Don’t Beg For My Return

CHPT 6

Clara’s knees buckled, and she hit the edge of the counter, her hands gripping the cold metal to keep from falling.

"Where is he?" Clara gasped, her voice cracking as fresh tears burned her eyes. "Where is my husband? Where did he take Mia?"

Dr. Evans looked down at her with cold indifference, not moving a single inch to help her up.

"Mr. Vance discharged the child at sunrise," Dr. Evans said flatly. "A team of senior attorneys came with him."

"Discharged?" Clara cried, grabbing the doctor's white coat. "She was dying last night! You can't just let him walk out with her!"

"Her condition was stabilized by the emergency blood transport," Dr. Evans replied, pulling his coat away from her fingers. "Her father transferred her to a top private recovery center."

"Tell me which center!" Clara begged, sobbing openly in front of the nurses. "I am her mother! I have the legal right to see my daughter!"

"You have no rights here, Director Bennett," Dr. Evans said coldly.

He pulled a folded legal document from the intake clipboard and held it in front of her face.

"Mr. Vance’s legal counsel filed an emergency protective notice this morning," the doctor stated. "Under city family welfare laws, you are officially barred from accessing Mia Vance’s medical files or approaching her bedside."

"Barred?" Clara whispered, her breath hitching in her throat as the word tore through her chest. "He barred me?"

"You abandoned a dying child to attend a corporate banquet," Dr. Evans said, turning his back on her. "If you try to cause trouble in this hospital, security will escort you out in handcuffs."

Clara stumbled backward, clutching her chest as if she had been stabbed.

She turned around and ran blindly toward the hospital exit, her heels skidding across the slick tile floor.

Outside, a heavy autumn rain had begun to fall, soaking through her clothes the moment she pushed through the glass doors.

She threw herself into her car, slammed the door shut, and gripped the steering wheel with shaking hands.

"He couldn't have gone far," Clara whispered frantically to herself, wiping the wet hair from her face. "He has no money. He has nowhere to take her."

She stepped hard on the gas pedal, the car speeding out of the hospital parking lot into the gray storm.

She drove straight to Marcus’s old university laboratory on the east side of the city.

She ran up three flights of stairs to find his former professor, but the elderly man only frowned at her in confusion.

"Marcus?" the professor asked, adjusting his glasses. "I haven't heard from him in five years, Director Bennett. He gave up his research career the day he married you."

Clara hurried back down to the car, her chest tightening with suffocating dread.

She drove across town to the south side, searching for the low-rent apartments where Marcus’s distant cousins used to live.

When she knocked on the rusted iron door, an old woman answered, shaking her head with annoyance.

"Those people moved out two years ago," the woman said before slamming the door shut.

Clara stood on the damp landing, the rain dripping from the concrete ceiling onto her shoulders.

A terrifying realization hit her with brutal force.

For five years, Marcus had existed only for her and Mia.

He had no friends in the city, no weekend trips, and no private savings account.

He had spent five entire years standing behind her, keeping her life running while she treated him like furniture in her own house.

Now that he had stepped away, there was no trace of him left in the world.

Clara got back behind the wheel, her hands trembling so violently she could barely turn the ignition key.

She drove aimlessly through the coastal rain for hours, checking every clinic and pharmacy she passed on the road.

***

Late that afternoon, as the sky turned a dark, bruised purple, she took the harbor expressway.

Near the southern pier, a modern, three-story pediatric rehabilitation center sat behind a row of quiet pine trees.

Parked beside the clinic's glass entrance was a plain black medical crossover.

Clara slammed on the brakes, her tires screeching against the wet asphalt as she pulled onto the curb.

Through the tinted glass doors of the lobby, a tall silhouette caught her eye.

It was Marcus.

He was walking slowly toward the exit, carrying Mia in his arms.

The little girl was wrapped in a thick cashmere blanket, her pale cheek resting peacefully against his shoulder.

Her tiny hands were curled tightly around Marcus’s dark collar, safe and warm against his chest.

"Mia!" Clara cried out, throwing her car door open.

She sprinted across the flooded sidewalk, her designer heels splashing through cold puddles, not caring that the freezing rain was ruining her clothes.

"Marcus! Wait! Please wait!" Clara screamed, her voice cracking as she pushed through the heavy glass doors into the warm lobby.

The sound of her frantic shouting echoed off the marble walls.

Marcus stopped in his tracks, turning his head slowly toward the doorway.

Mia flinched violently at the sound of Clara's voice, her small body trembling under the blanket.

The little girl buried her face deep into Marcus’s neck, her voice shaking with genuine fear.

"Daddy..." Mia whispered, clutching his coat tighter. "Is she going to yell at us again? Please don't let her be angry with me."