Too Late, My Ex-Wife: Her Regret After Our Daughter's Death

Chapter 4: Nonchalant Mother

Nathan's POV:

"Stay with me," I told her. "We're almost there. Just stay with me, okay?"

She didn't answer. I'd pushed my seat as far back as it would go so I could keep one hand on her the whole way. 

Her head was against the window, her eyes closed, and I kept talking anyway because silence felt like the wrong choice.

"Five minutes," I said. "Less than five minutes."

I parked badly and didn't care.

Inside, I was already moving before the car had fully stopped. 

Someone at the desk looked up and I said, "She collapsed, she has Progressive Myelin Decay Syndrome, please," and after that everything moved the way hospitals move when a child comes through the doors not conscious.

They took her from me at the double doors.

"Sir, you need to wait here."

"She's seven years old."

"I understand. We'll take care of her. Please wait here."

I stood on the wrong side of those doors and didn't move for a long time.

I took my phone out twice to call Vivienne. Both times I put it back.

She wouldn't come. And right now, I couldn't afford to feel what that meant.

~.~

Dr. Reyes came out forty minutes later. "Her condition has worsened," she said in a steady voice. "The collapse was caused by severe emotional distress. Her body isn't handling that kind of stress well on top of everything else."

"Is she awake?"

"Not yet. She's stable. But Mr. Cole, her emotions cannot be destabilized again. Another episode like this morning could be immediately life-threatening."

"What does that mean practically?"

"She needs calm and consistency. She needs to feel safe."

I thought about Lily standing in the hallway in her yellow dress, watching her mother walk out the door.

"I'll take care of it," I said.

Dr. Reyes nodded and went back through the doors.

The guilt didn't arrive loud. It just settled. Quietly. Like it had been there a while already and was only now making itself comfortable.

I got up and walked to the water machine at the end of the corridor.

~.~

I heard her before I saw her.

Her laugh. Low, unguarded. Coming from around the corner near the window.

I turned and stopped.

Roman had her hand. Fingers laced through hers. 

Vivienne leaning slightly toward him the way you lean toward someone when you've forgotten to keep the distance. 

He said something I didn't catch and she laughed again, and he pulled her gently closer, and she went still for just a second before she stopped resisting.

I walked toward them.

Vivienne saw me first. Her hand slipped out of Roman's half a second too late, and her expression had already done the thing it did. Defenses up before I'd said a word.

"Nathan." Cold. "What are you doing here."

"Our daughter is thirty meters that way," I said. "What are you doing here."

"I told you this morning. Roman's son needed help."

Roman turned toward me, calm and reasonable, the performance of a man who had never once been the problem in any room. 

"Nathan. My son has a stomach condition. This morning it got severe and I panicked. I called Vivienne because I didn't know who else to reach out to. I'm sorry for the disruption." As usual, a decent guy's acting is on.

"He followed me here," Vivienne said to Roman, like I wasn't standing right there. "I told you he'd do this."

"I didn't follow you," I said. "Lily collapsed this morning after you left. The doctor said her condition worsened from emotional distress, and another episode could kill her. I've been here for the past hour. I came out for water."

"She was fine when I left."

"She was not fine. She was standing in the hallway trying not to cry because her mother chose someone else's child over her."

"Don't do that."

"Do what."

"That thing where everything becomes about what a terrible person I am. She was laughing at breakfast. Children don't collapse because their mother had somewhere to be."

"Come to the ward, then," I said. "Right now. Thirty meters. If I'm lying, it takes sixty seconds to find out."

A door opened further down the hall. A nurse came out with a small boy holding a juice box, looking like someone who'd had a very comfortable morning in hospital. He spotted Vivienne and ran.

"Viv!"

She caught him without hesitating. Crouched down, checked his face with both hands, pushed his hair back. "Hey. Look at me. How are you feeling."

"My tummy feels better," he said proudly.

"Yeah?" She smiled. "You gave us a scare."

She pulled him in and he hugged her back comfortably, the way you hug someone you've hugged a hundred times before.

Roman appeared beside her, and a doctor passing by smiled at the three of them, the automatic warm smile people give young families.

I was close enough to touch any of them.

Nobody looked at me.

The nurse came out with a folder. "We'll schedule the follow-up for next week. Mom, I'll send the dietary notes to the number on file."

Vivienne opened her mouth.

Roman put his arm around her. "Thank you so much for looking after him," he said, warm and easy. The nurse smiled and went back inside.

Vivienne stood under his arm a moment. Then she stepped to the side and looked at me.

"I'll come see Lily before I leave," she said.

"She's lying in a ward thirty meters away," I said. "She collapsed this morning. It could happen again, and next time it could kill her. And you're out here playing happy family with another man's child."

"Don't make this disgusting."

"I'm describing what's in front of me."

"You're jealous, and you're using our daughter to punish me for it."

"Come look at her, then," I said. "Come into that room and look at your daughter and tell me to my face I'm lying."

Roman's son tugged her sleeve. "Can we get lunch? I'm hungry."

Vivienne looked down at him. Then back at me.

"Twenty minutes," she said. "Then I'll come."

"She's spent seven years waiting on your schedule," I said. "She's done waiting."

Vivienne's eyes went cold. "Twenty minutes, Nathan. I already said that."

She turned and walked back with Roman's son at her side, and the door closed.

Is Roman's son more important than Lily to her? 

Which mother can stay calm after hearing such news about her own daughter!?

How can she be such a nonchalant mother?