Lily nodded weakly, but Daniel still saw the disappointment cross her face. She didn’t ask anything else, and he stayed beside her bed holding her hand while trying to convince himself that surviving the surgery was all that mattered.
Seventeen minutes later, however, a nurse hurried into Lily’s room and switched on the television. A local reporter was standing outside the hospital while emergency vehicles flashed behind her, reporting a major development connected to what had happened earlier that day at Westbridge High School.
“We are following a major development involving the collapse at Westbridge High School. Seventeen-year-old Lily Mercer is now being credited with saving at least eleven lives.”
Daniel froze as security footage from the school gym appeared on the television. Only then did he learn what his daughter had done before collapsing.
Minutes before her medical emergency, Lily had smelled gas near the boiler room. Instead of simply getting herself outside, she pulled the fire alarm, warned the coaches, and helped evacuate younger children who were attending an after-school program.
Investigators had discovered a damaged natural-gas line beneath the gym floor, and fire officials believed the building could have exploded within minutes. Lily had continued helping others until everyone she could reach was outside, collapsing only after bringing a terrified eight-year-old boy to safety.
Then the reporter revealed something Daniel hadn’t known.
The boy Lily had saved was Owen Chase, the son of United States Senator Rebecca Chase.
By exactly 10 p.m., the story had spread across major television networks. News crews surrounded the hospital, the governor publicly praised Lily, and Senator Chase appeared live in tears as she thanked the teenager who had saved her son.
Across the city, Patricia was watching from her living room while Scott saw the same report inside a crowded restaurant. Both suddenly found themselves staring at Lily’s hospital photograph beneath a headline neither of them could ignore.
TEEN HERO FIGHTS FOR HER LIFE AFTER SAVING ELEVEN CHILDREN.
Patricia’s phone slipped from her hand. Scott dropped his into a glass of water. Almost immediately, both began calling Daniel.
Their names repeatedly appeared across his screen, the same two people who only hours earlier had decided Lily wasn’t worth interrupting their plans for.
Daniel looked at the incoming calls. And for the first time in his life, he pressed Decline.
By 10:12 p.m., Daniel had already received seventeen calls: nine from Patricia, six from Scott, and two from Scott’s wife, Melissa, who had barely contacted Lily over the previous year. He silenced the phone, placed it face down on the windowsill, and returned his attention to Lily, who had fallen asleep again while reporters crowded the hospital entrance below.
At 10:26, a nurse entered the room with another problem. Patricia and Scott had arrived downstairs, but security had stopped them because Daniel had requested no visitors.
“Mr. Mercer, your mother and brother are downstairs. Security stopped them because you requested no visitors.”
Daniel looked toward the doorway.
“Keep them downstairs.”
The nurse hesitated before adding that Patricia was already telling people she had raised Lily. That almost made Daniel laugh because his mother had attended only two of Lily’s birthdays in seventeen years and had missed school plays, basketball games, Christmas dinners, and even the funeral of Daniel’s wife.
“Your mother is telling people she raised Lily.”
