Lily's Point of View
Lily's eyes opened and the first thing she saw was a man sitting in the chair next to her bed.
She didn't recognize him.
Her heart did that weird beating thing it had been doing before the ambulance came, but different this time. More scared. Not the pain scared. The confused scared.
The man was asleep in the chair. He was big. Tall. He had dark hair like hers and sharp features that looked expensive somehow. His suit was probably nicer than anything her mom owned. He looked like the kind of person who belonged in a fancy building, not sitting in a hospital room with a seven-year-old girl.
Lily watched him sleep and tried to figure out who he was.
She didn't remember him coming in. She'd been awake when her mom left last night to get coffee. She'd watched her mom walk out like she was carrying the whole world on her shoulders. But when Lily had woken up just now, this man had been sitting right there.
The monitors beeped. Lily's eyes were still connected to all these stickers that made the machines work. The sound was annoying but at least it was normal annoying. Not scary annoying.
The man's eyes opened.
He looked right at her and his entire face changed. His expression went from asleep to completely alert in one second. Like he'd been waiting for her to wake up. Like she was the most important thing he could possibly see right now.
Lily's mom came into the room.
She looked different than she had last night. She'd slept maybe. Or showered. But her face looked sad in a way that made Lily's chest hurt even more than it had yesterday.
Sophie looked at Theo. Then she looked at Lily. Then she took a breath like she was about to do something hard.
"Baby, this is Theodor Hartley," her mom said carefully. "He's your biological father."
Lily didn't understand that word. Biological. It sounded medical. It sounded like something the doctors would say. She looked at the man and then at her mom and then back at the man.
"Is he my dad?" she asked.
Her mom and the man looked at each other. They had some kind of conversation without words. Something passed between them. Some kind of agreement or understanding that Lily was too young to understand.
Then the man looked at her and said, "Yes. I'm your dad."
Lily felt something shift inside her chest that had absolutely nothing to do with her heart condition.
She'd spent seven years not having a dad. Seven years of watching other kids get picked up and hugged and feeling like something was broken inside her because she didn't have that. Seven years of her mom saying that some people choose themselves first. That's not sad. That's just how it is.
But this man was saying he was her dad.
He was sitting right in front of her saying yes like it was simple. Like he'd wanted to say yes for a long time. Like he was relieved to finally get to say it.
Lily started to cry.
She couldn't explain why. The tears just came. They were happy tears and confused tears and scared tears all mixed together. This man was a stranger. She'd never seen him before in her life. But he'd shown up and he was sitting next to her bed and he was saying he was her dad.
Her mom sat on the other side of the bed and held her hand.
"It's okay baby," her mom said. "You're safe. You're going to be okay."
But Lily wasn't crying because she wasn't okay. She was crying because for the first time in her entire life, she thought maybe she actually could be.
Theo reached over and wiped a tear off her face with his thumb. He did it gently. Like she might break. Like she was something precious.
"Hi Lily," he said. His voice was deep and careful. "I'm your dad. My name is Theodor but you can call me Theo. Or Dad. Or whatever you want to call me."
Lily looked at him. Really looked at him.
He had dark hair like hers. She realized that now. He had dark eyes too. He had a face that looked serious but was looking at her like she was the most wonderful thing he'd ever seen.
He looked like he couldn't believe she existed.
"Where have you been?" Lily asked.
The question came out before she could stop it. Her mom tensed. Theo's face changed into something sad and guilty.
"I didn't know about you," he said. "But I'm here now. And I'm not going anywhere."
"You promise?"
Lily didn't even know why she was asking. She knew that promises didn't always mean anything. People left. People said they'd come back and didn't. Her mom had explained that to her even though she never used those exact words.
Theo took her hand.
His hand was big and warm and completely solid. It felt like something real. Something that wouldn't disappear.
"I promise," he said. "Lily, I promise I'm not leaving. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. I'm going to be your dad from now on. For real. For always."
Lily wanted to believe him so badly it hurt.
She wanted to believe that he meant it. That he wasn't going to leave like he'd left before. That he wasn't going to choose himself like some people did. That he actually wanted to be her dad and not just saying it because he felt bad.
She wanted to believe it more than she wanted anything else in the whole world.
"Really?" she whispered.
"Really," Theo said. And he held her hand like he'd never let go.
Lily closed her eyes and held onto her dad's hand and let herself imagine what it would feel like to have a family. To have both her mom and her dad. To not be missing something anymore.
For the first time in seven years, Lily allowed herself to hope.
And it was the most terrifying and beautiful feeling she'd ever felt.