Chapter 4

"Mommy... it hurts so bad."

At two in the morning, Mia’s fever spiked to 103.6 degrees.

The night nurse rushed in to switch IV bags, sweat beading on her forehead.

"Mrs. Miller, her inflammatory markers are skyrocketing. I've already paged the attending physician."

Mia’s little face was flushed crimson, her lips dry and cracked. She gripped my finger with all the strength she had left.

"Mommy... if I have the surgery, will it stop hurting?"

"Yes, baby. Once you have the surgery, the pain will go away completely."

"Then why aren't we doing it yet?"

I opened my mouth, but the words withered in my throat.

I was still short $110,000. My mother's $52,000 had cleared, and combined with the $38,000 scraping the bottom of my personal checking account, I had $90,000. The hospital demanded a $200,000 down payment. I was still $110,000 away from saving my child's life.

The surgeon arrived in the dead of night. After reviewing the charts, he called me into his office.

"Mrs. Miller, her infection levels are climbing dangerously fast. If we miss this surgical window, the complications could be catastrophic."

"I know."

"The administrative billing office—"

"I'm getting the money."

He let out a heavy sigh.

"I've extended every courtesy I can administratively. Friday at 5:00 PM is the hard deadline set by billing. If the deposit isn't cleared, her slot in the OR will be automatically canceled."

Exiting his office, the hallway was deserted and sterile.

I dialed Logan. Straight to voicemail. I dialed again. Voicemail.

On the third try, it connected. The background was dead quiet—definitely not an office setting.

"What is it? What happened to Mia?"

"Her fever spiked to nearly 104. We still need $110,000 for the surgical deposit. It must clear before Friday."

"I'm working on it. Just give me time."

"Where are you right now?"

"At the office. Pulling an all-nighter."

And then, through the receiver, I caught the faint rustle of high-thread-count sheets. The soft, sleepy sigh of a woman shifting in bed.

Logan spoke abruptly: "Bad reception here. Gotta go."

Click.

The screen went dark.

I stood in the center of the fluorescent hallway, surrounded by cold white walls, the smell of bleach seeping into my skin.

Mia was crying out for Mommy again.

I walked back into the room. The nurse was adjusting the drip rate. Mia had her eyes closed, her little hand searching aimlessly across the blankets.

I reached out and took it.

"Mommy's right here."

Dawn broke. Logan never showed up. When I texted him, he only replied with a curt: *Working on the funds. Stop panicking.*

At mid-morning, Logan's mother marched in. As expected, a plastic bag of cheap fruit in one hand, complaints ready on her lips.

"Did your mother's wire clear yet?"

"Fifty-two thousand."

"Just fifty-two thousand?" Her face darkened instantly. "That's all she scraped together after an entire lifetime? What about the house? Didn't she say she’d sell it? Put some pressure on her!"

"Evelyn, closing on a house takes weeks—"

"You just don't care enough! If anything happens to this child, can your conscience bear the weight?" She grumbled under her breath, "A useless maternal family... If only Logan had married—"

She caught herself and cut the sentence short. But I understood every unspoken word.

After she left, I sat by the edge of the bed for a very long time.

Scrolling through my cloud storage, I stumbled upon a photo from years ago—a settlement royalty check issued by a top publishing house. The number had a breathtaking string of zeros.

That was another version of me.

Pen name: Cassidy Cole. Four published novels, every single one dominating the national bestseller lists for six months straight. My final release moved over two hundred thousand copies in its very first week. The publisher had begged me to sign a three-book deal with an advance exceeding five million dollars.

And then, I got pregnant.

Logan had told me: "You're going to be a mother now. Sitting around writing silly romance and thriller stories all day isn't what a respectable wife does."

Logan's mother had sneered: "A woman's only true career is her husband and home."

I broke the contract, deleted my public profiles, and faded into domestic obscurity. Cassidy Cole vanished from the literary world for three whole years.

I scrolled deep into my contacts and found a saved number. Julian Hayes, my former senior editor. Our last message was timestamped three years and two months ago.

My thumb hovered over the call button.

Mia called out again, her voice raspy.

"Mommy, the nurse who gave me the shot said I was super brave today."

"You are the bravest girl in the world."

"Is Mommy brave too?"

I looked down at Julian’s name on my screen.

"Mommy is very brave."

I hit dial. It rang twice before clicking open.

"...Nora?"

Three years of complete radio silence, and he recognized my voice instantly.

"Julian, I need your help."

A second of silence followed.

"Name it."

"Is the pen name Cassidy Cole still worth anything?"

The line went utterly silent.

Then, I heard Julian take a long, shaky breath.

"Nora, in the three years you disappeared, not a single month went by without publishers asking me when Cassidy Cole was coming back. Your catalog made the top ten summer reading list again just last month."

"Can I still use it?"

"Are you kidding me? Of course! What do you want to do?"

"Write. But I need an emergency advance wired immediately. One hundred and ten thousand dollars."

Another pause.

"One hundred and ten thousand?" Julian let out a bittersweet, disbelieving laugh. "Nora, based on your track record and current market hunger, a hundred and ten grand isn't even pocket change. Tell me the truth—what happened to you?"

"My daughter needs emergency surgery."

Dead silence for three seconds.

"Don't worry about the money. I'm calling the board of directors right now. You just answer me one thing—is Cassidy Cole officially back?"

Outside the window, the sun had fully risen, bathing the room in crisp golden light. Mia's monitor flashed steady, rhythmic green pulses.

"She's back."