made beeping sounds. Lily stared at the ceiling and tried not to cry.
She wanted to ask if she was going to die but she was scared to say it out loud. If she said it out loud, maybe it would be true.
The ride felt like a million hours.
At the hospital, everything was bright and loud and confusing. People in scrubs. Doors opening. Someone saying things about her heart and waiting for her mom. Her mom wasn't here yet. Her mom was at work. Her mom didn't know Lily's chest was broken or whatever was happening.
They put her on a bed in a room that was too bright. There were machines beeping. There was a monitor showing her heartbeat going up and down in squiggly lines that probably meant something bad.
A nurse held her hand. Not Nurse Williams from school. A different nurse with a kind face.
"You're going to be okay sweetheart," the nurse said. "We're going to figure out what's going on. Your mom is on her way."
Lily wanted to believe her. She wanted to be the kind of brave kid who believed adults when they said everything would be okay. But she was seven and even she could tell that when your heart did something weird, it wasn't automatically okay just because someone said it was.
The doctor came in. An older man who looked tired.
"Lily, I'm Dr. Morrison. I need to ask you some questions about your family. Has anyone in your family ever had heart problems?"
Lily didn't know. She didn't know about her dad's side because she didn't know her dad. She didn't know if he had a heart condition or if he was allergic to anything or what color his eyes were or literally anything about him.
"I don't know," she said. "My mom would know."
The doctor made a note. He kept asking questions. About her grandparents. About her dad's side of the family. About whether her mom had told her anything about health problems.
Lily didn't have answers.
The doctor left and came back with her mom.
Her mom looked terrified in a way that made Lily even more scared. Her mom's hair was messy and her work clothes were wrinkled and she was moving toward Lily like she was afraid to touch her in case she might break.
"Baby," her mom said, and held her like she'd never let go.
Then the doctor pulled her mom away and they talked in hushed voices. Lily couldn't hear them but she could see her mom's face. She could see her mom's hands shake.
When the doctor came back, he had her mom with him.
"Lily, we're going to do some tests to figure out what's happening with your heart. Your mom is going to stay right here with you. But I need to talk to your mom about something important."
The doctor pulled her mom to the side but Lily could still hear.
"We need information about her biological father," the doctor said. "It's possible she has a cardiac condition that runs in families. We need his medical history. It could be important."
Lily watched her mom's face go white.
Her biological father.
The person who'd never called. Who'd never come to pick her up. Who her mom never talked about.
The person her mom was going to have to find out about her heart.