Chapter 6 - What Daddy Hid Inside Buddy
Andrew Parker returned to Bellwood in an ambulance.
Natalie stood beside Ashley’s hospital bed when they rolled him through the doors.
Ashley had spent the entire morning asking what time he would arrive.
At 11:42, she heard wheels in the hallway.
She sat straight up.
“Daddy?”
Andrew appeared.
His face was bruised.
His left shoulder was immobilized.
Bandages covered one side of his forehead.
His right leg was stitched from knee to ankle.
But he was alive.
Ashley screamed his name.
Nurses tried to slow her.
She ignored them.
Andrew reached out with his good arm.
Ashley practically fell into him.
For almost a minute, neither spoke.
Andrew buried his face in her hair.
Ashley clutched his hospital gown.
“I waited.”
“I know.”
“You said thirty minutes.”
“I know.”
“You were gone forever.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t come back.”
Andrew began crying.
Not the quiet tears adults wiped away before children noticed.
His shoulders shook.
“I tried, baby.”
Ashley touched his bruised cheek.
“I knew.”
“You did?”
“Officer Natalie knew too.”
Andrew looked over.
Natalie stood near the doorway.
He mouthed:
Thank you.
She nodded.
No speech.
No dramatic handshake.
Nothing was necessary.
Then Ashley suddenly remembered she was angry.
She crossed her arms.
“You did the love thing.”
Andrew’s face changed.
“What?”
“The thing that hurts.”
He looked at Natalie.
She shrugged gently.
“She’s smarter than all of us.”
Andrew smiled weakly.
“Ash.”
“You were gonna give away your kidney.”
His mouth opened.
“How do you know?”
“Everybody knows now.”
Andrew closed his eyes.
“That was supposed to be a surprise.”
“That is a terrible surprise.”
For the first time in days, the nurses laughed.
Ashley did not.
“You can’t give people your pieces without telling me.”
Andrew took her hand.
“I wasn’t giving it away.”
“Yes, you were.”
“I was trading.”
“For me?”
“For you.”
“And Jonah?”
Andrew looked surprised.
“You know about Jonah too?”
She nodded.
Dr. Morris had carefully explained paired donation.
Ashley understood it in seven-year-old terms:
Daddy helps a boy.
The boy’s daddy helps her.
A circle.
Andrew squeezed her fingers.
“Two kids get better.”
Ashley thought about that.
Then her anger softened.
“That’s love?”
“That’s love.”
“Still dumb.”
Andrew laughed painfully.
“Also fair.”
But his smile disappeared when he saw her IV lines.
“How bad?”
Dr. Morris came closer.
“We need to talk.”
Ashley was taken for imaging while doctors met with Andrew.
Her kidney function had declined sharply.
The dehydration had accelerated a problem already progressing.
She was not in immediate danger of dying.
But transplant planning could no longer remain distant.
Andrew stared at the table.
“How long?”
“We can stabilize her.”
“How long?”
Elena hesitated.
“Months, possibly longer.”
Andrew nodded slowly.
“And the exchange?”
“You cannot donate until you recover.”
His eyes flashed.
“How long?”
“At least several months.”
“That’s too long.”
“Andrew—”
“What about Jonah’s father?”
“We can explore alternatives.”
“He was her match.”
“Yes.”
“So do it.”
“Paired exchange requires both sides.”
“Take mine later.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
Andrew pushed his chair back.
Pain crossed his face.
Natalie stepped forward.
“Sit down.”
“My kid needs a kidney.”
“And she needs a father who doesn’t tear his stitches trying to solve everything in one afternoon.”
Andrew looked furious.
Then exhausted.
He sat.
For years, the world had rewarded his ability to endure.
Now endurance had become a problem.
Elena spoke gently.
“We are not out of options.”
Andrew stared at the floor.
“That’s what they said when Leah got sick.”
Everyone became quiet.
There it was.
The wound beneath everything.
His wife.
The mother he could not save.
The promise he had never stopped trying to keep.
Andrew whispered:
“I watched doctors run out of doors.”
Natalie remembered Ashley’s phrase.
Daddy always finds another door.
“I’m not doing that again.”
Elena sat across from him.
“Ashley is not Leah.”
Andrew looked up.
“And you are not helpless.”
That afternoon, reporters gathered across the street.
Andrew refused interviews.
Patricia Vale came to the hospital holding flowers.
Security almost turned her away.
Natalie asked Andrew.
He stared at the ceiling.
“Why?”
“She wants to apologize.”
“I don’t care.”
“Then I’ll send her away.”
Andrew thought.
“Does Ashley know what she did?”
“Some.”
He closed his eyes.
“Fine.”
Patricia entered without her phone.
For once.
She stood near the door.
Andrew did not help her.
No smile.
No invitation.
She had to walk the entire uncomfortable distance to his bed.
“I’m sorry.”
Andrew said nothing.
Patricia swallowed.
“I thought…”
“That was the problem.”
Her eyes filled.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
Andrew looked at her.
“My daughter may spend years seeing footage of herself half-conscious on our porch because you wanted strangers to watch.”
Patricia’s face crumpled.
“I deleted it.”
“You can’t delete eleven million copies.”
“I know.”
Andrew turned toward the window.
Patricia whispered:
“What can I do?”
Andrew answered without looking.
“Stop making scared people famous.”
She nodded.
Then Ashley came back.
She saw Patricia.
“Are you the lady who called Daddy a monster?”
Patricia froze.
Andrew closed his eyes.
“Ashley…”
“Yes,” Patricia whispered.
Ashley considered her.
“Daddy isn’t a monster.”
“I know.”
“He fixes refrigerators.”
Patricia began crying.
Ashley looked confused.
“Why are you crying?”
“Because I was wrong.”
Ashley nodded as if adults being wrong was ordinary.
Then she climbed carefully into the chair beside Andrew.
Buddy rested in her lap.
Andrew saw the stuffed dog.
His expression changed.
“Buddy.”
“What?”
Andrew reached for him.
“Can I see him?”
Ashley handed Buddy over.
Andrew turned the toy upside down.
Along one seam was a tiny zipper Natalie had assumed belonged to the stuffing compartment.
Andrew opened it.
Inside was a folded plastic pouch.
Natalie stepped closer.
“What is that?”
Andrew removed several documents.
One was a life insurance policy.
Another was a letter from an attorney.
A third was a bank certificate.
Andrew looked embarrassed.
“I put my emergency papers in here.”
Ashley stared.
“In Buddy?”
“You never lose Buddy.”
“That’s true.”
Natalie smiled.
Andrew unfolded one document.
His face went pale.
“What?”
Elena asked.
Andrew handed it to her.
Six months earlier, after learning Ashley’s kidneys were declining, Andrew had established a trust.
But the amount was far larger than the twenty-three thousand investigators had discovered.
The certificate referenced an anonymous contribution.
$480,000.
Natalie stared.
“Where did that come from?”
Andrew looked genuinely confused.
“I don’t know.”
Marcus was called.
He examined the document.
“A donor?”
“I never had that kind of money.”
“Did the foundation?”
“Maybe.”
Andrew frowned.
“But why put it in Ashley’s trust?”
The attorney named on the paperwork was Samuel Kent.
Marcus called.
Kent arrived at the hospital that evening.
He was sixty-three, gray-haired, carrying an old leather briefcase.
When Andrew showed him the document, Kent sighed.
“I wondered when you’d find this.”
Andrew stared.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Who gave my daughter half a million dollars?”
Kent looked toward Ashley.
“I was instructed not to tell you unless one of three things happened.”
“What things?”
“Ashley required major treatment.”
Kent lifted one finger.
“You became permanently disabled.”
Second finger.
“Or you finally asked the right question.”
Andrew’s patience disappeared.
“I’m asking.”
Kent opened his briefcase.
Inside was a sealed letter.
The handwriting on the front made Andrew stop breathing.
Natalie noticed immediately.
“What?”
Andrew did not answer.
His hand shook as he touched the envelope.
Ashley leaned closer.
“Daddy?”
Andrew whispered one name.
“Leah.”
His dead wife had written the letter.
May you like
Four years ago.
And apparently, before she died, Ashley’s mother had left behind a secret that Andrew never knew existed.
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