Brandon and Sierra were already in the room, their faces carefully blank. Sierra clutched a crumpled sheet of paper.
“What exactly is going on, Brandon?” I demanded, my voice raw.
My son stepped forward, putting a hand on my shoulder. His grip felt too firm, too possessive. “Dad, you’re overreacting. Mom just has a severe viral infection.”
He held up the paper. It was a printout, clearly from an unknown clinic. The letterhead was generic, no specific doctor’s name, just a blurred logo.
“These are her medical notes,” Sierra interjected, her voice strangely calm for the situation. “From a specialist we found. She’s resting.”
“Resting?” I gestured wildly at Eleanor, who lay like a crumpled doll, her breathing shallow, her skin like parchment. “She’s practically comatose. And these notes are worthless. What specialist? Where did you even get these?”
Brandon sighed, shaking his head slowly. “Dad, we know you’ve been under a lot of stress since the divorce. It’s okay. You’re just… seeing things through a difficult lens.”
The implication hung in the air: my past breakdown. My divorce, the guilt, the way I’d retreated from the world.
“Paranoia can make things look worse than they are,” Sierra added, her eyes meeting mine, then flickering away. She straightened a picture frame on the dresser, as if the room’s aesthetics were her primary concern.
A hot wave of shame and doubt washed over me. Could I be wrong? Was the stress making me imagine the glowing symbols, the unnatural cold? Had Mrs. Gable’s frantic whispers simply triggered old anxieties?
Eleanor coughed, a dry, rattling sound that ripped through the forced calm. Her hand, barely more than bone and skin, twitched.
I looked at her, then back at their composed faces. No, the decline was too severe, too rapid for “just a virus.” The raw, visceral fear I felt wasn’t paranoia.
“She needs a real hospital, Brandon,” I insisted, trying to keep my voice even. “Now.”
Brandon crossed his arms. “We’ve got it handled, Dad. We’re her family. You’re just stirring things up.”
His gaze was cold, unyielding. It was the gaze of a stranger, not my son.
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