Ethan stared at the preliminary finding until the words blurred.
Not because Nora was dying.
She wasn’t.
Nothing on the page suggested catastrophe.
What frightened him was recognition.
The faint murmur he had heard through the stethoscope, combined with the preliminary imaging note, suggested a congenital valve variation—the same kind Ethan had been monitored for as a child.
It was not proof of anything by itself.
Ethan knew that better than anyone.
Similar conditions appeared in unrelated children every day.
But when he lifted his eyes to Nora’s face, to the stubborn little crease between her brows, then to Lila beside Avery, something inside him refused to dismiss the coincidence.
Avery saw the question before he spoke it.
‘No,’ she said.
Ethan hadn’t asked anything yet.
Camila quietly moved toward the door to call cardiology.
Ethan lowered the folder.
‘Avery.’
‘Don’t.’
‘Nora may have a congenital condition I had as a child.’
Avery’s expression changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
That frightened him more.
‘You knew?’ he asked.
‘I knew you had a heart procedure when you were young.’
Ethan stared at her.
‘I told you that at the gala.’
Avery gave a short, bitter laugh.
‘You told me a lot that night.’
Nora looked between them.
‘Mommy?’
Avery immediately softened.
She crouched beside the exam table and tucked a strand of hair behind Nora’s ear.
‘You’re okay, sweetheart.
The doctors just want to take another picture of your heart.’
‘Will it hurt?’
‘No.’
Ethan answered at the same time.
Avery’s eyes met his.
For one second they sounded like parents.
The thought seemed to hit them both.
Avery stood.
Lila hugged her rabbit tighter.
Ethan forced himself back into the role he knew how to perform.
‘Cardiology will do an echocardiogram.
Fever can make an innocent murmur easier to hear, so we don’t assume anything until we have imaging.’
Avery nodded.
But she still wouldn’t look at him for long.
Twenty minutes later, Nora lay beneath a warmed blanket while a pediatric cardiologist moved the ultrasound probe over her chest.
Ethan remained near the wall.
He had removed his white coat because he suddenly hated everything it represented in that room: authority, wealth, a name on the hospital entrance downstairs.
Avery sat beside Nora holding her hand.
Lila had climbed into the chair with her and fallen silent.
The cardiologist studied the screen.
Ethan recognized the anatomy before she spoke.
A mild congenital abnormality.
Manageable.
