A message

“What is it going to be?” Eleanor asked, staring at him with steel in her spine.

“Those pain meds did something to you,” he said, seemingly coming out of his trance. “I am not going to indulge you. I am going to check on our son.”

He turned and left. 

She fell back on the bed. He had not even asked what she wanted to eat. 

She was so light-headed from exerting herself so much now that she knew she would pass out anytime soon.

She pressed a button for the nurse, and as the nurse who had been with her throughout her labor hurried in wide-eyed, she said.

“Call my mother.” and she could no longer keep her eyes open. 

When she opened her eyes, it was the afternoon of the next day, and she found herself hooked to an IV, her mum sitting beside her.

“Eleanor.” Her mother hurried towards her as soon as she noticed her eyes were open.

“Mamá,” she said, and as soon as the words fell out of her lips, she burst into tears and her mother hurriedly wrapped her arms around her head, hugging her to her chest, whispering soothing words and calling her beautiful and strong in all the Spanish words.

She stayed in her mother’s arms for a long time, till she could finally start breathing well again. 

If only her mother was always this way with her.

“My smart princess.” Her mother said as she gently pulled away, and Eleanor smiled sadly at that. 

She was stupid. She had hot brains for academics and business, but that was where it ended. 

She was the biggest fool out in the real world.

“Well done,” Her mother said, gently wiping her tears. And she looked up at her mother in surprise. She was not judging her? 

“You’re not disappointed?”

Her mother raised her eyebrows, “What the hell for, Princessa?” Then she leaned in to whisper, “You’re thirty-five, mi amor. This is the best thing that could have happened to you.” 

Eleanor smiled sadly. 

Her mother was talking about her age like it was a federal offense to be thirty-five and single.

“And maybe this will move that wicked man to finally commit to you.” Her mother said with a deep frown, and much malice in her voice. 

Eleanor shifted away a little.

This had always been a source of conflict between her and her mother, besides them incessantly wanting her money, of course. 

Her mother hated that she would not leave Kan, and hated Kan for treating her the way he did.

But she must have noticed the distress in Eleanor's eyes now because she had stopped speaking. Where before? She would have gone on. 

“You need to eat. I will order your favorite now.” Her mother pulled her phone out and Eleanor smiled, watching her.

“Have you seen Kan?” She asked as they waited for the food.

“In the NICU.” Her mother said without looking up, and Eleanor frowned, wondering if they had fought. 

She did not put it past her mother to curse him out, chairman or not.

Just then, the door opened and Kan walked in. 

She was about to look away in irritation when she saw the look on his face. He ignored her mother’s presence, and her mother did the same.

“What is wrong?” She asked, turning a blind eye to the tension that settled in the room as she saw the emotion in his eyes.

“Come hold him, Eleanor,” he said, as he sat down beside her and took her hand. 

“What?”

“I think you should come hold him.”

“That’s not an answer, Kan.” Eleanor said, feeling panic begin to rise in her chest.

He looked at her now, and she saw tears begin to well up in his eyes. He shook his head. “Nothing is certain anymore. He has been on a steady decline since last night.”

“What?” She gasped. 

She pulled back, shaking her head in denial, not wanting to hear anymore or wait a second longer. 

“Take me to him,” she said, and he brought in an IV-stand wheelchair, wheeling her to the other side of the hospital where the NICU was.

When she was wheeled into the ward, her heart broke as she watched the slight baby lying face up, his little exposed belly rising and falling as he breathed.

He looked so helpless lying there. 

And so it began. 

She spent hours with him every day, but every time a doctor asked to speak with them, it was bad news and more bad news. 

It seemed everything that could go wrong with a preemie who had respiratory issues was going wrong with their son: RDS, pneumonia, persistent pulmonary hypertension, sepsis and then cardiac arrest.

She screamed at the doctors, asked them if they were even working, how could her child be under full medical attention, and things were deteriorating by the hour.

She cried so much that she had no more tears left in her on the day he was declared dead.

She could only stare as she held his tiny body in her arms.

She had no desire for children, but he came, and then left. As if to punish her. 

But when she stared down at his stiff body, she chided herself immediately. He fought, he fought hard for days to stay alive.

As she watched her son lowered into a grave in another part of the cemetery, and not in the Sullivan resting place, she cursed the day she met Kan. 

She did not say another word to him, nor did she go back to her apartment where he could come bother her. 

She instead went to her mother’s house. The house she bought and shelved out huge sums to maintain monthly so her mother and sisters could be comfortable.

But it seemed that was the wrong decision. Because they were vile now. 

Her mother nagged non-stop about her horrible life decisions and insinuated that she was not entirely innocent in the death of her child.

How she could have been more proactive, flew him to another hospital since she could afford it, and his father was a fucking chairman. 

Her sisters made occasional snide comments, and one afternoon she could not take it anymore.

She cursed and threatened to cut them off and that she was not their money slave, and called them goddam leeches.

Her mother looked at her coolly as she said, “Leeches. Where would you rather spend your money if not your family? It’s not like we are taking money you should be spending on your children.”

“What?” Eleanor croaked, hardly believing what she was hearing.

“Don’t take your frustration out on us. That man of yours is who you should be standing up to, not us. Has he called to ask how you have been doing since that day? Nuh? But we are the ones nursing you back to health, and you call us leeches.”

“Mamá” She gasped, her hand flying up to her mouth.

“Your Japanese is the leech. He has sucked you freaking dry. Go stand up to him since you are so tough.” She pointed out of her kitchen and Eleanor hurried out, unable to breathe from all the hurt she felt mixed with the physical pain she was still in from having just given birth.

As she crouched low on the staircase where she finally crashed, she pressed her hand to her lips, to avoid screaming. 

She decided then that she would not let Kan go. 

Not after all the horrors she had gone through because of him.

She will get him back and keep him to herself.

But she was not delusional. 

The only way that would happen is if Ariel got out of his life.

And since she did not have the courage or will to harm the woman, the only way to do that was to send her back to where she came from. 

It was not hard to get Blaine Tucker's private contact.

She knew if Kan ever found out, he really would kill her, but she did not mind. Nothing could be worse than what she was currently feeling.

She typed out the message, and sent it, knowing the Tucker chairman would fight with everything to take his son, and since it looked like he was still interested in the woman, what with that elevator incident, he would take Ariel too.

And then Kan would come back to her.