“My mommy says I’m her brave girl. Sometimes I help her when her hands shake.”
The comment stayed with Diane.
Later, while Mia sat coloring, Diane noticed one of her drawings. It showed a woman standing beside a little girl, but what captured Diane’s attention was the object in the woman’s hand.
It looked like a syringe.
Before Diane could ask Mia about it, hurried footsteps approached from the hallway. A young woman wearing a fast-food uniform rushed through the doors, breathless and terrified.
“My daughter! Where’s my Mia?”
Diane turned toward her and immediately noticed the exhaustion in the woman’s face, the unusual rash on her skin, and the stiffness in her movements.
Suddenly, the medication bottles, Mia’s comment about trembling hands, and the drawing began fitting together.
This family’s story might not have been what everyone first assumed.
The young woman introduced herself as Emma Ford, Mia’s mother, and hurried toward her daughter’s room with panic written across her face. Diane initially watched her with the caution expected whenever a six-year-old arrived at the hospital alone, but the details she noticed told a more complicated story.
Emma looked exhausted rather than indifferent. Dark circles surrounded her eyes, patches of irritated skin were visible near her uniform, and every movement seemed stiff and uncomfortable, as though simply walking quickly through the hospital required considerable effort.
