⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: REFERENCE TO CHILD LOSS. REFERENCE TO ILLNESS ⚠️
Tim and Lucy thought that one of the hardest battles they had to fight was over. They believed they could regain some semblance of inner peace. And, in a way, they were right. Eight months of treatment, eight months of going back and forth between their house and the hospital, eight months of tears, eight months of worry, eight months of tests, eight months of uncertainty. Eight months, all leading up to that appointment. Eight months until they finally heard the word "remission." Instinctively, Tim tightened his arms around the small body of his daughter, exhausted and peacefully asleep against him.
They thought...
That evening, Lucy sat in the bedroom for a while, watching her daughter sleep peacefully, the words echoing in her mind on a loop. She had never imagined it was possible to love someone so much. She loved Tim—he was the love of her life—but her daughter was simply the reason her heart beat faster every second, the reason she would willingly give her life to ensure her daughter could keep breathing. It was an indescribable love, strong yet so... fragile.
So fragile...
As the days passed, life slowly returned to normal. Maddie was happy to go back to school and play with her friends. Everything wasn't perfect—there were still many precautions to be taken—but the little girl was resuming the life of an ordinary 3-year-old. Both Tim and Lucy had returned to work on a regular schedule. A sense of normalcy was creeping back.
The house was lively, with kids running around everywhere, conversations flowing, people chatting about work outside or the next game by the BBQ. Today, Maddie was celebrating her fourth birthday, surrounded by the people she loved—and who loved her. The day was perfect, truly perfect.
Tim and Lucy were slowly finding their place again, too. They weren't just someone's parents anymore. They were also a man and a woman—a couple. A life they had put on hold while waiting for things to get better. A life they were learning to live again. When their daughter answered "A little brother" to the question "What do you want for your birthday?" they talked about it—several times. And then, one evening, that vision of a future became a possibility once more.
They thought...
And one night, everything shifted again.
A second sense pushed Tim to get out of bed and check if Maddie had kicked off her blanket while sleeping. He found the little girl sitting cross-legged in her bed, dazed, her nose bleeding.
"Dada...."
The sound of her voice broke his heart.
"Lucy, wake up."
He scooped his daughter into his arms and met Lucy in the hallway. She froze at the sight of their daughter's face streaked with blood.
"Hospital. Now."
The drive was endless. Lucy couldn't drive, couldn't think, couldn't speak—she couldn't do anything. Her mind was unlocking doors she had tried to close, conjuring a whirlwind of grim possibilities as she clutched her little girl's hand tightly in hers.
The wait in the ER felt eternal, suffocating. When they were finally called, Maddie was lying on a stretcher, asleep, oblivious to the chaos around her and unaware of the abrupt separation from her parents.
Three hours later, a door opened. Tim and Lucy stood up and followed a nurse into a small room where the ER doctor, another physician, and Maddie's oncologist were waiting for them.
"Mr. and Mrs. Bradford... we've received the results of the tests we ran on Maddie tonight, and we—"
Lucy lost track of the conversation almost immediately, her brain struggling to process the words being spoken: "Aggressive cancer, stage 4, chemotherapy not an option, hospitalization, potential clinical trial."
