OLIVIA’S POV
I was awake before my alarm.
Seven AM and the room was still carrying the particular quiet of early morning. I lay on my back staring at the ceiling for a few minutes before I accepted that more sleep was not coming.
Today was the day.
The thought arrived with its full weight the moment I was conscious enough to receive it. My father was in a hospital bed in Millbrook and in three hours a surgical team was going to open him up and fix the thing that had been quietly failing him for months.
I pressed my palms flat against the mattress.
“He is going to be fine.”
I said it the way I had been saying it for weeks. Firmly. Without room for the alternative. Because the alternative was a door I was not going to open this morning. Not today.
I got up and went to the bathroom.
