For a few seconds after the doctor spoke, I didn't hear anything else.
This simple phrase echoes in my head.
There's something about her.
My hands grew cold. Maya was crying beside me, but the atmosphere seemed to have shifted. As if I were witnessing someone else's life crumble.
“Please,” I said, my voice trembling. “Just tell me what it is.”
The doctor took a deep, slow breath.
“It’s a mass,” he said cautiously. “On her abdomen.”
That word touched me more deeply than I imagined.
A mass.
I'd heard this before. On television. In other people's stories.
Never in mine.
The truth I wasn't prepared for.
They explained everything slowly, gently, as if kind words could make things easier.
The scans revealed a large tumor compressing her organs. That's why she couldn't eat, why she felt dizzy, and why she was in pain.
It didn't happen overnight.
He had grown.
While we were living a normal life,
while I believed everything was fine,
while my daughter was trying to be brave and endure an ordeal that no child should have to go through…
“How long?” I asked.
The doctor hesitated.
“Months… or even longer.”
