Chapter 5 — Seven Years Later

Sable’s POV

Seven years later..

“I’m home.”

I dropped my bag by the door and Ivo hit my legs before I could straighten up.

Ice cream on his mouth. Sticky hands. The whole of him collided into me like he had been waiting at the exact minute.

“Mommy.”

I went down to his height and held him. He smelled like sugar and the soap Lola used at bath time. Six years old and already too fast. I felt it every time I walked in late.

Lola came from the hall with her sling bag already on her shoulder.

“Good evening. You look so tired, ma’am.”

“I’m fine, Lola. Thank you for staying with him.”

“That’s nothing. I love being with him. He’s a lovely boy.” She smiled at Ivo, then at me. “I need to go. See you tomorrow.”

The door shut. The apartment went small and quiet in the way it always did when it was only us.

Ivo tipped his face up, serious. “Mommy. Miss Lola said I need to be a good boy. Am I a good boy now?”

“You always are.” I tapped his nose. “Come on. Teeth. Bed. You ate all the ice cream in the freezer, I guess.”

He squealed when I tickled him. I carried him to the bathroom because he still let me, and because after a shift my arms needed the weight of him more than they needed rest.

I cleaned his face. Brushed his teeth while he talked around the foam about a drawing and Jerry’s new truck and how Lola said monsters were not real.

I said monsters were not real. I did not tell him some of them wore a black shirt and said forget it.

When he was in his bed I stayed in the doorway longer than a normal mother would.

Same eyes.

I never got used to it. Rhett’s eyes in a child’s face that called me Mommy and had never once said Daddy, because he did not know the word belonged to anyone living.

His father did not know he existed either.

I sat on the edge of the mattress and pushed hair off his forehead. He was already half gone, mouth open, ice-cream brave and small again.

Seven years ago my life had collapsed in a locked bathroom with two lines on a stick.

I had wanted to tell Dad. I had wanted to tell Corin. I had wanted, first, to tell Rhett, because the baby was his and I was still stupid enough then to think a man who had told me not to look for him might still want the truth.

I looked for him on I*******m.

That was the second nightmare.

A photo. Rhett kissing a woman’s cheek. Her hand up to the camera. A diamond I could see even on a cracked screen. Caption under it like a knife laid flat.

I’m the luckiest man in this world. She said yes.

I sat on the floor of a rented room and understood the guest-room speech all over again. Don’t look for me. We’re done.

He had not been protecting me from Corin only. He had already belonged to someone else when he asked me to spread my legs and call him by name.

I felt stupid. Pathetic. I had given him the first time and he had given me a closed door and a ring on another woman’s hand.

So I stopped looking.

I left everyone. The house with my bed sheets. I had enough money to disappear for a while. That was the plan.

Then the plan became a new number, every account logged out, a job, a small apartment, a body that changed whether I was ready or not.

Nine months later I had Ivo.

The room filled up again. I looked at my son and thought, cruel and grateful in the same breath, that I still had a piece of the man who had thrown me away.

Dad reported me missing. I saw my own face on a poster and called him from a number he would not keep.

I told him I was fine. Healthy. Happy. He did not need to worry. I needed space. I needed time alone.

Then I blocked him.

That was six years ago. The last time I heard my father’s voice. I missed them every day. I still did not go back.

And that situation changed my entire life, I was no longer the heartbroken nineteen-year-old girl who had been played for a fool, or Corin’s invisible younger sister.

I was Sable, standing on my own two feet, working as a nurse to provide for myself and Ivo—and that is what kept me going.

A sound ripped me out of the chair.

Not my alarm.

The hospital.

I snatched the phone in the hall so Ivo would not hear the whole thing and still heard his small voice behind me.

“Mommy… what’s wrong?”

He was sitting up, hair smashed on one side, blanket in his fist.

“Hey, baby.” I was already pulling my shoes on. “I think I have to go back to the hospital. Is it okay if you sleep at Jerry’s when I’m not here?”

“Something bad happen?”

I picked him up. His favorite blanket came with us. He put his face in my neck like he had when he was two.

“Yes, baby boy. Someone needs me. He’s sick. Super sick. No one is with him right now.”

“That’s so sad, Mommy. Where is his family?”

The question hit a place I did not have time to touch.

“His family… is busy. Let’s go.”

I grabbed my bag and ran next door at 2:00 a.m. like the street belonged to nurses and children who should have been asleep.

Jerry’s mother opened in a robe, already reading my face.

“Sable. What’s wrong? Urgent?”

“Yes. Can Ivo sleep here tonight? I’ll pick him up in the morning.”

“Of course. Go. Don’t think about Ivo. He’s fine here.” Her eyes softened. “Take care of yourself. You look tired, Sab.”

I smiled because that was what you did when you had no other face. I kissed Ivo’s hair.

“Be a good boy, okay? I’ll pick you up in the morning. I love you so much.”

“I love you so much, Mommy.”

He went to Jerry’s mother without a fight. That almost undid me more than the phone.

I drove too fast. The city at that hour was all lights and empty intersections. In my head I was already in the room I should not have left.

Stable, the chart had said. Stable enough that I had promised a six-year-old I would come home.

I ran from the car to the unit.

“Sable.” Mireille was in the hall before I reached the door, both hands on me, eyes wrecked.

“There you are. Please. My husband. The doctor said he’s getting worse. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to lose him.”

“I’m sorry.” The apology was out before I had a better sentence. “I shouldn’t have left him. I thought—”

“Sable. My office. Now.”

The doctor did not wait for the rest. I hugged Mireille because she was shaking and because I had nothing else, then I followed him.

He shut the door harder than he needed to.

“You were assigned to him. Where were you?”

“I’m sorry. His condition was stable. I thought I could go home. I promised my son I would come back last night, and—”

“And you left a patient who could decline at any time.” His voice stayed low and still cut. “You knew that.”

Tears came whether I gave them permission or not. I hated them in this room. They did not help Alden. They did not help his wife.

“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”

“Go tell her.” He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour. “He doesn’t have time. He’s worse. We did what we could. Now we wait.”

I wanted to argue. Protocols. Options. Another consult. The look on his face closed it.

I went back.

Mireille was already at the bed. Her husband’s hand in both of hers. Crying without sound, then with it.

Alden looked smaller than he had on my first shift with him. Machines. Lines. A mouth I had been trying not to study for days, because some faces came back to you whether you asked them to or not.

“Sable.” Mireille did not turn at first. “I have no one besides him. He’s my world. Please. Ask the doctor to do something. I can pay for everything.”

“I’m so sorry, ma’am.” My voice did not sound like a nurse. It sounded like a woman who had gone home to ice cream and a bedtime story.

“I shouldn’t have left him last night. I should have stayed. I’m sorry.”

“No.” She shook her head. “It was my fault. I’m his wife and I couldn’t sit in this chair. I was scared it would happen in front of me.”

I stood on the other side of the bed and made myself say the thing I had been sent to say.

“The doctor told me his condition is getting worse. They’ve done what’s best for him. It looks like… we wait.”

Mireille opened her mouth.

The door opened first.

Then I saw him.

The man who had touched me like I was something rare and then dumped me like I was a fool.

“Mom—”

His voice broke on the word.

Then his eyes found mine.

We froze.

“Sable..”