The Day I Stopped Being Mr Nice Guy

CHAPTER 7

The ICU was like a hall of humming machines and beeping noises that sounded judgmental. In the middle of it all, enclosed inside the clear shell of a medical pod, lay Daisy. She was so small, so pale that she seem to be fading into the sterile white sheets. The only signs of life from her, were the faint ghostly mist of her breath, fogging the glass, and the bent, weak line that is tracing a path across the heart monitor. Each soft, mechanical hiss was like a countdown.

Dante stood, towering over her, with his hands pressed against the pod’s cold surface as if he could transfer his own warmth, his own life force, through the glass. A silent cry of self blame echoed consistently in his skull, and it was so loud that he was surprised the glass did not crack. ‘This is my fault. I left her side. I failed her.’

The doors swung open suddenly and Doctor Alice strode in, looking furious, which is so unlike her usual calm, professional demeanor. She did not look at him, instead, she ignored his presence totally and moved to check the pod’s readings.

“D—Doctor Alice,” Dante began, his voice cracked from lack of use. “The Diathystine…is it…?”

She swirled around and finally landed her blazing red eyes on him. “What kind of parent are you?” She asked coldly, her body shaking with a barely controlled fury. The words weren’t a question, it sounded like a direct accusation, so sharp like a butcher’s blade.

Dante flinched and stammered, “What?”

“Your child is fighting for her last breath, and you have the audacity to send her medicine to someone else?” She hissed angrily. Her voice trembled with the effort to keep it down to the expected decorum of the ICU. “In your eyes, what is this child to you? A bargaining chip? Just an inconvenience?”

He felt his heart beat faster as his brain worked overtime in trying to understand what he had just heard. After what it felt like a minute, he spluttered, “I…I never gave it to anyone else! That is impossible! The moment I received it, I handed it to the front desk nurse. I told her to bring it directly to you! That drug is her life! How could I possibly hand it to anyone else?”

Doctor Alice threw her head and laughed humorlessly, then she replied coldly, “Oh…that is easy for you to say now.” Then, she turned back to the pod and jabbed at the control panel and continued, “I had just logged in the medication, was in the process of preparing the administration kit, when her mother suddenly barge in. Not alone. She came with a group of bodyguards and henchmen and snatched the vial right out of my hands. Her body guards filled the hallway outside my office like they were collecting a debt.” Her composure finally broke as she cried out, “In my twenty-five years of practice, I have never been so humiliated.”

She turned back to him and pointed a trembling finger at him, then at the small form inside the pod. Her voice cracked. “It is one thing for me to be insulted! But this child…she is only five! Don’t you want to save her? Are you even human?” She paused to wipe the angry tears welling up in her eyes. “She is the sweetest kid. Every time she suffers, she bites it back, she never cried, never complains, so scared of being a trouble to anyone. And you…you decided to be so cruel as to deny her her one chance to live? To see this world? That man’s boy downstairs just scraped his hand! Since when does a scratch deserve a miracle drug like Diathystine?”

Dante’s vision turned pitch black, as his mind reeled, trying to process the unimaginable, the unthinkable. Clara. The woman he had loved, the mother of his child, had arranged a raid to rob their daughter of her only hope. This was not just neglect anymore. It was deliberate. It was cold blooded.

“She…she couldn’t have,” he stammered as his hands began to shake uncontrollably.

“She did,” Dr. Alice stated blankly, with her shoulders slumped in disappointment as she adjusted a dial on the pod.

“Is there…is there still time?” Dante whispered desperately, “to formulate another dose. We will do it quickly.”

Doctor Alice shook her head without looking at him, instead she fixed her gaze on the unmoving child and said with her voice thick with despair. “It is too late. The toxin has already damaged seventy percent of her brain tissue. The Diathystine can’t reverse that. It is like trying to water a dead plant.”

She finally looked at him, with her expression a mixture of pity and fury, and whispered coldly, “If only you had protected her sooner.” With a final, heavy sigh, she turned and left him alone in absolute silence.

The words came crushing heavily on his shoulders. A vegetable. His world did not just collapse, it froze, shattering into a million icy pieces. He slumped against the pod and rested his forehead dejectedly on the cold glass. From now on, his daughter would lie here, trapped in this silent prison, never again to call him “Daddy,” never to smile her gentle smile. A raw anguished cry came up from his chest, a cry so heavy and hoarse that it weakened him instantly.

BRRRRRING! BRRRING!

The piercing sound of his phone was a sudden distraction and he pulled it from his pocket with his vision blurred with tears. CLARA. Not in the mood to talk or argue, he rejected the call.

But it rang again. And again, like a relentless, furious attack.

When it rang the fourth time, he slid his numb fingers across the screen and answered it. Immediately, her voice exploded through the speaker, sharp and demanding. “Where are you? I need you downstairs, now! Jasper needs a blood donation and you are a match. So, get down here immediately!”

Dante felt a hysterical laugh gather in his chest, but killed it instantly before it could escape. With his resolve utterly defeated, he whispered bitterly, “Wasn’t the Diathystine….enough for that tiny scratch?”

“Please stop being so petty, Dante!” She snapped impatiently. “It was just one dose for Christ sake! What is the harm if Jasper needs it? Why are both of you so damn fragile? Skipping one dose and suddenly it is life and death?”

The agony was unbearable. He had to make her understand. He took a deep breath and replied croakily, “Clara…haven’t you….talked to Doctor Alice? Our daughter, right now, she is—”

She cut him off angrily, her voice sharp like a whip. “She’s got doctors and nurses fawning all over her, what could possibly happen? You have spoiled her into being so much trouble! Quit the fuss and get down here! Jasper is waiting!”

Then something snapped in Dante…the last thread of restraint, of hope, of the man he used to be…shattered into a million pieces.

“Shut up,” he commanded suddenly, his voice dangerously quiet.

The line paused for a moment. Then….”What did you just say to me?”

“I said, shut up.” he gritted out furiously, with the words clearer now. “And we are getting a divorce.”

The line went dead silent for three full seconds. Then, her rage bursted from the speakers in a piercing shriek that he had to hold the phone away from his ears. “WHAT DID YOU SAY? SAY THAT AGAIN IF YOU DARE, YOU USELESS—”

He brought the phone back to his ear and dragged each word with a absolute, final clarity.

“We. Are. Divorced.”

He ended the call and dropped the phone unceremoniously to the ground. Then, he turned back to the cold, silent pod, feeling like a father mourning a daughter who was still breathing.