The clinic ceiling had a large water stain.
Four stitches in my forehead. The gauze had already soaked through, the blood darkening to a deep rust.
Twenty-three missed calls on my phone.
All from the same number.
The children's hospital ICU.
I shot upright. The room tilted and spun.
"Is this Ms. Denise Henson? Your daughter Carissa Henson's cardiac indicators have been declining steadily. Her attending physician is recommending an immediate coronary artery bypass. We can't wait any longer."
"The surgery and follow-up treatment will cost approximately five hundred thousand dollars. We need you to come in as soon as possible to sign the consent forms and settle payment. Otherwise, we cannot schedule the procedure."
"Tomorrow. Three p.m. at the latest."
I hung up and opened my phone's photo album.
Carissa lay in the ICU bed, her tiny body threaded with tubes, her cheeks tinged a wrong, bruised purple from oxygen deprivation.
She was already past three years old and still couldn't form a complete sentence. All she could manage was a slurred "Mama."
She was Oswald Delgado's daughter.
After the mudslide, I'd found out I was pregnant at the hospital.
Everyone believed Oswald was dead.