A Missing Key 218 Missed Calls One Family Secret novel Chapter 48

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

My hands trembled for the first time in an operating room.

The head nurse noticed something was wrong. “Dr. Carter?”

I took a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm.

“I’m fine. Prep for surgery.”

I couldn’t panic.

Right now, I was the only one who could save her.

It was a ten-hour surgery.

I was completely focused, my mind containing nothing but scalpels, blood vessels, and sutures.

When I finished the last stitch and declared “surgery successful,” I nearly collapsed from exhaustion.

Mom was transferred to intensive care.

I stayed by her bedside for three days and nights without sleep.

I studied her carefully.

Her face had several new scars, her hair was shorter, her skin weathered from years of wind and sun.

She was much thinner than I remembered, and much older.

On the fourth day, she finally woke up.

She opened her eyes, saw me, and her cloudy eyes flashed with surprise, then infinite tenderness and apology.

I couldn’t hold back anymore.

Tears fell.

I gripped her hand, covered in calluses and scars, my voice choking.

“Mom.”

She smiled weakly, using all her strength to squeeze my hand back.

11:27

A Missing Kev 218 Missed Calls One Family Secret

35.3%

Chapter 9

“Nora… my Nora… you’ve grown up.”

Ten years.

I could finally call her “Mom” again, openly and rightfully.

The game of hide-and-seek was finally over.

Mom’s identity was highly classified.

In the hospital, she was codenamed “Blade”-an unnamed hero. I was Dr. Nora Carter, her attending physician.

We maintained an unspoken understanding.

I never asked where she’d been these years, what she’d done, why she couldn’t come home.

She never explained.

We both knew some things were safer not to know.

I used everything I’d learned to treat her, change her bandages, help with her physical therapy.

Like restoring a precious piece of porcelain, I carefully mended her scarred body.

When she was awake, we’d chat about inconsequential things.

My college adventures, hospital gossip, the latest movies.

We never mentioned the past, that broken home, or the man named Michael Carter.

As if all those people and events belonged to another lifetime.

Only late at night when she slept would I sit by her bed, watching her face and silently crying.

My mom, my hero.

She’d given her best years to this country, to invisible battlefields.

And I had spent so many years resenting her over petty family drama.

Compared to her sacrifices, what were my grievances?

Mom recovered quickly.

After a month, she could walk around.

11-27

A Missing Key 218 Missed Calls. One Family Secret

35.5%

Chapter 9

I knew she’d be leaving soon.

The night before she left, she called me to her room.

From her inside pocket, she took out something wrapped in a handkerchief and handed it to me.

I unwrapped it-over a dozen military medals of various sizes and shapes.

“Nora, this is what we agreed on.”

I looked at those medals gleaming in the moonlight, each one representing a life-or-death test.

My traitorous tears fell again.

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