Chapter 2 - THE INVISIBLE DOCTOR
Six weeks earlier, Rachel had stood in her kitchen calculating what one missed shift would cost.
The daycare’s air-conditioning had failed. The center was closing through the weekend. Losing $180 meant choosing which bill could survive another warning.
Across the table, Sophie listened to her cereal with a plastic stethoscope.
“It’s crunchy inside,” she announced.
Rachel almost laughed. Then she called every number she had.
Nobody could help.
An hour later, she crouched beside Sophie in the Bellini estate’s laundry room.
“Today, you have to be invisible.”
Sophie nodded. “I’m an invisible doctor.”
Rachel left crackers, crayons, and the little medical kit on a folding table. Martha agreed to check on her while Rachel cleaned upstairs.
For ninety-three minutes, Sophie stayed put.
Then she heard a baby.
She followed the crying up the service stairs and found Nicholas alone in his crib. His nurse had gone down the hall.
Sophie dragged over a stool.
“Hello. I’m Doctor Sophie.”
Nicholas cried harder.
She pressed her toy against his blanket. “Doctors can’t hear when patients yell.”
He paused, studying this unexpected visitor.
Sophie offered one finger. His hand closed around it.
“There,” she whispered. “I stayed.”
Roman watched from the doorway.
For the first time since Claire died, he saw his son without seeing the hospital room behind him.
Rachel appeared, breathless with fear.
“Please don’t punish her. Fire me if you have to, but she’s only—”
“What did you do?” Roman asked Sophie.
“Checked him.”
“For what?”
“Breathing. Heart. Temperature.”
“And?”
She looked at the empty chair beside the crib.
“He’s scared when nobody stays.”
Roman let Sophie come back when childcare fell through. He arranged a downstairs playroom and asked Martha to make sure she had supervision.
He thought he had solved two small problems with one generous decision.
Now, outside the hospital treatment room, he understood how little he had noticed.
Rachel and Sophie sat across from him. Charles had followed in a separate car and was already talking about statements.
Roman ignored him and knelt in front of Sophie.
“Thank you for finding my son.”
She rubbed her thumb over the toy stethoscope.
“Was he bad?”
“What?”
“The lady said you only come when he’s quiet.”
Roman felt something inside him stop.
May you like
Sophie looked toward the treatment room.
“So when he cries, she takes him where you can’t hear.”
