The door opened.
Daniel wiped his face, expecting a nurse.
Instead, a little girl stepped in.
She was about six, wearing a faded school uniform and an oversized gray sweater. Her dark hair was messy, as if she’d been running. In her hand was a cheap gold-colored plastic bottle.
“Who are you?” Daniel asked sharply. “How did you get in here?”
She didn’t answer. She walked to Tommy’s bed with startling determination, climbed onto a step stool, and studied him like she saw something no one else could.
“I’m going to save him,” she said.
Before Daniel could react, she unscrewed the cap.
“Wait—”
Too late.
She poured water gently over Tommy’s face.
Daniel lunged forward, pulling the bottle away.
“What are you doing?” he shouted. “Get out!”
Tommy coughed once. Then silence again.
The girl clutched the bottle. “He needs it. It’s special water. He’ll get better.”
Two nurses rushed in.
From the hallway, a woman’s voice cried out, “Sophie! What did you do?”
A hospital janitor hurried in — a tired-looking woman in her thirties. “I’m so sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I’m Lisa. She’s my daughter. We’re leaving.”
“I was helping Tommy!” the girl protested through tears.
Daniel stiffened. “How does she know his name?”
Lisa hesitated. “I work here. Maybe she saw it on the door—”
“No,” Sophie interrupted. “We used to play at Miss Rose’s daycare.”
Daniel’s chest tightened. “My son has never been to daycare.”
“Yes, he did,” Sophie insisted. “Twice a week. He liked hide-and-seek.”
Daniel slowly turned to Lisa.
“We’re leaving,” she repeated, pulling her daughter away.
They disappeared down the hall, leaving Daniel holding the cheap bottle — and a new, unsettling doubt.
That afternoon he called the nanny, Grace.
“I want the truth. Did you take Tommy to daycare?”
A long silence.
“…Yes,” she admitted finally. “Only twice a week. He was lonely, sir. It was a small place in Eastbrook. He seemed happy there.”
Eastbrook was one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
Daniel hung up, anger rising — at the lie, at himself, at the realization he’d been too absent to notice.
He looked through the glass at Tommy.
Five days.
If his son had found joy in a modest daycare, who was he to judge?
“I don’t care where you were happy,” he whispered, holding Tommy’s hand. “I just want you here.”
That night, Daniel fell asleep in the chair.
He woke to whispering.
Sophie was back.