Chapter 2

I grabbed my phone from the scattered mess on the floor. I didn't call Nolan first. I needed help now, not an argument. My hands were slick with cold sweat as I dialed my sister. It rang three times. "Reese?" Tessa answered. The soft murmur of a holiday movie played in the background. "Did you guys make it to the cabin?" My breath caught in my throat. "Tessa... where are you?" "On my couch," she said, confused. "Why?" "Nolan said he called you," My voice cracked."He told us you were on your way to Route Nine." "Reese, I’ve been home all evening. He never called me." My knees weakened. "Ivy's starting to wheeze," I said. My voice broke on her name. "Her inhaler is in his car." "I'm leaving now. Keep her warm and find an employee." Tessa sucked in a breath. I heard keys hit the floor, followed by her hurried steps.At the same moment, a red highway warning covered my screen. Westbound lanes closed. Travel prohibited. "No, you can’t get through." A sob caught behind my teeth. "Call emergency dispatch. Exit Twelve. Tell them it’s a child with asthma." I ended the call and dialed Nolan. Once. Twice. He answered on the third attempt. Laughter and Christmas music filled the background. "Ivy is wheezing. Her inhaler is in your car. Bring it back." The laughter stopped. A turn signal began clicking behind him. For one desperate second, I thought he had already turned around. Then I heard a navigation warning through the speakers. Southbound entrance closed. Road blocked by snow. The SUV’s engine hummed behind him. "Call emergency services." he said. "The return ramp is closed, police are directing everyone north." "You can find another exit." "The next turnaround is forty miles away. I can’t reach you before an ambulance can." Ivy pulled in another shallow breath. The whistle scraped through her chest. "Tessa is calling 911, but there may not be an ambulance," I said. "The highway is blocked." Nolan released a hard breath. Some of the panic left his voice. "Okay. Sit Ivy upright. Open her coat and move her away from the entrance. Keep her looking at you." He still remembered what to do. That almost made me cry harder. "So you're choosing them?" I whispered. "I am making the only logical choice," he snapped. "Stop being hysterical. Ivy has you. Call an ambulance." "And what are you going to do?" Another navigation warning sounded behind him. "I can’t get through the closure, Reese." His voice softened. "You know how to help her until someone arrives." I pressed the phone harder against my ear. "She needs her father." Nolan was quiet for one breath. "She has you." The call ended. I stared at his name. Then I called again. Rejected. He had pressed the red button while his daughter struggled to breathe. My knees hit the floor beside Ivy’s chair. For years, I had heard Ivy has you as praise. I handled medicine, school forms, fevers, and every emergency Nolan was too busy to see. Now I heard the truth. My competence was his permission to leave. "Mom is here." I opened Ivy’s coat with clumsy fingers. "Look at me, baby. Stay with me." The service-station employee ran over. His name tag read PETE. He called dispatch, but the closed highway entrance had trapped the nearest ambulance behind two collisions. No car. No medicine. No husband coming back. Pete caught my arm before I folded over Ivy. Then he called Sam, a retired paramedic who lived beyond the service road. I don't remember the truck ride in the 4x4. I only remember the paralyzing terror of holding my unconscious daughter in the dark, pressing my lips to her cold forehead, praying to a God I hadn't spoken to in years. When we burst through the doors of the rural urgent care clinic, I didn't have to speak. A nurse took one look at Ivy’s face and hit a red button on the wall. "Code Blue! Pediatric respiratory distress!" she shouted, ripping Ivy from my arms. The room filled with doctors and nurses in scrubs. Scissors cut through the heavy down coat I had just bought her for Christmas. A small monitor was clamped onto her blue finger. The machine shrieked instantly. "Please," I sobbed. "Please save her." They forced a heavy plastic mask over her face. A nurse injected a needle straight into her thigh. For ten agonizing minutes, the only sound was the screaming monitor and the mechanical hiss of the oxygen tank forcing air into my daughter's locked lungs. Slowly, the numbers on the screen began to climb. 82. 88. 94. The blue faded from her lips, replaced by a sickly, exhausted pale. Only then did my legs begin to shake. My legs gave out. I slid down the glass wall to the floor. My daughter had survived. My husband had made the "logical" choice to abandon her. The doctor kept Ivy for observation. I photographed the treatment sheet and sent it to Nolan with the clinic address. The "Read" receipt appeared almost instantly. Four minutes later, a text bubble popped up. She's at a clinic now. Let the doctors handle it. I'll come tomorrow. I stared at the screen. Let the doctors handle it.. To him, risking his car on an icy road was too high a price to pay for my daughter's life. But leaving her to fight for oxygen with strangers was just a logistical necessity. Before I could lock the screen, another notification appeared. Elaine had posted the annual Voss family photograph. I opened it. It was the annual Christmas portrait, taken in the grand living room of the mountain cabin. The fireplace roared in the background. Howard and Elaine sat on the leather sofa. Standing directly behind them, in the exact spot I had occupied for the last seven years, was Maren. Nolan stood beside her. He was smiling warmly, holding Lola up in his arms so she could place the gold star on the top of the Christmas tree. The medicine he had refused to return was visible in the photograph. I saved the photograph. Then, I called Tessa. She answered before the first ring finished. "Is Ivy breathing?" "For now." my voice entirely dead. "Come when the roads open. Then call Nia Patel." Nia was the divorce lawyer I had consulted six months earlier but never formally hired. Tessa went quiet on the other end of the line. "Tell her," I looked at my daughter beneath the clinic blanket, "that I am not waiting anymore." I hung up the phone. On my screen, Elaine’s photo was still open. Beneath the image of my husband holding another woman’s daughter, the caption read: Everyone who matters is finally here.