Chapter One — The Lady With Two Eyes
“The lady with two eyes?” I repeated softly.
Oliver nodded, trying not to cry. “Mom said most people look at you with one eye.”
I stepped closer to the bed, confused and afraid of the answer.
“One eye sees what happened,” he whispered. “The other eye sees why.”
My throat tightened.
That sounded like Rachel.
Not the Rachel I lost, but the Rachel I had loved before everything broke between us—the girl who used to say the world was starving because too many people wanted judgment without understanding.
I sat in the chair beside him. “Oliver, where is your mom?”
His small fingers curled into the blanket.
“She was driving,” he said. “The car hit us. Then everyone was shouting. They took me away first. I kept asking for her.”
Nurse Maribel stepped in gently. “Your mom is being treated, sweetheart. The doctors are helping her.”
Oliver looked at me like he needed me to make the sentence true.
I had no right to promise anything, so I gave him the only honest thing I had.
“I’m here now.”
His face crumpled, and he reached for my hand.
When his fingers closed around mine, twelve years collapsed.
