Diane Parker had spent so many years working in the children’s wing at Rivergate Medical Center that the hallways felt like part of her own home. At fifty-four, she moved with the steady calm that worried parents relied on and sick children instinctively trusted. Silver strands ran through her hair, always pinned into a practical twist, and her eyes carried the gentle patience that only comes from years of sitting beside hospital beds at 2 a.m., when machines beep and the world feels unbearably heavy.

That Tuesday afternoon, the overhead lights flickered the way they always did, yet Diane noticed it differently—like a quiet farewell she never asked for. She had just finished soothing a small boy through a difficult treatment when her badge was called to an administrative office she almost never visited.
A woman in a fitted blazer sat behind a table with a folder already opened, as if the outcome had been decided long before the meeting began. Her nameplate read Valerie Hargrove.
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