Chapter 13 — What the Family Doesn’t Say
1694 Words
The hospital night stretched out in an endless, agonizing crawl.
Fluorescent lights hummed with a low, electric frequency overhead, casting the room in a pale, sterile glow that made time feel suspended, as if the world outside the hospital walls had ceased to exist. Leo sat in the stiff, plastic-backed chair beside his father’s bed, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands loosely clasped. Spike leaned heavily against the wall near the window, his arms folded tight across his chest, watching the city lights flicker in the distance like dying embers.
Their mother hadn’t moved from the bedside since they arrived.
She held their father’s hand with a desperate, white-knuckled grip, as if it were the only thing anchoring her to the room. Every few minutes, her eyes would dart to the monitor, scanning the jagged green lines as if staring hard enough could force the numbers into a safer rhythm.
“He’s sleeping,” she whispered into the quiet, though no one had asked.
Leo nodded anyway, the motion small and tired. The machines beeped softly—a rhythmic, mechanical proof of life that felt both fragile and relentless in the dark.
Hours passed in a blur of antiseptic smells and hushed footsteps. Nurses came and went like shadows. A doctor spoke in those careful, rehearsed phrases about “monitoring” and “stability”—words designed to soothe the surface without ever offering a true guarantee.
Eventually, their mother exhaled a deep, shaky breath and sat back in her chair, rubbing her temples where the tension had clearly taken root.
“There’s something else,” she said, her voice barely a thread.
Leo straightened his posture. Spike lifted his head from the windowpane, his eyes sharp.
“What is it?” Leo asked.
Their mother hesitated, her eyes drifting toward the heavy wooden door as if she were afraid the very walls might be listening. “It’s Ivy,” she said finally.
Spike’s posture stiffened instantly. Leo’s brow furrowed in a deep, familiar confusion. “What about her? Is she okay?”
“She hasn't come home,” their mother said, her voice thinning with a mother’s particular brand of grief. “Not once. I’ve called her. I’ve begged her to visit. She always says ‘soon,’ and then… nothing but silence.”
“She’s busy, Mum,” Spike said gently. There was something rehearsed in his tone, a smoothness that didn't quite sit right in the room.
Their mother looked at him sharply, a flash of fire in her weary eyes. “Busy doesn’t mean disappearing when your father is in a hospital bed, Spike.”
Leo turned his gaze toward his brother. “When was the last time you actually spoke to her?”
Spike hesitated, his gaze flickering away for a heartbeat. Leo noticed. He always noticed when Spike was holding something back.
“When, Spike?” Leo pressed, his voice dropping an octave.
Spike exhaled slowly, the sound dragging through the quiet room. “I haven't seen her in a while.”
Leo looked back at their mother, then back to his twin. “I saw Ivy six months ago. In Las Vegas.”
Their mother’s eyes widened, a small gasp escaping her lips. “Six months? Why didn't she tell me she was in the Vegas?”
Leo nodded. “She showed up at the club unannounced. Stayed exactly one night. She said she was working on something big, something that required her full attention.”
“She didn't tell me a word of that,” their mother whispered, her hand trembling as she smoothed the bedsheets.
Spike shifted his weight, his leather jacket creaking. “She doesn’t tell you everything anymore, Mum. She’s growing up.”
The words landed heavier than intended. Their mother’s lips trembled. “She used to. We used to be everything to her.”
Silence filled the room again, thick and uncomfortable, broken only by the hiss of the ventilator.
“She’s been busy with work,” Spike said, more firmly now, as if trying to convince himself as much as them. “Really busy.”
Leo turned fully toward him, his patience thinning. “You keep saying that. What does that actually mean, Spike? What is she doing that’s more important than this?”
Spike rubbed the back of his neck, looking at their mother, then back at Leo with a tired, resigned expression. “It means Ivy built something. Something real.”
“Built what?” Leo asked.
“A hotel,” Spike said, the word sounding strange in the sterile room. “A big one. Luxury. Fully funded from the ground up.”
The words hung in the air, surreal and heavy. Their mother stared at him in disbelief. “What? Where would she get that kind of money?”
Leo’s heart skipped a beat. “A hotel? Since when has Ivy been a developer?”
Spike’s jaw tightened. “She’s been working on the acquisition and the build for over a year. She’s been living on-site, overseeing every detail.”
Leo stood abruptly, the legs of his chair scraping against the linoleum. “And you knew this entire time?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn't think to tell me?” Leo demanded, his voice rising despite the setting. “Or Mum? Or Dad?”
Spike met his gaze, unflinching but exhausted. “I only found out the full scope of it a month ago.”
“A month?” Leo repeated, his voice laced with a bitter disbelief. “You sat on a secret that big for a month while Dad was getting worse?”
Spike’s voice dropped to a low, dangerous register. “She asked me not to tell. She said the investors were flighty. She didn't want any family drama leaking into the press until the opening.”
Their mother pressed a hand to her chest, her face pale. “She asked you to lie to us, Spike?”
“No,” Spike said quietly. “She asked me to trust her.”
Leo laughed once—a sharp, humorless sound that cut through the hospital hum. “So you trusted her more than you trusted your own brother? Your own parents?”
“That’s not what this is, Leo!” Spike snapped, before immediately softening his tone at the sight of their mother’s flinch. “Look… Ivy is okay. She’s safe.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” their mother said, her voice cracking.
“I do,” Spike insisted. “She’s in control. She’s focused. She’s building a legacy.”
“And your father?” their mother asked softly, her eyes flicking back to the man in the bed. “He asked for her. He asked where his little girl was before they took him into surgery.”
Spike swallowed hard, the guilt finally visible in the set of his shoulders.
Leo ran a hand through his hair, pacing a short line before stopping near the window. “She always runs when things get heavy,” he muttered, his bitterness leaking through.
Spike looked at him sharply. “That’s not fair, Leo. You don't know the pressure she's under.”
“Isn't it fair?” Leo shot back. “Vegas. Europe. Now this. She disappears every time life demands something real, something that isn't about her career or her ambitions.”
Their mother shook her head slowly. “She’s still my daughter. No matter what she builds.”
“I know,” Leo said, his voice softening. “I know she is.”
Spike stepped closer to their mother, placing a hand on her shoulder. “She’ll come home,” he said gently. “Ivy doesn’t abandon people. She just finishes what she starts.”
Their mother nodded, but the jagged worry didn't leave her face. “And your father? What if he doesn't get better before she finishes?”
The question seemed to fracture the air in the room. Leo felt a cold, hollow sensation settle in his chest. Spike looked down at the floor, unable to meet her eyes. Their mother squeezed their father’s hand tighter, as if she could pull the life back into him by sheer force of will.
“We’ll stay,” Leo said after a long moment. “As long as it takes.”
Spike nodded in agreement. “We’re not going anywhere, Mum.”
Their mother exhaled shakily. “Thank you. I don't think I could do this alone.”
Leo glanced at his phone instinctively. No new messages. No notifications from the world he had left behind. Amelia’s name sat unread at the top of his contacts—a door he wasn't ready to open, a life that felt like it belonged to a different person.
He turned the screen off. Not now.
This world—the hospital, the rhythmic beeping, the fragile breath of his father—felt entirely separate from the neon lights of the Canterbury. It felt like if he reached out to her now, he might lose his grip on the only thing that mattered in this moment.
Outside the room, the city of Chicago moved on, unaware of the tension in Room 412. Inside, the Morell family stayed still—bound together by love, by silence, and by the weight of the things they hadn't said yet.
Leo didn't call Amelia. He didn't text her.
It wasn't because he had forgotten the way she looked in the light. It was because for the first time in his life, he didn't know which version of himself would be the one to answer.
And the night pressed on, heavy with truths that were still waiting for the courage to surface.
- Writer
