The Longest Walk Home
The automatic doors of the Oak Creek Memorial Hospital slid open with a cheerful woosh, a sound that contrasted sharply with the scene that unfolded in the lobby. It was a Tuesday afternoon, typically a slow time for the ER, but the silence that descended upon the waiting room was heavy and immediate.
Brenda, the triage nurse, looked up from her computer screen, her coffee cup halfway to her mouth. She blinked, sure that her eyes were playing tricks on her.
Standing in the entryway was a child. She couldn’t have been more than seven years old. Her blonde hair was matted with dirt and leaves, her face smeared with grime and dried tears. She was wearing a tattered oversized t-shirt that hung to her knees, but it was her feet that made Brenda gasp. They were bare, swollen, and caked in dried blood.
But the girl wasn’t alone. Her small, trembling hands were gripping the rusty handles of an old, heavy metal wheelbarrow.
“Help,” the girl croaked. Her voice was like sandpaper, broken and dry. “My little siblings won’t wake up.”
Brenda vaulted over the desk, ignoring protocol. “I need a gurney! Now!” she screamed toward the back, her voice cracking with panic.
She reached the girl just as the child’s knees buckled. Brenda caught her, but the girl’s grip on the wheelbarrow didn’t loosen. “No, no,” the girl whimpered, trying to push Brenda away. “The babies. Check the babies first.”
Brenda looked into the wheelbarrow. Wrapped in a yellowish, stained sheet were two bundles. They were tiny. Newborns. And they were terrifyingly still.
“Code Blue! Pediatric!” Brenda yelled, scooping up the bundles. They were light, too light. Their skin was mottled and cool to the touch.
As the trauma team swarmed the lobby, taking the infants and rushing them behind the double doors, Brenda turned her attention back to the girl. She lifted the child, who felt as fragile as a bird, and carried her to a trauma bay.
“What is your name, honey?” Brenda asked, grabbing a saline bag and starting to clean the girl’s shredded feet.
“Lily,” the girl whispered. She was staring at the door where her siblings had disappeared. “Are they okay? Mom said I had to save them.”
” The doctors are doing everything they can,” Brenda said, her heart hammering against her ribs. “Lily, where is your mommy? Is she parking the car?”
Lily looked at Brenda with eyes that seemed too old for her face. They were a piercing, distinctive shade of violet-blue. “No car. We walked.”
“You walked?” Brenda paused, the washcloth hovering over a deep cut on Lily’s heel. “From where?”
“The cabin. By the old lumber trail.”
Brenda froze. The old lumber trail was near the foothills. That was ten miles away. Ten miles of gravel, roots, and steep inclines. This child had pushed a metal wheelbarrow ten miles, barefoot, with two newborns inside.
“Where is your mommy now, Lily?” Brenda asked softly, though a cold dread was settling in her stomach.
Lily looked down at her hands, which were covered in blisters. “I don’t know. My mommy has been sleeping for three days.”
The room went silent. The resident doctor, Dr. Evans, stopped checking Lily’s lungs.
“Sleeping?” Dr. Evans asked gently.
Lily nodded, a single tear cutting a clean track through the dirt on her cheek. “She laid down on the floor after the babies came out. She said she was just going to rest her eyes. But she didn’t get up to feed them. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t open her eyes anymore. And the babies stopped crying yesterday.”
Brenda felt a lump form in her throat so big she couldn’t swallow. She looked at Dr. Evans. They both knew.
“I tried to wake her,” Lily sobbed, her composure finally breaking. “I shook her and poured water on her face, but she was so cold. Like the floor. And the babies got quiet. So I put them in the wagon. Mom said if anything ever happened, come to the building with the red cross. I walked fast. I promise I walked fast.”
“You did good, baby,” Brenda whispered, pulling the sobbing child into a hug, not caring about the dirt on her scrubs. “You did so good.”
The Discovery
While the medical team worked miracles to stabilize the severely dehydrated and hypothermic twins, the police were dispatched to the address Lily had managed to describe.
Sheriff Miller was a man who had seen everything in twenty years of law enforcement, or so he thought. He drove his cruiser up the overgrown, rutted track deep in the woods. The cabin was little more than a shack, plywood peeling, isolated from the world.
He kicked the door open, gun drawn, but quickly holstered it. The smell hit him first. The undeniable scent of death.
On a mattress on the floor lay a woman. She was young, perhaps late twenties, emaciated and pale. She had evidently died from complications of childbirth, alone in the middle of nowhere, with only a seven-year-old to watch.
The Sheriff took off his hat, bowing his head for a moment. “Clear,” he radioed in, his voice gruff. “Coroner needed.”
He began to look around the sparse room. There was no food in the cupboards. No electricity. But in the corner, tucked under a loose floorboard that seemed to have been recently disturbed, was a metal lockbox.
Miller put on latex gloves and pried it open. Inside were stacks of cash—about two thousand dollars—and a leather-bound journal. He opened the journal. The handwriting was elegant, frantic near the end.
“If you are reading this, I am gone. Please, save my children. Lily is strong, but she is just a child. The twins… they are innocent.”
He flipped through the pages until he found a photograph clipped to the back cover. It was a picture of the woman, looking healthier and happier, standing next to a man in a tuxedo. They were laughing, holding champagne glasses. The man was handsome, with sharp features and piercing eyes.
Miller squinted. He knew that face. Everyone in the state knew that face.
He turned the photo over. In scribbled ink, it read: “Julian and me, New Year’s Eve, 2018. He doesn’t know about Lily. He doesn’t know about any of them. He thinks I took the money and left to hurt him. I left to save him from his father.”
Miller’s jaw dropped.
“Julian,” he muttered. “Julian Thorne.”
Julian Thorne was the CEO of Thorne Tech, the largest employer in the city. A billionaire. A man known for his ruthless business tactics, his cold demeanor, and his immense, isolated wealth. He was the most powerful man in the region.
And apparently, he was the father of the three starving children currently fighting for their lives at Oak Creek Memorial.
The Tycoon
Julian Thorne was in the middle of a board meeting when his assistant, Marcus, interrupted him. Julian frowned, his grey eyes narrowing. He hated interruptions.
“This better be good, Marcus,” Julian said, his voice smooth and dangerous.
“It’s the Sheriff, sir. And a representative from Child Protective Services. They are in the lobby. They say it’s urgent and personal.”
Julian checked his watch. “I don’t have personal matters.”
“They said to mention the name ‘Sarah Jenkins’,” Marcus whispered.
Julian felt the blood drain from his face. The pen in his hand snapped. The room went silent. Sarah. The only woman he had ever loved. The woman who had vanished seven years ago with a significant amount of cash from his safe, leaving only a note saying she never loved him. It had turned his heart to stone.
“Send them in,” Julian said, standing up and buttoning his suit jacket. He dismissed the board members with a wave of his hand.
When Sheriff Miller laid the photograph and the journal on the mahogany conference table, Julian didn’t touch them. He stared at the photo.
“She’s dead, Mr. Thorne,” Miller said bluntly. “Died three days ago giving birth to twins. In a shack in the woods.”
Julian flinched as if he’d been slapped. “Dead?”
“Yes. Her seven-year-old daughter pushed the newborns ten miles to the hospital in a wheelbarrow.”
“Daughter?” Julian looked up, his eyes wild. “Sarah didn’t have a daughter when she left.”
“The girl is seven, Mr. Thorne. Do the math,” Miller said. “Her name is Lily. She has your eyes.”
Julian sank into his leather chair. “She stole from me. She ran away.”
“Read the journal,” the CPS worker, a stern woman named Ms. Halloway, said. “She didn’t steal. She ran because your father threatened to kill her and the unborn baby if she didn’t leave you. She took the payoff to keep you safe and to keep the baby safe. She lived in poverty to protect you.”
Julian reached out with a trembling hand and opened the journal. He read the entry dated seven years ago. “His father came again. He said Julian has a destiny, and a waitress isn’t part of it. He showed me the gun. I have to go. I can’t tell Julian. He would fight him, and he would lose. I love him enough to break his heart.”
A guttural sound escaped Julian’s throat. A mix of a sob and a roar. His father. His controlling, manipulative father who had died two years ago. He had orchestrated it all.
“Where are they?” Julian stood up, the chair toppling over behind him.
“The hospital,” Ms. Halloway said. “But Mr. Thorne, you can’t just waltz in there and take them. You have no legal rights currently. You are a stranger to them. And frankly, we need to assess if you are fit.”
“Fit?” Julian’s eyes blazed. “I can buy the hospital.”
“Children don’t need a hospital owner,” Ms. Halloway said bravely. “They need a father. And we are going to test if you can be one.”
The Test
The “test” wasn’t a formal exam. It was something Ms. Halloway arranged. She allowed Julian to visit the hospital, but he was not allowed to reveal his identity to Lily. He was to be introduced as a “volunteer” helping with the case.
“She is traumatized, Mr. Thorne,” Halloway warned him outside the hospital room. “She thinks men are dangerous. She’s never met one, really. If you go in there acting like a CEO, she will shut down. You need to be human.”
Julian took off his expensive tie. He unbuttoned his collar. He rolled up his sleeves. He felt more nervous than he had before his IPO launch.
He walked into the room.
Lily was sitting up in the bed, looking tiny against the white pillows. Her feet were bandaged. She was watching cartoons, but her eyes were vacant.
“Hi, Lily,” Julian said softly.
She looked at him. Julian felt his breath hitch. It was like looking in a mirror, but seeing Sarah’s softness around the edges. She had his violet-blue eyes.
“Who are you?” she asked, clutching a stuffed bear Brenda had given her.
“I’m… I’m a friend of the hospital,” Julian lied, his voice shaking. “I heard you were very brave.”
Lily looked down. “I just wanted my brother and sister to be okay.”
“They are,” Julian said, stepping closer. “They are in the incubator. They are warm and full of milk.”
“Mommy isn’t okay though,” Lily said matter-of-factly. “She’s gone.”
“I know,” Julian said. He sat in the chair beside the bed. “I’m so sorry.”
“She told me about my daddy once,” Lily said suddenly, looking at Julian.
Julian froze. “She did? What did she say?”
“She said he was a King,” Lily said. “And that he lived in a castle of glass. She said he was the smartest man in the world, but he was sad. She said she had to leave so he could stay the King.”
Julian felt tears prick his eyes. “Did she say his name?”
“No,” Lily shook her head. “But she said he liked peppermint candy. Mom always kept peppermint in the jar, just in case he found us.”
Julian reached into his pocket. He always carried peppermint mints. It was a habit he had since childhood. He pulled one out.
“Like this?” he asked, holding it out.
Lily’s eyes widened. She reached out and took the mint. “Are you a King too?”
“No,” Julian choked out. “I’m just a man who made a lot of mistakes.”
Suddenly, the door opened. A doctor came in, looking grim. “Ms. Halloway, can I speak to you? It’s about the twins. The boy… his lungs are struggling. We might need to transfer him to a specialist unit in Seattle, but the insurance…”
“I’ll pay for it,” Julian barked, standing up instantly, the “volunteer” persona vanishing. “Get the helicopter. Get the best specialists. I don’t care what it costs.”
Lily shrank back, scared by his sudden volume.
Julian saw her fear. He stopped. He took a deep breath. He knelt down beside the bed, bringing himself to her eye level.
“Lily,” he said softly. “I’m going to make sure your brother is okay. I promise. I can help.”
“Why?” Lily asked. “Why do you want to help us?”
Ms. Halloway watched from the doorway, her arms crossed. This was the test.
Julian looked at the little girl. He could have said because I’m your father. He could have said because I’m rich.
Instead, he said, “Because your mother saved me once. And I didn’t get to thank her. So I’m going to spend the rest of my life thanking you.”
Lily studied his face. Slowly, she reached out and touched his hand. “You have sad eyes,” she whispered. “Just like Mom said.”
The Reunion
The DNA test was a formality. The results came back a 99.999% match for all three children.
The legal battle was short, mostly because Julian Thorne had the best lawyers on the planet, but also because he followed Ms. Halloway’s rules. He attended parenting classes. He went to grief counseling. He visited the twins in the NICU every single day for two months, sitting in a rocking chair, holding them against his chest, reading them business reports because he didn’t know any children’s stories yet.
But the hardest part was Lily.
She was discharged before the twins. Julian took her to his “glass castle”—a penthouse overlooking the city.
She hated it. It was cold, sharp, and empty.
“It’s too big,” she told him on the first night, standing in her massive, professionally decorated bedroom. “I can’t hear you breathe.”
“You want to hear me breathe?” Julian asked, puzzled.
“In the cabin, we all slept in one room,” Lily said. “If I can’t hear you, how do I know you didn’t go to sleep like Mommy?”
Julian’s heart broke all over again.
That night, the billionaire Julian Thorne dragged a mattress into the hallway outside Lily’s door. He slept there, on the floor, so she could see him if she opened her door.
The next day, he sold the penthouse.
He bought a large, warm farmhouse on the outskirts of the city. He filled it with soft furniture, color, and dogs. He hired Nurse Brenda as a private nanny because she was the only one Lily trusted.
Six months later, the twins, named Sarah (after her mother) and Jack, were home.
The “challenge” the universe had thrown at Julian wasn’t finding the kids; it was becoming the father they deserved.
One evening, Julian was sitting on the porch of the farmhouse. Lily was playing in the grass with the dogs. She was laughing—a sound that had taken months to coax out of her.
She ran up to him, breathless. Her feet were healed, clad in bright pink sneakers.
“Daddy?” she asked.
It was the first time she had called him that. She had called him “Julian” for months.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Can we plant a garden? Mom liked tulips.”
Julian smiled. He picked her up and set her on his knee. “We can plant a million tulips. We can fill the whole yard.”
“Okay,” she hugged him. “But only if you help. No watching.”
“I’ll help,” Julian promised. “I’m done watching.”
THE END
