Chapter 6: The Woman Who Controls Everything
The text had no name attached to it.
But we both knew.
Luca set the phone face-down on the chair arm.
His jaw was tight.
"She's watching," I said.
"She's always watching." He stood up and moved to the window.
"I should have expected this."
"How did she get your number?"
"She's had it for two years.
I changed it once.
She found the new one within a week." He turned from the window.
"She has people, Jessi.
Not in a dramatic way.
Just — people who owe her things.
Old family connections.
People who pass information."
"That's dramatic enough."
He almost smiled.
Almost.
"What do we do?" I asked.
"We go on Friday," he said.
"Exactly as planned."
"She'll know."
"She already knows we're considering it.
That text proves it." He came back to the chair.
"The question is what she does next."
We didn't have to wait long for the answer.
She arrived the following morning, two hours before my scheduled discharge.
No text this time, no warning.
The door opened and Wendy walked in carrying two cups of coffee from the hospital café, as though she were simply a grandmother coming to visit.
I was dressed and sitting in the chair with Fiona.
Luca was packing the last of my things into the overnight bag.
He saw her first.
"Mother."
"Good morning." She set one coffee on the bedside table near me.
I didn't touch it.
"I heard you're going home today.
That's wonderful news."
"How did you hear that?" I asked.
"The nurse mentioned it when I called to check on Fiona's status." She smiled.
"I listed myself as family."
"You're not listed as family," Luca said.
"I am family, Luca.
That's rather the point." She sat down in the second chair without being invited, crossed her legs, and looked at me with that expression I was beginning to recognize — pleasant on the surface, measuring underneath.
"I wanted to speak with you before you left.
About next steps for Fiona."
"We've already made arrangements," I said.
A small pause.
"With Callum."
Neither of us answered.
"I see." She set her coffee down carefully.
"I want you to understand something, Jessi, because I think Callum will present things in a way that positions me as the obstacle.
He's very good at that." Her voice stayed smooth.
"The research he's been pursuing has not been peer-reviewed.
The protocol he advocates has a sample size of forty-one children.
Forty-one.
That is not sufficient data to justify applying an experimental approach to your daughter."
"Sixty-three percent reduction in early-onset progression," I said.
Something shifted in her eyes.
Just slightly.
"He told you that number."
"Yes."
"That number comes from his own unpublished data.
It has not been independently verified."
"Because you've been blocking the verification," I said.
"By refusing to release the family records to any researcher outside your direct control."
The room went quiet.
Luca had stopped moving.
Wendy looked at me for a long moment.
When she spoke again, the pleasantness had thinned.
"Those records were assembled over thirty years," she said.
"They represent the most complete documentation of this condition in existence.
Releasing them without proper oversight would compromise the integrity of the entire archive."
"Or it would allow other researchers to confirm findings you don't want confirmed."
"That is an unfair characterization."
"Is it?" I kept my voice level.
"You came to this hospital room with an envelope that was incomplete.
You gave me specialists who all report to you.
You sent a text to my husband's phone warning him away from the one doctor who has actually made progress on this condition." I looked at her steadily.
"Tell me which part of that is unfair."
Wendy was quiet for several seconds.
Her hands were folded in her lap.
Perfectly still.
"I came here for Fiona," she said.
"I believe you believe that," I said.
"I also believe it's not the only reason."
"Jessi—"
"We're going to see Callum on Friday." I stood up, Fiona in my arms.
"If his protocol is sound, we follow it.
If it isn't, we'll know that too.
But we make that decision with complete information.
Not with the version you've decided we should have."
Wendy stood as well.
She was taller than me, and she used the height the way people do when they're accustomed to it — not aggressively, just as a fact of the room.
"You're making a mistake," she said.
"Maybe." I met her eyes.
"But it's mine to make."
She picked up her handbag.
She looked at Luca, who had not spoken since she arrived.
"You're going to let her do this," she said to him.
Not a question.
"She's not doing anything alone," he said.
"We're doing it together."
Something crossed Wendy's face — not anger exactly.
Closer to the particular frustration of someone who has always been the one who decides, watching a decision leave their hands.
She walked to the door.
She stopped with her hand on the frame — the same position Luca had stood in two nights ago.
"The records I have," she said, without turning around, "include information about Luca's test results.
The full results.
Not the inconclusive summary he received.
The complete panel." A pause.
"I had it run without his knowledge, twelve years ago.
I have been holding those results since then."
The air in the room changed.
Luca went very still.
"What?"
She turned.
Her expression was unreadable.
"I wanted to protect you.
I thought if you didn't know, you could live without the weight of it."
"What do the results say?" His voice was barely above a whisper.
"Come to me instead of Callum," she said.
"And I'll show you."
The door swung shut behind her.
Luca stood in the middle of the room, completely motionless.
The overnight bag hung from one hand.
His face had gone the color of the hospital walls.
"Luca." I crossed to him.
"Look at me."
He looked at me.
"Whatever those results say," I told him, "we face it together.
Not through her.
Not on her terms."
"She's had them for twelve years, Jessi."
"I know."
"She's been holding my own medical results over me for twelve years and she never—" He stopped.
His hand tightened on the bag strap.
"She was going to use them.
Eventually.
She was always going to use them."
"Yes," I said.
"I think she was."
He looked at the door where she had been standing.
May you like
"Call Callum," he said.
"Tell him we need to move the appointment to tomorrow."
