Sophie squeezed my hand.
“Mom, what are they looking for?”
Before I could answer, Dr. Ortiz did.
“Something that should not be there.”
Chapter Four
The Second Place They Looked
Daniel was waiting outside the MRI department.
He stood when Sophie’s wheelchair appeared, but he did not approach us. A security officer remained nearby—not because Daniel had been arrested, but because Eric had warned the hospital there would be trouble if Daniel came near his daughter.
Sophie saw him and held out both arms.
“Daniel.”
The officer looked at me.
I nodded.
Daniel crossed the waiting room and knelt in front of her. Sophie buried her face against his shoulder.
“I told them you didn’t do anything,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Dad didn’t believe me.”
Eric stood ten feet away. He looked as though he wanted to argue, but no words came.
Daniel pulled back and touched Sophie’s stuffed rabbit.
“I’ll be right here when you finish.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
The MRI took forty-seven minutes.
I counted every one of them.
When Sophie was brought back, she complained that the machine had been loud but said the headache was worse. A nurse dimmed the lights and gave her medicine.
Then Dr. Ortiz asked the adults to follow her into a consultation room.
Sophie refused to let me leave, so the meeting happened at her bedside. Daniel sat on her right. I sat on her left. Eric remained near the window.
A new doctor introduced herself as Dr. Priya Shah, a pediatric endocrinologist.
She placed an MRI image on the monitor.
Most of it looked like meaningless shades of black and gray. Near the center was a pale, irregular shape.
“We found a mass near the base of Sophie’s brain,” Dr. Shah said.
I waited for someone to correct her.
No one did.
“What kind of mass?” Daniel asked.
“We believe it may be a germ cell tumor located near the area that controls hormone production, thirst, and several aspects of development.”
Eric gripped the windowsill.
“Are you saying she has cancer?”
“We need additional imaging and tumor-marker studies before we can determine the exact type.”
I looked at Sophie. She was watching all of us, trying to decide how frightened she should be.
“Is that what caused the headaches?” I asked.
