A Tough Girl

Ivy was moved to a room shared with two other patients in medically-induced comas. She looked so frail lying there, deathly white save for the dark circles under her eyes with her white blonde hair fanned out on the pillow.

Kendra's eyes filled with tears. Her brave, beautiful girl was lying there in pain from something no one could see.

She could remember the day Ivy was born. She was the most beautiful thing in the world, all red and wrinkly and hairless. Her cry was much louder than Ethan's would be later but that didn't matter to her. She had the most perfect baby girl in the whole world.

Ivy grew up to be a cranky but cherubic-looking toddler with tiny blonde pigtails tied up in bows. She was curious about how everything worked at home but any time they were in public she would scream and throw herself on the ground.