The rain hammered softly against the hospital windows while I sat beside Noah’s bed counting every breath he took as if numbers alone could keep him alive. Machines hummed around us in a cold rhythm that had become the soundtrack of our lives over the past two years. My son looked impossibly small beneath the pale blue blanket, his chest rising unevenly, thin fingers curled around the stuffed rabbit he had carried since kindergarten. Every few minutes he stirred in his sleep, wincing without fully waking, and each tiny movement felt like a knife twisting inside my ribs. The doctors had stopped trying to sound hopeful.

They spoke in careful sentences now, the kind people use when they already know the ending but do not want to say it aloud. Noah’s heart condition had worsened faster than anyone expected, and the surgery that could save him cost more money than I could ever dream of earning. Two hundred thousand dollars. The number haunted me day and night, floating through my thoughts even while I worked double shifts cleaning office buildings and helping elderly patients bathe, dress, and eat. I barely slept anymore.