Jack turned toward her with an anger that had been gathering quietly for days. "No, you don't. You get to say we need more time, we need to wait, we need to see what happens. And then you go home and sleep, and tomorrow you come back and say the same thing. I'm the one who has to look at that machine and wonder if it bought us another day or just postponed the goodbye."
Claire absorbed the words without stepping away. She had been spoken to in anger by parents before and knew the difference between cruelty and despair. "You're right that I can leave the hospital," she said. "You're right that I get to step outside this room in a way you can't. I can't tell you I know exactly what this feels like for you."
Jack looked down, ashamed of how relieved he was that she had not tried to win the argument. "I shouldn't have said it like that."
"You can tell me when you're angry," she replied. "It helps me understand what you need. I just don't want anger to convince you that today's assessment means we're out of options. It doesn't."
"Then what are the options?"
She described the next conversations: continued support while the team monitored for recovery, potential alternative devices if the situation demanded them, and ongoing transplant evaluation so that no pathway was overlooked. She explained that decisions about Lily's care would involve specialists who understood cardiac recovery, long-term support, rehabilitation, and what treatment would mean for a child rather than for a statistic. The explanation could not make the choices easy, but it gave Jack something more useful than being told not to worry.
He leaned against the wall. "I used to tell Mara I could fix anything if I had enough time. She said that wasn't true. She said sometimes the job was knowing when to stop trying to be the person with the answer."
"She sounds wise."
"She was smarter than me about most things." His mouth moved toward a smile. "Except she once put dish soap in the washing machine. We had bubbles in the laundry room for a week."
Claire laughed softly, surprised by the image. For a few moments Jack told her about the disaster, how Mara had tried to contain it with towels while little Lily sat in a laundry basket cheering as if the foam were snow. The memory brought a genuine smile to his face, and Claire realized how rarely she had seen his expression free of fear.
Later that afternoon, a security guard stopped Jack outside the restricted elevator and asked to see his visitor identification. His plastic wristband had come loose during a hurried trip to the cafeteria, and the replacement pass was still in his coat pocket upstairs. The guard was new, overworked, and trying to enforce rules intended to protect vulnerable patients, but his sharp tone made Jack feel like an intruder in the place where he had spent a week.
"Sir, you can't just walk onto the critical-care floor without proper credentials," the guard said, blocking the elevator. "You'll have to go back to the main desk."