MY ONE NIGHT STAND BOSS

FIVE YEARS LATER

Chapter 3 – Five Years Later

"Mommy, do you think hospitals get lonely at night?"

I looked up from the stack of bills spread across the kitchen table. Amyra stood in the doorway of her room, sketchbook hugged to her chest, hair still messy from her nap, eyes far too serious for a five year old.

"Where did that question come from, baby?"

She padded over and climbed into the chair beside me, flipping the sketchbook open before I could even brace myself. A hospital. White walls, big windows, flowers planted in neat rows out front, children running across a courtyard with their arms out like airplanes.

"I want to build one someday," she said, tracing a finger along the crayon roofline. "A really big one. So no kid has to be scared there. Or lonely."

My throat closed up before I could stop it.

"That's beautiful, sweetheart." I kept my voice light. She didn't need to see what that drawing did to me. "You're going to be an amazing architect."

"Like you." She grinned, gap-toothed, proud of herself. "But bigger buildings."

I laughed, and it came out only a little broken.

Five years old, and she already understood more about hospitals than any child should. She had spent enough of her short life in them…waiting rooms, cardiology wings, nurses who knew her by name, that drawing them had become as natural to her as drawing houses or trees. I used to worry that it would scare her. Instead it had done the opposite. She wanted to fix the thing that scared her. That was Amyra. Braver than me most days.

I glanced at the bills again. The stack hadn't gotten any smaller in the last five minutes.

"Amyra, go wash up. Grandma's bringing dinner."

She scampered off, sketchbook still clutched tight, and I let my face fall the second her door clicked shut. I pressed my palms flat against the table and just breathed for a second, because the numbers in front of me weren't adding up no matter how many times I ran them.

The cardiologist's office had called again that morning. Another follow-up. Another round of tests Amyra's heart condition required to stay "manageable", that word the doctors loved so much, like it meant something safe. Manageable meant expensive. Manageable meant three more zeros on a bill I didn't know how to pay.

My phone buzzed. A text from my mother: *Bringing soup. Don't argue about the money again.*

I smiled bitterly and typed back a thank you I didn't fully mean, because I always argued about the money, and she always brought it anyway.

My parents ran a small pharmacy with a boutique squeezed into the other half of the shop,my mother's idea years ago, so customers picking up prescriptions might also grab a scarf or a birthday gift on their way out. It worked well enough to keep the lights on, but not well enough to help me the way they wanted to. I saw it in my father's face every time he tried to slip an envelope into my bag and I had to hand it back. I saw it in the way my mother stopped buying new clothes for herself two years ago, right around the time Amyra's diagnosis got its first real name.

I used to help out behind the counter on weekends, back before Amyra's appointments started eating up every free hour I had. My father would let me handle the register while he restocked shelves, humming some old song under his breath, and my mother would fuss over the boutique's window display like the whole street was watching. It felt simple then. Small, but simple. I missed simple.

I hated needing them now. I hated it more than I hated the bills themselves.

By the time my mother arrived with a pot of soup and my father trailing behind her with a bag of Amyra's favorite crackers, I had shoved the bills into a drawer where I didn't have to look at them.

"You look tired," my mother said, the way she always did, like it was news.

"I'm fine, Mom."

"You're always fine." She set the pot down and gave me that look, the one that meant she wasn't buying it and never had been. "Any word from that engineering firm you applied to?"

"Not yet." I didn't tell her how many firms I had applied to. I didn't tell her how many had already said no, quietly, politely, citing budget freezes or "not quite the right fit" code, I was pretty sure, for *A single mother with a sick kid sounds like a liability.* I didn't tell her that either.

Amyra came running back in, hair dripping, and threw herself into my father's arms before he even had the chance to brace for it. He laughed, the big warm laugh that used to fill up our whole apartment when I was a kid, and for a few minutes, over soup and crackers and Amyra narrating an elaborate story about her hospital drawing, I let myself forget the drawer full of bills sitting three feet away.

It didn't last. It never did. But I had learned to take the few minutes when they came.

I put Amyra to bed a little after eight, sat with her while she fell asleep clutching the sketchbook like a stuffed animal, and didn't move for a long while after her breathing evened out. I just watched her, the way her small chest rose and fell, steady, for now, and the way even in her sleep she looked like she was already dreaming up something bigger than the walls of this apartment. Sometimes I caught myself doing this most nights, just watching her breathe, counting the rise and fall like it was something I needed to keep track of, something that could slip away if I stopped paying attention.

My phone rang a little after nine. Unknown number.

I almost let it go to voicemail. I was tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep, the kind of tired that lives in your bones after months of adding numbers that never quite added up. But something made me answer.

"Hello?"

"Good evening, is this Ms. Anna Li?"

"Yes, speaking." I sat up straighter, though I couldn't have said why.

"This is the Human Resources Department at Mo Ting Global Holdings. We're calling to inform you that you've been shortlisted for the final round of interviews for our Eco-City Project."

My heart did something strange in my chest… not quite hope, not yet, but close enough that I had to press a hand flat against my sternum like that would keep it steady.

"The final round," I repeated, mostly to make sure I had heard it right.

"Yes. Your interview is scheduled for nine o'clock tomorrow morning." A pause, brief, deliberate. "I should mention, the CEO will personally conduct your interview."

The room went very quiet.

I looked over at Amyra, asleep with her sketchbook still tucked under one arm, dreaming up hospitals she wanted to build for children just like her.

I didn't sleep much that night either. But for the first time in longer than I could remember, it wasn't only fear keeping me awake.

…this wasn't just an interview, this was my daughter's chance to live.