What Fell Out of Her Backpack
It happened on a Tuesday.
No drama. No warning. Just normal life.
Lily came home from school, dropped her backpack in the entryway, and ran to the kitchen to tell me about a class pet hamster that “looked like a tiny potato.”
I smiled, made her a snack, and bent down to unpack her bag.
That’s when something small slid out of the side pocket and hit the floor with a soft plastic tap.
I froze.
It was a laminated visitor badge.
Not for a museum.
Not for a school.
A hospital visitor badge.
The kind that comes with a date and a unit name printed across it.
The kind you get when you’ve been through security.
The kind that doesn’t end up in a child’s backpack by accident.
My fingers moved before my brain finished catching up.
I picked it up.
And I read the unit line.
Oncology.
My lungs forgot how to work.
I looked up at Lily, who was happily crunching crackers at the counter, swinging her legs like nothing in the world was wrong.
“Sweetheart,” I said, forcing my voice to stay neutral, “where did you get this?”
She paused. Chewed slowly. Looked at me with that expression kids use when they’re deciding whether a question is safe.
Then she said something that made my blood go cold.
“Daddy said it’s our secret weekend.”
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