The next part changes everything.

All of them labeled the same way.

Mom.

I hadn’t even noticed my husband standing behind me.

“You came back,” he said quietly.

I turned to him. He looked exhausted—eyes hollow, shoulders slumped like he hadn’t slept in days.

“What… what is all this?” I whispered.
He didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he walked me down the hallway to the small bedroom at the end.

My steps slowed when I saw the hospital bed set up inside.

Machines hummed softly. Tubes snaked across the blankets.

And there he was.

My stepson.

So pale.

So much thinner than before.

Next to the bed sat a plastic container filled with tiny folded paper stars.

My husband picked one up and placed it in my hand.

“He makes one every time the pain gets bad,” he said.

I looked down at the fragile star, carefully folded from bright blue paper.

“He thinks if he makes a thousand,” my husband continued softly, “you’ll say