Chapter 3 - The Father Everyone Hated
Ashley remained hospitalized.
Her dehydration improved.
Her stomach pain did not.
Dr. Elena Park entered Friday morning carrying test results.
Natalie was beside Ashley.
“Good morning.”
Ashley hugged Buddy.
“Do I need another needle?”
Dr. Park smiled.
“Not right now.”
“Good.”
Then Dr. Park looked at Natalie.
“Can we talk outside?”
Ashley immediately protested.
“You can talk here.”
“Ashley—”
“I want to know.”
Dr. Park studied her.
Then nodded.
“Okay.”
She pulled up a chair.
“Your daddy was right to keep taking you to doctors.”
Ashley’s eyes widened.
“Am I sick?”
“We think we finally understand why your stomach hurts.”
Natalie leaned forward.
Dr. Park explained that Ashley had a serious but treatable intestinal condition that had interfered with her ability to absorb nutrients.
“That’s why she looked malnourished?” Natalie asked.
“Yes.”
Not neglect.
Illness.
Natalie felt sick remembering the comments online.
Ashley whispered:
“Daddy said doctors would figure it out.”
“They did,” Dr. Park said.
“Can you tell him?”
The room became quiet.
Natalie looked away.
Ashley noticed.
“You still haven’t found him.”
“We’re still searching.”
Ashley clutched Buddy tighter.
That afternoon, Detective Reed received a call.
A fisherman had found a man.
Alive.
Six miles downstream.
Andrew Miller was lying beneath an overturned aluminum boat near the riverbank.
Severely dehydrated.
Concussion.
Broken ribs.
Deep cut along his leg.
But alive.
When Natalie received the call, she ran into Ashley’s room.
“Ashley.”
The girl sat up.
Natalie was smiling and crying at the same time.
“What?”
“They found him.”
Ashley stopped breathing.
“Daddy?”
“He’s alive.”
Ashley screamed.
Not from fear.
From relief.
“DADDY!”
Nurses came running.
Ashley grabbed Natalie.
“I told you! I told everybody!”
“I know.”
“He didn’t leave!”
“No.”
“He promised!”
Natalie hugged her.
“He kept trying to come home.”
Andrew woke twelve hours later.
His first word was not his own name.
“Ashley.”
Marcus Reed stood beside the hospital bed.
“She’s safe.”
Andrew tried sitting up.
Pain slammed him back.
“Where is she?”
“In this hospital.”
“Four days…”
“We know.”
Andrew covered his face.
“I left her alone.”
“You went to buy medicine.”
“I should’ve taken her.”
“She was sick.”
“She hated riding in storms.”
Marcus waited.
Andrew’s voice cracked.
“I told her thirty minutes.”
“You crashed.”
Andrew slowly remembered.
“The road…”
“Washed out.”
“My truck went over.”
“Yes.”
“I woke up in water.”
Marcus listened.
“I climbed out. My phone was gone.”
“You reached a maintenance shed.”
Andrew nodded.
“I thought I could walk back.”
“With broken ribs?”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
Andrew looked at him as though the question were ridiculous.
“My daughter was waiting.”
He remembered walking.
Falling.
Waking.
Walking again.
At some point, he had reached the creek.
The current had taken him.
“I kept thinking…”
“What?”
“That she’d believe I abandoned her.”
Marcus shook his head.
“She never did.”
Andrew started crying.
“Can I see her?”
“Soon.”
But before Andrew and Ashley could reunite, Natalie stopped Marcus outside.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
She showed him her phone.
The original neighborhood video had been viewed over two million times.
Andrew’s face was everywhere.
And although the truth was beginning to spread, thousands of people still believed he had deliberately left Ashley.
Marcus looked through the comments.
“People like simple villains.”
May you like
Natalie locked the screen.
“Then we give them the truth.”
