At fifty-six years old, Margaret had already endured her share of loss. Her husband had passed away nearly a decade earlier after a sudden heart attack, leaving her to navigate life alone in a small wooden cabin at the edge of town. Her only daughter lived across the country in North Carolina with a young family of her own, and although they spoke often, the distance meant Margaret spent most evenings in quiet solitude.
But the hospital had filled that emptiness.
Children battling cancer knew her as “Nurse Maggie.” Parents clung to her steady voice during the worst nights of their lives. When chemotherapy treatments made young patients tremble with fear, Margaret would sit beside their beds long after her shift ended, telling stories, holding their hands, and promising them they weren’t alone.
It was work she had never considered a job.
It was simply who she was.
That was why the meeting with hospital administration felt so surreal.
Margaret sat in a cold conference room across from Daniel Price, the hospital’s new operations director, a man nearly twenty years younger than her who wore a polished suit and an expression that suggested he had already made up his mind before she walked in.
