Chapter 358
[ 515 words ]
Chapter 358:
“Mr. Sinclair was brought in this evening after collapsing at his office. He’s stable, but we’ve discovered a significant medical issue. I’m calling because he listed you as his next of kin.”
Next of kin. The words were a bitter irony. “I’m not his next of kin. I barely know him.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I understand. However, the patient has been asking for you. And given the nature of his condition, I think it’s important that you come in. He has no one else on file.”
Caroline wanted to refuse. She wanted to hang up the phone and pretend this call had never happened. But she was a nurse. And whatever her feelings about Donovan Sinclair, she couldn’t ignore a medical summons.
She drove to Washington General in a daze. When she arrived, Dr. Foster met her in a private consultation room. His face was grave.
𝖩𝘰iո our 𝖼о𝗆𝗺𝘂𝘯𝗶𝗍у o𝗇 𝗀а𝗅𝗇o𝗏𝘦𝗹ѕ.с𝗈𝘮
“Mr. Sinclair has been diagnosed with a brain tumor,” he said, pulling up a scan on the monitor. “It’s aggressive. We need to operate as soon as possible.”
Caroline stared at the image on the screen—the dark mass pressing against the frontal lobe of a man who, despite everything, shared her DNA. She felt nothing. And then she felt guilty for feeling nothing.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, her voice flat.
“Because he asked us to,” Dr. Foster said. “And because the surgery is high-risk. Expensive. He has the resources, of course, but there are legal decisions that need to be made. He has no other family. You’re all he has.”
The irony was so cruel it was almost laughable. A man who had been a ghost her entire life now wanted her to be his anchor.
Caroline stood up. “I’ll think about it. That’s all I can promise.”
She walked out of the consultation room and down the hallway, past the room where Donovan Sinclair lay. Through the small window in the door, she could see him—pale, unconscious, hooked up to monitors. He looked smaller than she remembered. Less like a force of nature. More like a dying man.
She kept walking.
Caroline didn’t sleep that night. She sat in her father’s armchair, the leather worn soft by years of use, and stared at the ceiling. The journal was in her lap, her fingers tracing the edges of the worn cover.
She thought about her father—her real father, Walter Thompson—and the choice he had made to love a child who wasn’t his own. She thought about Donovan Sinclair, who had stayed in the shadows for two decades, only to emerge when the man standing in his way was gone.
And she thought about the tumor, the surgery, the staggering cost.
He has no one else.
The words gnawed at her. Despite her anger, despite her rejection, she couldn’t ignore the simple, brutal truth: a man was dying, and she might be the only person who could help.
The next morning, she found herself back at Washington General. She walked into Donovan’s room before she could second-guess herself.
He was awake. Pale, weakened, but awake. His eyes widened when he saw her.
.
.
.
If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.