Chapter 5: The Door Opens Again
It was a woman none of us had seen before.
She was older, maybe sixty, with silver hair pulled back and a lanyard around her neck that read HOSPITAL FOUNDATION — VISITOR.
She was carrying a large flat box, and behind her were two more people carrying boxes of their own.
Alice watched them come in with the focused attention she gives to things she hasn't decided about yet.
"Who are you?" Alice asked.
The woman smiled.
"My name is Carol.
I work with the hospital foundation.
And I have been waiting a very long time to meet you, Alice."
"Why?"
Carol set her box on the table at the foot of the bed and opened it carefully.
Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, was a cape.
Deep red, with a small gold emblem stitched onto the back.
"Because," Carol said, "when your story was shared online, something happened that we have honestly never seen before."
Dr.
Reeves crossed his arms.
He was listening carefully.
"We have a fund," Carol said.
"For pediatric oncology patients.
Families who need help with costs during treatment — travel, accommodation, medication gaps, things insurance doesn't always cover." She paused.
"In the three weeks since your story was shared, that fund received more donations than it has in the past two years combined."
The room was very quiet.
"People from forty-one countries," Carol said.
"We checked this morning."
Alice looked at her mother.
"Forty-one?"
I couldn't speak.
I nodded.
Carol lifted the cape out of the box and held it up.
The gold emblem caught the light.
It was a small letter A, stitched carefully in the center.
"This was made for you," Carol said.
"By a group of volunteers who wanted you to have something to wear during treatment.
Something that was yours."
Alice reached out and touched the edge of the cape.
"It's soft," she said.
"It's supposed to be," Carol said.
"You're going to be wearing it a lot."
One of the other boxes contained cards.
Not a card — cards.
Stacked in bundles, bound with rubber bands.
Hundreds of them.
"These are from children," Carol said.
"Kids in hospitals in other countries who heard about you.
Some of them drew pictures.
Some of them wrote letters.
Some of them just wrote their name and drew a star."
Alice picked up one of the bundles and held it in both hands.
She didn't open it right away.
She just held it.
I watched her face.
She was doing the thing she does when something is too large to take in all at once — going very still, very careful, like she's trying to hold water in her hands without spilling any.
"They know my name?" she said.
"They know your name," Carol said.
Alice set the bundle down gently on the blanket beside her.
She looked at Dr.
Reeves.
"Dr.
Reeves," she said.
"Did you know about this part?"
He shook his head.
"Not this part.
No."
She seemed to find that satisfying.
She looked back at Carol.
"Can I write back to them?" Alice asked.
"The kids who wrote to me?"
Carol blinked.
She clearly had not expected that to be the first question.
"Yes," she said.
"We can absolutely arrange that."
"Good," Alice said.
"Because if they're scared, someone should write back."
Nobody in the room said anything for a moment.
Then Dana, still standing near the door in her Wonder Woman costume, made a sound that was not quite a laugh and not quite a sob and covered her mouth with one hand.
Carol looked at me.
Her expression had shifted into something I recognized — the look of someone who came in prepared to give something and found themselves receiving something instead.
"She's something else," Carol said quietly.
"I know," I said.
The cake arrived a few minutes later.
It was shaped like a shield.
Alice declared it the best cake she had ever seen before she had even tasted it.
But while everyone was laughing and the candles were being lit, I noticed Alice slip the letter out from under her pillow again.
She unfolded it once, read the last line, then folded it back and tucked it away.
*Keep going.
I'm paying attention too.*
She picked up her fork.
What I didn't know yet was that Carol had not finished.
There was one more box.
She had left it in the hallway.
She hadn't brought it in yet because she was waiting to see how Alice was doing first.
She caught my eye from across the room and gave me a small nod.
May you like
I didn't know what was in it.
But something in her expression told me the day was not over.
