Nothing Is What It Seems: Emily’s Journal
“Mom, please, just let me go home. I promise I’ll be fine this time. I can’t stand it here anymore.”
Her voice was a cracked whisper, barely audible beneath the sterile hum of the hospital fluorescents. I stood in the doorway, clutching my clipboard, my badge reading ‘Dr. Emily Carter’ suddenly feeling like a costume I no longer fit into.
I looked at her—my patient, my daughter, my Ivey—curled up on the thin mattress in room five, tangled in hospital blankets and her own despair. She stared at me with those blue eyes, so much like her father’s, pleading for something I didn’t know how to give.
“Nurse Willa said you’d come,” Ivey said, pushing her hair out of her face. “You always say you will. But you never stay.”
I exhaled, the weight of my double life pressing down on my chest. “Ivey, sweetheart, you know I can’t just—”
She cut me off, her voice rising. “Can’t what? Be my mom? Or be my doctor? Which one are you today, Emily?”
I flinched at the use of my first name. It was her way of reminding me I’d failed at both. My mind flashed to the night two weeks ago: the call from a stranger, the overdose, the ambulance ride where I wasn’t allowed to hold her hand. The drive home afterward, alone, rehearsing apologies she never wanted to hear.
Her chart was in my hands, but her fate felt so far beyond my reach. The hospital rules were clear. No special treatment. No bending the protocol, even for family. Especially for family.
But every instinct screamed at me to break the rules, to get her out of this place, away from the judging stares, the other patients shouting down the hall about monsters in the vents and voices in the walls. I wasn’t sure anymore if I was keeping her here for her own safety—or to punish her for breaking my heart again.
“Ivey,” I said, softer now, “I want to help you. But I can’t let you go, not yet. You know that.”
She turned away, her shoulders shaking. “You don’t want to help me. You want to fix me so you can say you’re a good mom.”
A knock on the door interrupted us. Willa poked her head in, her face wary. “Dr. Carter, can I see you for a moment?”
I nodded, grateful for the escape. In the hallway, Willa leaned in and whispered, “There’s a man at the front desk asking for Ivey. Says he’s her father. Should I call security?”
My heart stopped. “Her father’s not supposed to know where she is. Not after what happened.”
Willa bit her lip. “He was very insistent. Said he had the right to see his daughter.”
I pressed my hand to my forehead, fighting the urge to scream. Matt hadn’t shown up for Ivey when she needed him—just like he hadn’t shown up for me. But now, when she was at her lowest, he wanted to swoop in and play hero.
“Keep him away from her,” I said. “If he tries anything, call the police.”
Willa nodded and hurried off. I slumped against the wall, eyes stinging. This was supposed to be my sanctuary. My place of healing. But lately, it felt like every corridor echoed with the ghosts of my failures.
The rest of my shift blurred by in a haze of charts and alarms, but my thoughts kept circling back to Ivey. To Matt. To the years I spent patching up strangers while my own family unraveled. I remembered the nights Ivey waited up for me, dinner cold on the table. The mornings she left for school without saying goodbye. The day I found vodka hidden in her backpack—my first clue that my daughter was drowning, and I hadn’t even noticed.
By the time I finished rounds, the sun was setting, bleeding orange across the city skyline. I found myself back at Ivey’s door, uncertain whether I was there as her doctor or her mother.
She sat upright, arms folded, eyes red but defiant. “Did you send Dad away?”
“Yes,” I replied. “He doesn’t get to just show up when it’s convenient.”
She scoffed. “Neither do you.”
The words cut deeper than I expected. I sat down beside her, hands trembling. “Ivey, I know I haven’t been there for you. I know you’re angry. And you have every right to be. But I need you to let me help you now—not as your doctor, but as your mom.”
She looked at me, searching my face for something—maybe hope, maybe forgiveness. “What if I’m too broken to fix?”
Tears pricked my eyes. “You’re not broken. You’re hurting. And so am I. But we can heal together, if you let me try.”
For the first time in weeks, she reached for my hand. Her grip was weak, but it was there. A lifeline.
We sat in silence until the intercom crackled with another emergency. Duty called, as always. I squeezed her hand one last time. “I’ll be back. I promise.”
As I walked back to the chaos of the ER, I wondered: How many of us hide our pain behind white coats and brave faces? How many families break in silence, too proud or scared to ask for help? And when the lines between healer and wounded blur, who do we turn to for rescue?
Do we ever really know the people we love—or ourselves? If I can’t save my own daughter, what does that say about me? What would you do if you were in my shoes?