CHAPTER 3

The hospital corridor was a blur of white and beige, a numb haze I was moving through. I had to sign some papers. Release her records. Make it official. Make my daughter’s death a administrative fact.

As I turned a corner, the world became more painfully stark.

There they were. Lanc, Stella, and Jenny, huddled outside a private room. Jenny was the perfect example of a weak recovery, appearing thin and pale in a hospital gown. The recovery made possible by my daughter’s stolen chance.

My feet stopped moving. My blood turned to ice. They hadn’t seen me yet.

Stella’s voice, a syrupy simper, carried down the hall. “The doctor says the transplant took perfectly, my love. It’s a miracle.”

A miracle built on a grave, I thought, my hands curling into fists at my sides.

It was then that Jenny spotted me. Her eyes, far too knowing for a child, widened. Not with fear, but with a calculated glee. She let out a tiny, theatrical gasp and clutched at Stella’s arm.

“Mommy!” she whimpered, her voice pitching high. “The scary lady is here!”

Stella’s head snapped up. In a flash, she moved, placing her body between Jenny and me in a grand, protective gesture. “Stay away from her!” she cried out, her voice echoing dramatically in the hallway. “Haven’t you done enough?”

Lanc turned, and his face contorted from concern into instant, furious contempt. He stepped in front of them both, a human shield for his new, improved family.

“Gwen,” he snarled, his voice low and dangerous. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you following us now? Are you that unhinged?”

I couldn’t even form words. The audacity, the sheer performance of it all, stole the air from my lungs.

Jenny peeked out from behind Lanc’s tailored suit jacket, her lower lip trembling in a perfect imitation of distress. “I’m sorry, Uncle Lanc,” she whispered, her voice dripping with fake tears. “I didn’t mean to make the lady angry. I know she doesn’t like me since… since I broke Angela’s toy.”

The memory hit me like a physical blow. Angela’s favorite music box, a tiny ballerina that spun to a tinkling tune. Found shattered in Jenny’s room. Jenny, with those same fake tears, had claimed Angela broke it in a fit of jealousy. 

Lanc had flown into a rage. 

He’d made Angela stand outside on the balcony for hours in the freezing rain as punishment, refusing to listen to her desperate, sobbing pleas that she’d never touched it. She’d come down with pneumonia the next day. She’d cried for days, not from the illness, but from the betrayal. 

“He didn’t believe me, Mommy. He never believes me.”

And he never had.

Now, hearing Jenny’s lie again, used as a weapon even now, something inside me shattered.

“You little liar,” I breathed, the words barely audible.

Lanc’s eyes flashed. “Don’t you dare speak to her like that,” he thundered, taking a menacing step toward me. “After everything your daughter put her through? After your neglect? You will apologize to her right now.”

*My neglect.* The words were so absurd, so grotesquely inverted, that a hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat. I choked it down.

“My neglect?” My voice was shaking, rising with every word. “You want to talk about neglect, Lanc? You want to talk about what happened to Angela’s toy? Jenny broke it. She admitted it to me later, laughing about it. But you wouldn’t know that, would you? You never listened. You were too busy believing the performance!”

“Stop it!” Stella cried, clutching Jenny who was now burying her face in Stella’s coat, her shoulders shaking with faux sobs. “You’re terrifying her! Lanc, make her stop!”

“You need to leave. Now,” Lanc commanded, pointing a finger toward the elevators. “Before I call security and have you thrown out. You’re causing a scene.”

“A SCENE?!” The scream finally erupted, tearing from a place of such profound agony that everyone in the hallway flinched. “You think this is a scene? That this is nothing!”

I took a step forward, my eyes locked on his, blind to everything else. “You want to know why I’m here, Lanc? I’m here to sign the final death certificate for our daughter. I’m here because Angela is dead.”

There was a flicker of impatience in his eyes.

“Don’t be dramatic, Gwen. This isn’t the time for your hysterics.”

The dismissal. The final, ultimate dismissal of our child’s entire existence.

My hand moved of its own accord. It flew through the air, a sharp, cracking sound echoing off the sterile walls as my palm connected with his cheek.

The shock of it silenced everything. Stella’s performative crying stopped. Jenny’s fake sobs ceased.

Lanc stared at me, his hand going to his reddening cheek, pure incredulity on his face.

“She’s dead,” I said, my voice now terrifyingly calm, cold and clear as sharded glass. “She died three days ago. In this hospital. She needed a blood transfusion after her accident. She needed your blood. Your rare, precious blood. But you weren’t available, were you? You were at dinner. Celebrating with them.”

I gestured a trembling hand toward Stella and Jenny. “While our daughter bled out, alone and begging for you, you were choosing your new family. You chose them then, and you’re choosing them now. So it’s over. We’re over.”

I expected something. Remorse. Anger. Grief. Anything.

He just stared, his jaw working. He didn’t process it. He didn’t even hear it. It was an inconvenience. A problem to be managed.

“You’re clearly having a mental break,” he said, his voice cold and flat. “I suggest you get the help you so obviously need before you embarrass yourself further.”

He turned his back on me. He turned his back on our daughter’s memory, on her death, on me. He put his arm around Stella, who was now looking at me with a smug, triumphant pity.

“Come on, my darlings,” he said to them, his voice softening. “Let’s get you home.”

And he walked away. He walked away with them, leaving me standing alone in the hallway, the ghost of a slap on my hand and the crushing weight of a truth he would never, ever accept.

The paperwork forgotten, I turned and walked blindly in the opposite direction. The numbness was gone. In its place was a cold, hard, and absolute certainty.

He would never admit his role in this. He would never acknowledge Angela.

So I would have to make him.