One Night Stand, Eight Surprises: Pampered by My CEO Husband --- - Chapter 177: Chapter 177

The invitation was simple.
One week. Northern Kenya. Mobile clinic. Limited beds, unpredictable power, and a rotating team of aid workers.
Arielle had done missions like these dozens of times. But this time, when she asked for a volunteer from home to join, only one hand went up.
Ava’s.
She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t ask for packing lists or Wi-Fi availability.
Just said, “Yes. I want to see what you see.”
They arrived in blistering heat, the smell of dust and cumin thick in the air.
The clinic was a tent lined with mismatched cots. A chalkboard listed names and symptoms. A translator shuffled between dialects.
Ava stood still for a long time, wide-eyed.
“This isn’t a project,” Arielle warned. “This is their life. You meet them there. Or you don’t meet them at all.”
Ava nodded. “I understand.”
But she didn’t.
Not yet.
On the second day, Ava fainted while assisting with wound care.
She came to on a cot, mortified.
“I’m not cut out for this,” she whispered.
Arielle handed her water. “You’re cut out for what you choose to face again.”
And Ava did.
By the fourth day, she was organizing medication, comforting children, helping rehydrate elders, and staying late to log patient notes.
One child clung to her shirt as they stitched a gash in his leg.
“Will she come back?” the boy asked.
Arielle’s voice caught. “If she says she will, then yes.”
That night, under a lantern glow, Ava couldn’t sleep.
“Why did you never make us come here before?” she asked.
“Because I wanted you to choose it. You don’t build a servant’s heart by force.”
Ava sat up. “I think... I want to do this. Long term.”
Arielle looked at her, truly looked, and saw something shift.
Not her daughter pretending.
Her daughter becoming.
On the last day, an emergency hit.
A nomadic woman in labor. Twins. Breech position. Two hours from the nearest hospital.
Ava steadied Arielle’s hands, held the flashlight, whispered Swahili phrases she’d practiced all week.
They worked in silence broken only by the labored breaths of life being born.
When it was over, the woman sobbed.
Ava did too.
On the flight home, Ava stared out the window.
“I thought I wanted glamour. Spotlights. Art.”
“You still can,” Arielle said.
“But this… this made me feel needed.”
Arielle smiled softly. “You don’t have to choose one way to matter.”
Ava reached for her mother’s hand.
“Thank you for showing me what love looks like with your sleeves rolled up.”
Back home, Ava changed her major. Applied to a fellowship. Started teaching a course in first aid at the local community center.
She didn’t become Arielle.
She became something else.
A healer with her own rhythm.
And a heart that pulsed to the drum of distant villages.
A heart that had seen her mother not just as a parent...
But as a mentor.
And a mirror.
Of the woman she was growing into.