A Reborn Bride Pearl Emerging from Dust

Calliope stared at Zelda in disbelief. "You think I'm heartless?"

She'd just spent hours in surgery saving Horatio's legs-hours of grueling work, most of it done herself. Sure, others helped, but she was the one who pulled it all together. Horatio's condition had been dire; fixing it took everything she had.

And now, she was supposed to keep up daily treatments for him, needlework and all that jazz.

Yet here was Zelda, accusing her of being heartless.

Heartless? They'd barely done anything for her all these years! How in the world was she the one who is heartless?

Calliope looked at Zelda, caught between exasperation and amusement. The irony was almost funny. Zelda didn't even know the truth: Calliope wasn't her real daughter. Her own child had died a long time ago.

"Calliope, you're staying tonight to look after Horatio!" Zelda snapped, barking the order like a drill sergeant.

Calliope blinked. She glanced at Monty, hoping for backup.

Monty looked uncomfortable. He shifted from foot to foot, then nodded at Zelda. "Well, Callie, you do know medicine, and you did the surgery. You probably understand best how to take care of him. He's your brother, after all. Wouldn't it make sense for you to help out? Maybe you should stay with him tonight," he added, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world.

Calliope stared, shocked. Was nobody going to say this was out of line?

She looked to Valerian. He hesitated, looking around at the others and then at Calliope, as if weighing his options before finally shrugging. "Callie, might as well see it through, right? You already did the hard part. Taking care of him for a bit shouldn't be a problem."

Lisette piped up, "Callie, Horatio was so good to you when you were kids! You know more about all this stuff than we do. You'll do a much better job!"

One by one, the entire family turned to look at Calliope, like it was the obvious solution.

Even the young nurse who'd come in to swap out the IV looked on in

shock. How shameless could people be? The Miracle Doctor had just

She

finished a marathon surgery. should be resting, not being guift-tripped into playing nursemaid! Seriously, was there no limit to how far this family would go?

The nurse couldn't help herself. "Excuse me, but Dr. Calliope is exhausted. She really needs rest after a surgery like that. Maybe you don't know, but surgery is incredibly draining, both mentally and O physically!"

Zelda glared at her. "And who asked you? I don't remember inviting you to lecture me! She can rest right here, can't she? Watching over her own brother at the

same time! What's so hard about that?"

Zelda's words were sharp as broken glass. The nurse turned red, tears pooling innoveldrama

her eyes, completely at a loss for how to respond.

Calliope gave the nurse a gentle smile. "It's okay. You can go now," she said softly, reassuring her.

The nurse, cheeks burning and eyes rimmed with tears, hurried out of the room.

"Nosy busybody," Zelda muttered under her breath.

Before Calliope could say anything, Zelda went on, "You did the surgery, so you should handle the aftercare If you refuse, are you saying you botched the job? Or just trying to dump the responsibility on us, so if something goes wrong, you can blame us?"

"Either way, you're in charge. Rehab, everything. You did the operation, you handle the rest."

Zelda didn't leave any room for discussion.

Calliope let out a breathless laugh. It was almost impressive, how outrageous this all was.