The phone rang at 3:47 AM, waking us up after a pretty good day. Emma's cry on the baby monitor wasn't her usual bad dream—she sounded really upset, and Mikel and I shot up.
I got to her room first. She was bent over in bed, holding her stomach and crying.
"Mommy, it hurts," she said, shaking. "It hurts a lot."
Mikel came in, hair all messed up, but he was immediately focused. He saw Emma's pale face and went for his jacket.
"Hospital," he said, and I grabbed Emma.
As we were leaving, I got a text from the same weird number that had been bugging us: *Kids get sick when they're stressed. Too bad when they suffer.*
I was scared, but Emma's crying was more important. We'd deal with Sophia later—right now, Emma needed a doctor.
The drive to Seattle Children's Hospital felt super long. E
