Part 7 – The Call Back
Joy called me two days later.
“I spoke with the nursing staff and the floor supervisor,” she said. “If you come during non-peak hours and your dog is calm, we can make an exception for a brief visit. She’d have to stay in the room and out of the main hallways, but it’s possible.”
I looked at Daisy, who was currently asleep on her back, legs in the air, completely unbothered by the mortal crises of humans. Calm wasn’t the word I’d use when the mail carrier came around, but in a quiet room, she was usually a steady presence.
“Okay,” I said, my voice shaking. “When would be a good time?”
“If you can come this afternoon, Lily’s scheduled for a shorter session,” Joy said. “She’ll be in her room, not the treatment area. It might be easier that way.”
The thought of “easier” made me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
After we hung up, I got dressed in something soft and neutral. I pulled my hair into the same messy ponytail I’d worn in that childhood photo, without really thinking about it. My hands shook as I clipped Daisy’s leash to her collar.
“You have to be on your best behavior,” I told her. “No barking at nurses. No jumping on beds. This is serious.”
She thumped her tail against the floor once, then looked up at me with those deep, believing eyes. Dogs don’t care if you’ve been a terrible sister. They care that you’re here now.
The drive to the hospital felt both fast and endless. I replayed every fight with Lily in my head, every missed call I hadn’t returned, every holiday I’d justified not inviting her to. Each memory was a stone in my chest.
At the entrance, a security guard raised an eyebrow at Daisy.
“Pets aren’t allowed inside,” he started.
Before I could crumble, Joy appeared from behind him, wearing a badge and a warm smile.
“She’s with me,” Joy said. “We have an exception today.”
The guard looked Daisy up and down. She sat politely, tail sweeping the floor once, as if she understood this was a test. Finally, he nodded and stepped aside.
We rode the elevator up with a volunteer carrying a stack of magazines and a woman in a headscarf clutching a blanket. The air felt heavier on this floor, like everyone was breathing more carefully.
Joy walked us down a hallway lined with doors, speaking in a low voice as we went.
“She’s had a tough week,” she said. “More fatigue, more nausea. But when I mentioned you might come, I saw something light up in her. She was scared, though. She asked me, ‘What if she doesn’t want to stay?’”
My throat felt tight. “What did you say?” I asked.
“I told her that showing up is the hardest part,” Joy said. “If you made it through the doors, you’d already done something brave.”
We stopped outside a partially closed door. My heart hammered so loud I was sure Daisy could hear it. She pressed closer to my leg, eyes flicking toward the narrow opening.
From inside, I heard a soft beep of monitors and the murmur of a television playing some daytime talk show. Then I heard a laugh—weak, but unmistakable.
Ethan’s laugh.
He was in there too.
“I should go,” I whispered, panic clawing up my throat. “I can’t face both of them at once. It’s too much.”
Joy placed a hand lightly on my arm. “You can do this,” she said gently. “You don’t have to say everything today. Just be present.”
I took a deep breath that didn’t feel like enough, then another. Daisy shifted her weight and looked up at me, her nose twitching at the air seeping through the crack.
“Okay,” I said, though every cell in my body was screaming to turn and run. “Okay.”
Joy knocked softly and pushed the door open a few inches.
“Lily?” she called. “You have a visitor.”
The room was small but bright, sunlight streaming in through a window that overlooked the parking lot. A bed sat in the center, flanked by a chair and a small table cluttered with plastic cups and pill bottles.
Lily lay propped up against a stack of pillows, thinner than I remembered, her skin pale. A soft cap covered most of her head, with wisps of blonde peeking out. An IV line trailed from her arm. Her eyes, though, were the same as always—wide, expressive, and full of more emotion than they knew how to hold.
Ethan sat in the chair beside her, a book open in his hand. He looked up when we entered, and for a second, his expression was a mix of relief and dread. Then his gaze dropped to Daisy, and something like gratitude flickered there.
“Hey, Daisy,” he said softly.
Daisy froze on the threshold, torn between the familiar scent of Ethan and the overwhelming smell of antiseptic and medication. She let out a low, uncertain whine.
Lily’s eyes moved from Daisy to me, and the world narrowed to that moment.
“Hannah?” she whispered.
My name on her lips sounded like something fragile and holy.
I swallowed hard and stepped fully into the room, Daisy’s leash taut in my hand.
“Hey, Lil,” I said, my voice breaking on the second syllable.
For a moment, no one moved. The air crackled with everything unsaid. The years of silence sat between us like a piece of furniture that had never been moved.
Then, slowly, Daisy tugged forward. She took one step, then another, sniffing the air. Her nose wrinkled at the sharp smells, but something about the way Lily’s hand dangled over the bed drew her in.
Lily extended her fingers cautiously, the IV tape tugging slightly on her skin. Daisy sniffed, then pressed her nose gently into Lily’s palm. After a beat, she rested her chin on the edge of the bed with a sigh.
Tears spilled down Lily’s cheeks.
“She likes you,” I said, my own voice shaking.
“She has your eyes,” Lily replied, a watery smile creeping onto her face. “Soft but stubborn.”
Ethan cleared his throat, suddenly looking like he wanted to disappear into the wall.
“I can give you two some time,” he said quietly, closing the book. “Daisy and I can get some fresh air.”
Daisy’s ears twitched at his name, but she stayed where she was, torn between her usual place at my side and this small, trembling hand that smelled like both fear and home.
“No,” Lily said quickly. “Stay. All of you. I don’t think I can handle three separate goodbyes.”
The word “goodbye” landed in the room with a weight that made my stomach twist.
“We’re not saying goodbye,” I protested automatically, even as a part of me wondered if that was exactly what we were doing.
Lily looked at me with a mixture of amusement and sadness. “You always did hate endings,” she said softly.
We settled into a tense, fragile arrangement—me in the chair on the other side of the bed, Ethan back in his original seat, Daisy dividing her attention between us. Joy slipped out quietly, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
For a while, no one spoke. The television chattered in the background about something trivial and forgettable. The monitor beeped in a steady rhythm, reminding us of the body’s stubborn insistence on trying to live.
Finally, Lily took a breath.
“So,” she said, forcing a wobbly smile. “Do we start with ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘What were we thinking’?”
I let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob.
“Maybe both,” I said.
Part 8 – The Room at the End of the Hall
For a while, all we did was talk around the sharp edges.
We started with small things—the weather, the bland hospital food, the ridiculousness of daytime television. Lily made a joke about how she could never have imagined me bringing a dog into a hospital room, and I shot back that I could never have imagined her letting anyone touch her hair, real or fake.
Underneath the jokes, though, there was a river of words waiting to be spoken. It pressed against us, building pressure.
Finally, Lily broke.
“I saw your post,” she said quietly, eyes flicking toward me. “The one about the blonde hair and the dog.”
My stomach dropped. “You did?” I asked, horrified.
She nodded. “Ethan tried to keep it from me,” she said. “But I asked him why he looked like someone had just kicked his soul. He caved.”
I shot Ethan a look, but he just shrugged, guilt etched into his features.
“I didn’t tell her everything,” he said. “Just enough that she knew you were…hurting.”
Lily’s gaze softened. “I can’t say I loved seeing myself as the ghost in your marriage,” she said. “But I get it. If I were you, I’d probably think the worst too.”
“You’re too generous,” I muttered. “I wasn’t just assuming things. I was broadcasting them.”
She tilted her head. “Did it feel good?” she asked without judgment. “Seeing people line up to take your side?”
The question hit home harder than any accusation.
“It did,” I admitted, shame burning my cheeks. “For a while. It felt like proof that I wasn’t crazy. That the little girl who watched her dad walk out and the woman who sat in hospital rooms while Mom died hadn’t imagined all the abandonment.”
Lily winced. “I abandoned you too,” she said. “Didn’t I?”
The word hung between us like smoke.
I took a breath. “You left,” I said. “When things got hard. You chose not to come back. I told myself that meant you didn’t care.”
She twisted the edge of her blanket in her fingers.
“I cared so much I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “Every time I walked down that hallway, I felt like my skin didn’t fit right. You were so good at being there, at knowing what to say to Mom. I felt useless. Like an extra.”
“You weren’t an extra,” I said, the words coming out sharper than I intended. “You were my sister.”
“I didn’t know how to be your sister and be okay,” she whispered. “So I chose okay. Or what I thought was okay.”
She looked up at me, eyes shining.
“And then, when I finally wanted to come back, I had…this.” She gestured toward the IV, the thinness of her arms. “And I thought, who would sign up for round two of hospital hell with me?”
Emotion clogged my throat. “I might have,” I said softly. “I don’t know if I would have done it gracefully. But I might have.”
She smiled sadly. “I didn’t know how to risk finding out.”
We sat with that for a long moment. Daisy shifted, resting her head on Lily’s knee. Ethan stared at the floor, his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles were white.
“I asked him to keep it a secret,” Lily said. “About the treatment. About me. I told him you deserved a life without more hospital corridors.”
“And he listened to you instead of me,” I said.
She nodded. “Probably for the first time in our lives, someone picked my feelings over yours,” she said. “Didn’t exactly work out great for anyone, did it?”
Despite myself, I laughed. It was short and bitter, but it was real.
Ethan finally spoke. “I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said. “I thought I was protecting you both. I see now that I was just making choices you should have been a part of.”
I wanted to be angry at him. I wanted to hurl every hurt and accusation I had been stockpiling. But sitting here, watching him watch us with the weary helplessness of someone who has tried to hold two worlds together and failed, the anger didn’t land the way it used to.
“You broke my trust,” I said simply. “That doesn’t vanish just because the situation is complicated.”
He nodded. “I know,” he said. “I’m not asking you to pretend it didn’t happen. I just…needed you to know I wasn’t sneaking around for something cheap.”
His eyes drifted to the IV bag, the monitors, the cap on Lily’s head.
“I was sneaking around to stand in a room like this,” he said. “With someone who was scared out of her mind and too ashamed to call her own sister.”
Lily sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.
“In my defense,” she said, “with the hair situation, I was trying very hard not to be seen by anyone. This stuff itches.”
It was a small, absurd detail, the kind that made the reality of her illness feel both more real and more surreal.
A nurse came in then, checking vitals and adjusting the IV. She smiled at Daisy.
“Is this our special guest?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Lily said, scratching Daisy’s ear. “This is Daisy. She’s here to judge us all silently.”
The nurse laughed and left, the door closing softly behind her.
After she left, the energy in the room shifted. The air felt thicker, heavier. Lily’s breaths came a little faster.
“I got some test results back yesterday,” she said, her voice quieter. “I asked them not to call you yet because I wanted to tell you myself.”
Fear slid cold down my spine. “Okay,” I said, bracing myself.
“They’re not great,” she said, trying for casual and failing. “The doctor says the current treatment isn’t doing what they hoped. We’re going to try something else, but…we’re running out of tricks.”
She looked down at her hands. “I’m running out of time.”
The words sucked the air out of the room. Daisy let out a low whine, nudging her nose harder against Lily’s leg. Ethan’s jaw tightened, his eyes wet.
“No,” I said automatically, because denial is often the first language of love. “People beat this. They try new things. There are…clinical trials.”
Lily smiled softly. “Listen to you,” she said. “I haven’t heard that much optimism from you since we were kids and you convinced me we could build a treehouse in a tree that was barely taller than the house.”
“We did build it,” I said. “It just fell down.”
“Exactly,” she said. “You’ve always believed you could hold the world together with sheer will. I love that about you. But some things…” She paused, searching for words. “Some things you can’t hold onto no matter how tight you grip.”
Tears spilled over before I could stop them. “I don’t want to lose you,” I said, the words raw.
“You already did,” she replied gently. “We lost each other a long time ago. What we’re doing now…” She gestured between us. “This is us finding each other again, even if it’s late.”
“That doesn’t make it easier,” I whispered.
“No,” she agreed. “It just makes it less meaningless.”
She reached for my hand. After a moment’s hesitation, I took it. Her grip was weaker than I remembered, but familiar. The years between us shrank.
“If I don’t make it,” she said, and I shook my head immediately, but she squeezed my fingers. “If. Not when. If I don’t make it, promise me something.”
“I’m not promising anything that starts like that,” I said, trying to lighten the moment and failing.
“Promise me you won’t let this be the last chapter of our story,” she said. “Don’t let the version where you blasted your husband online and called me the other woman be the one people remember.”
My face burned. “You saw all of it,” I murmured.
“Screenshots live forever,” she said wryly. “Besides, I get it. I’ve spent years telling myself a story where you were the righteous one and I was the disaster. We both wrote crappy narratives about each other.”
She took a breath that sounded tired, then let it out slowly.
“Tell the truth,” she said. “Someday. When you’re ready. About the whole messy thing. About how sometimes love looks like showing up in oncology waiting rooms and smelling like antiseptic. About how a dog can be both a warning siren and a bridge.”
Daisy shifted, leaning more heavily into her.
“I’ll try,” I said, voice shaking.
“Not for me,” she said. “For you. So you don’t have to live with a half-finished story. There’s nothing worse than that.”
The monitor beeped steadily, a quiet metronome.
After a while, Lily’s eyes drooped. The nurse came in with medication that made her drowsy. Her speech slurred at the edges.
Before sleep pulled her under, she whispered, “I’m glad you came.”
“Me too,” I said, brushing a stray hair from her forehead.
She smiled, eyes half-closed. “Tell Mom I tried,” she mumbled.
My chest constricted. “You can tell her yourself,” I said, even though no part of me believed that as fully as I wanted to.
As her breathing evened out, I sat back in the chair, my hand still resting on the blanket near hers. Daisy curled up at the foot of the bed, her body curved like a comma at the end of a sentence.
Ethan watched us quietly, his face a study in exhaustion and something like hope.
“We should let her rest,” he said softly after a while.
I nodded, standing on shaky legs. I leaned over and kissed Lily’s forehead, feeling the coolness of her skin, the faint warmth underneath.
In the hallway, the lights were dimmer. The door clicked softly shut behind us. For a moment, we just stood there, three people bound together by blood, vows, and a dog with a sharp nose.
“Thank you for coming,” Ethan said, his voice rough.
“I didn’t do it for you,” I said automatically, but there was less bite in it than before.
“I know,” he said. “But I’m still grateful.”
We walked down the hallway together in silence. Daisy trotted between us, her claws making soft sounds on the polished floor.
At the elevator, I turned to him.
“I don’t know what happens with us,” I said. “I don’t know if we can fix what’s broken.”
He nodded. “I don’t either,” he said. “I just know that whatever happens, I’m glad you saw her. I’ve been carrying that alone for too long.”
The elevator arrived with a soft ding. We stepped inside, and the doors closed, sealing us into a small metal box that smelled like cleaning products and fear.
As we descended, I looked at our reflection in the brushed metal—the tired woman, the worn-out man, the loyal dog. We looked less like a story about infidelity and more like a family that had been hit by something larger than any of us.
For the first time, I wondered if my viral post had told the wrong story about us all.