Chapter 9 - A Sick Baby and the Night the Cold Tycoon Learned to Pray
When I returned to the Lake Forest house late that afternoon, the house was eerily quiet.
I dropped my car keys on the entryway table and hurried up the stairs.
In the master bedroom, Elizabeth was pacing the floor, cradling Maya against her shoulder. Maya was flushed crimson, whimpering with a raspy, labored breath that made my stomach drop into an abyss.
“Ellie? What’s wrong?” I asked, rushing to her side.
Elizabeth looked up, her face pale with terror. “She spiked a fever an hour ago, Noah. It’s 103.8. I gave her infant Tylenol, but she’s lethargic and her chest is retracting when she breathes. We need to get her to a hospital.”
“Give her to me,” I said instantly.
I took Maya into my arms. Her little body was burning like an open furnace. She rested her hot, sweaty forehead against my neck, letting out a weak, pitiful groan that shattered my soul into a million pieces.
“Miller! Bring the car around front right now!” I shouted down the staircase.
Ten minutes later, we were flying down the highway toward Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, the siren of our security escort clearing evening rush-hour traffic.
In the back seat, Elizabeth sat with her hands over her face, weeping softly. “It’s my fault,” she choked out. “The apartment was so cold last week. The radiator stopped working for two days and I didn’t have enough money for an electric space heater. I wrapped her in three blankets, but she was shivering... I should have found a way. I should have worked another shift...”
I reached across the seat, pulling Elizabeth against my side with an iron grip.
“Stop it, Ellie,” I said firmly, though my own tears were burning behind my eyelids as I held Maya against my chest. “You gave up everything to protect her. You worked three jobs to feed her. This is not your fault. It’s mine. I should have been there to keep the heat on. I should have been there to protect you both.”
When we arrived at the emergency bay, the chief of pediatric medicine—whom my private office had alerted ten minutes prior—met us with a team of nurses.
They rushed Maya into a private trauma room, stripping her down to place cooling pads and oxygen tubes on her small frame.
Elizabeth collapsed onto a plastic chair in the corner of the room, burying her face in her hands, unable to bear the sight of the IV needles being inserted into Maya’s tiny arm.
I stood beside the bed, holding Maya’s miniature hand in mine. Her fingers feebly closed around my thumb.
For thirty-four years of my life, I had believed in balance sheets, leverage buyouts, and market power. I had believed that control was absolute if you had enough money and enough ruthlessness.
Standing beside that hospital bed, watching my eleven-month-old daughter fight for every breath under the harsh fluorescent lights, I realized that all the billions in the world couldn't force oxygen into her lungs.
I closed my eyes, bowed my head over Maya’s tiny hand, and for the first time since I was a child, I prayed.
“Take my money. Take my reputation. Take everything I have ever built. Just let my daughter live. Let me have the chance to be the father she deserves.”
An hour later, the doctor stepped back, adjusting the monitors.
“The fever is breaking,” Dr. Morrison announced, letting out a relieved sigh. “It’s acute RSV complicated by mild bronchitis, but we caught it before it settled into severe pneumonia. The oxygen levels are stabilizing. She’s going to be fine, Mr. Vance.”
Maya’s breathing slowed into a steady, rhythmic pattern. The fiery flush on her cheeks faded into a soft, healthy pink.
May you like
Elizabeth let out a ragged sob, dropping to her knees beside the bed.
I knelt down beside her, pulling her into my arms. We held each other over our daughter’s hospital bed, weeping together in the dim light of the pediatric ward, washing away three years of bitterness and grief with tears of pure relief.
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