"Hush, dear," Richard murmurs.
"Could I have pancakes for dinner?" she asks.
"Absolutely. With buckets of syrup."
Another thoughtful pause. "When will we go back to England?"
Rush blows out a breath. "Well…" he looks up, as if the ceiling has answers, then back to her. "This is the hard part, darling."
She nods, looking down at her dress, tapping her knees with her wand. "I need a special treatment, but we haven't got the money for it." She looks him in the eyes, unflinching, braver than anyone I’ve ever met. "Am I going to die soon, Daddy?"
Rush's shoulders shake. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out. He clears his throat, sniffs hard, tries again. "N-no, sweetheart. No." He kisses her head yet again. "Mr. Nick has a friend, you see."
"Mr. Valentine!"
Rush’s gaze snaps to hers with a puzzled frown. "You know him?"
"We met Mr. Valentine and Mrs. Kyrie in Disney, didn't we, Grandmama? They went on the rides with us, and Mr. Valentine didn't even yell or scream on any of the rides. And he told me he'd make sure I got all better as soon as possible, even if he had to buy all the hospitals in the whole world." She looks at Rush again. "Can he do that?"
"Do which, lovey?”
"Make me all better?"
"Well, no. He can't as he's not a doctor," Rush answers. "But he's something better, in a way—he's very, very, very wealthy. Which means he can pay for the treatment you need."
"But why would he do that?" she asks. “He doesn’t even know us, hardly.”
I answer this one. "Mr. Valentine is part of my family, honey. And he likes to help people. It's one of his most favorite things in the whole world, and he especially likes helping brave, strong, smart little girls like you."
She spends another moment thinking. "Will you have to go to work for him? The bad men who stole me away said you owed your boss money, so you had to work for him and that you were no better than them."
"Bloody mouthy bastards," Rush mutters. "The truth is…" he stops, looks at her, and starts again "I did have to go to work for a bad person, so I could get you the treatments you need, Eliza. That's a true thing a lot of people probably think I ought not to tell you. But I think you can understand, can't you? I tried not to do bad things, but…"
I cut in. "Eliza, when you become a grown-up, things get very complicated. Sometimes it's not always very easy to know what's good and what's bad when you're a grown-up. And sometimes, good and bad get so tangled up that they're all one thing."
"So he had to do bad things for a good reason?" she asks.
I nod. "Yes."
“Like telling a fib, but only so you don't hurt someone’s feelings?"
"Sort of, yes," I say.
She nods, her expression gravely serious. "Daddy, I don't want you to do any more bad things, not even for a good reason."
"I'm trying, sweetheart."
"If Mr. Valentine is going to help me get my special treatment, does that mean you can do work that's only good?"
I reach across him and rest my hand on hers. "Sweetheart, you have my promise that your daddy will be the best good guy there's ever been from now on."
Rush's look, when he meets my eyes, is skeptical.
Eliza holds my gaze for a long time and then nods. "Okay." She scrutinizes Rush's face for a moment and then scrambles off the bed. "It's time for you to rest, Daddy."
This gets a chorus of laughter from all of us.
Rush, still chuckling, snags her hand so she can't escape yet. "Oh? Is that so? Do you say so, Dr. Eliza?"
