Chapter 2 - THE TREATMENT THEY CANCELED
Dr. Patel came into Holly’s room shortly after midnight.
She closed the door before speaking.
“There’s something I need to clarify.”
The careful tone frightened me more than panic would have.
“What happened?”
“Boston contacted us six days ago. Holly had been provisionally accepted into the trial.”
I stood so quickly that the chair struck the wall.
“Six days ago?”
Dr. Patel nodded.
“They requested consent forms and recent imaging. Our office sent the documents to the family email address listed in Holly’s chart.”
Derek controlled that account.
He had insisted it was more efficient for insurance paperwork.
“I never received anything.”
“I was afraid you might say that.”
Dr. Patel handed me a copy of an email.
The response had been sent from our family account under Derek’s name.
After discussing the risks, our family has chosen comfort-focused care. Please release Holly’s place to another child.
I read it three times.
“He declined the trial?”
“Because both parents shared medical decision-making authority, the response was accepted.”
“I was in this hospital every day.”
“I understand.”
“Why didn’t anyone ask me?”
“The message said you were too distressed to communicate and that Derek was responding on behalf of both of you.”
My knees gave out. I sat beside Holly’s bed before I fell.
Derek had not merely refused to pay.
He had taken away her place.
“Is it gone?”
“Not yet. Another family has forty-eight hours to confirm. If they decline, Holly remains next in line.”
“And if they accept?”
Dr. Patel’s silence answered me.
I looked at my sleeping daughter.
“Call Boston. Tell them the decision was unauthorized.”
“I already have.”
“Tell them I will sign anything.”
“We’re sending the updated scans now.”
Dr. Patel hesitated.
“Marissa, the ethics team will document this. You should also consider requesting temporary sole medical authority.”
“I will.”
She squeezed my shoulder before leaving.
At two in the morning, I searched every shared account Derek and I owned.
Our emergency savings held eleven dollars and forty-three cents.
Three months earlier, the balance had been $286,000.
The bank statements showed transfers into VDM Family Holdings, followed by payments for a five-bedroom house in a new development outside Columbus.
I found the property listing.
White brick. Three-car garage. Finished basement. Nursery painted pale blue.
Under contract.
Vanessa had texted me photographs of that house two weeks earlier and claimed a friend was buying it.
I had replied that the nursery was beautiful.
She had sent back a heart.
Holly woke before sunrise.
Her eyes moved from my face to the empty chair where Derek usually pretended to sleep during brief visits.
“Is Daddy coming back?”
I swallowed.
“Not today.”
“Is Aunt Vanessa mad at me?”
“No, sweetheart.”
“She doesn’t like when I talk about Boston.”
My hand stopped over her blanket.
“When did you talk to her about Boston?”
“Last week. She said the doctors shouldn’t put scary ideas in my head.”
“What else did she say?”
Holly’s brow tightened as she tried to remember.
“She said sometimes moms have to let go so other babies can have a good life.”
Cold moved through my body.
“Did she say that here?”
Holly nodded.
“When you were getting coffee.”
I kissed her forehead.
“You listen to me. You are not taking anything from anyone by being alive.”
Her eyes filled.
“Daddy wants the new baby more.”
“No.”
The word came out hard enough to startle her.
I softened my voice.
“Your father is making terrible choices. Those choices are his fault, not yours.”
She rubbed Captain Bun’s ear between two fingers.
“Do you still want me if I’m sick for a long time?”
I leaned over the bed and pressed my forehead against hers.
“I want every day I can have with you. Sick days, good days, angry days, boring days. Every one.”
Her eyes closed.
“Okay.”
In the hallway, Calvin waited with a woman named Rachel Kim, a forensic accountant who had worked with my mother’s company.
Rachel opened a tablet.
“We found twelve transfers totaling four hundred and twelve thousand dollars,” she said. “Most came from joint accounts. Two came from an investment account held only in your name.”
“How?”
“Electronic signatures and security questions.”
Derek knew the name of my first dog. Vanessa knew the street where we grew up. Between them, they knew every answer.
Calvin handed me another page.
“This is the power of attorney submitted with the trust request.”
The notary seal belonged to Vanessa’s friend, a real estate agent named Brooke Ellis.
Rachel enlarged the document.
“The metadata shows it was created on Vanessa’s laptop.”
I stared at the screen.
“How do you know that?”
“Because people who commit fraud rarely imagine anyone will inspect the file itself.”
My phone rang.
Derek.
I answered.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
“Which part?”
“The accounts are frozen.”
“Yes.”
“Our mortgage deposit bounced.”
“Our mortgage?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
Vanessa shouted in the background.
Derek lowered his voice.
“Holly is dying, Marissa. Destroying three adults will not save her.”
“You canceled Boston.”
Silence.
Then he said, “That trial could kill her.”
“You wrote that I agreed.”
“You were not thinking clearly.”
“I was sleeping in a chair beside her bed while you forged my consent.”
“I made the decision a father has to make when a mother cannot.”
“You made the decision that protected your new house.”
His breathing changed.
“Who told you about the house?”
“Does it matter?”
“You’re listening to Calvin because he wants control of the trust.”
“The trust he stopped you from stealing?”
“That money belongs to the family.”
“It belongs to Holly.”
“She will never use all of it.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“You planned around her death.”
He said nothing.
That silence was the closest Derek ever came to honesty.
I ended the call.
Rachel looked at me.
“We need access to his laptop and phone records.”
“How do we get them?”
Calvin closed his coat.
“We stop treating this like a marital disagreement.”
May you like
He looked toward Holly’s room.
“We take it to a judge.”
